It is important to comply with the workplace health and safety requirements to provide a suitable and conducive work environment for the workers and employees in the workplace. Taking into consideration the facts of the case a detailed discussion on the issue, rules, application and conclusion shall be made here.
The issue here is multiple and not limited to one. Following issues have been identified from the facts provided about the 2 neighbouring warehouses on St Valentines Street.
Safe Work Australia developed set of laws and guidelines in 2011 to be followed at the workplace to provide appropriate physical environment at the workplace. These laws are known as model WHS laws to be complied by the employers and employees to ensure suitable workplace environment for the health and safety of the workers. The Model WHS laws include model WHS act, Model WHS Regulations and Model code of practice (Sellens et. al. 2018).
Model Code of practice for confined space provides detailed rules and regulations to be followed by the employer to maintain proper ventilation and atmosphere in such small spaces. Since often no work is conducted is such spaces an organization tends to ignore the requirements of maintaining the proper workplace environment in such places (Bong et. al. 2015). The employers are under obligation to ensure that confined places have appropriate ventilation facilities as often such places lack ventilation. Lack of ventilation is a serious contravention with the WHS requirements. Thus, as per the Model Code of practice for confined spaces the employer should take all necessary steps to ensure that there is no ventilation problem with the confined space (Australia, 2016). As per the model law employers are under obligation to ensure there is no scope of air contamination in the work places including confined spaces. Places within warehouses which are not used on regular basis often have very poor ventilation system and such places are a risk to the safety and security of the workers in the warehouses. It is of utmost importance for the employers to take all necessary actions to ensure that the unused and confined places within a warehouse or for that matter in any part of the work premises are properly maintained (Xiang et. al. 2014). The model WHS law requires the employers to take all necessary steps to minimize the risk of fire in the workplace including the confined spaces within the work premises. In case an organization has such a place which is not often used then the organization must ensure that such place is neatly and cleanly maintained regularly (McLinton et. al. 2018).
As per the facts provided in the document it is quite clear that Chicago Outfit (the Outfit), one of the two warehouses on St Valentines Street, does not have a standard policy to maintain the workplace environment when it comes to keeping the exterior of the warehouse in proper condition as per the model code of practice under WHS laws. In fact the instance where Johnny Torrid, one of the employees of the Outfit, received a call from his immediate supervisor on October 22, 2018 to clean up the exterior of the warehouse as there is going to be inspection of the warehouse made it clear that the warehouse lacks a proper plan to maintain the workplace environment as per the WHS laws. Further the whole process where Johnny tries to remove the garbage from the exterior all by himself further proves the lack of planning and procedures within the warehouse to maintain the workplace environment (Shea et. al. 2016) .
The sight of lots of leave tattering to all parts of the exterior shows that the warehouse does not have proper employee and workers to keep the exterior in proper working condition as per the model workplace environment under WHS laws. The fact that drivers have the liberty to drop card boxes all over the place is a clear indication that the warehouse does not have an effective workplace environment policy. In fact the drainpipe under the shed is also not properly maintained and cleaned on regular basis as there have been some build of rubbish in the drainpipe (Chan-Mok, Caponecchia and Winder, 2014). The fact that there was no supervising of the cleaning and removal work Johnny further hampered the workplace environment as it allowed Johnny to misreport the work and activities taking place to maintain the exterior and other parts of the warehouse which is not used regularly. As per the information the pile of boxes which are dropped in the warehouse piles on till there is no place in the gap between the shed and the Northern property. The lack of ventilation and oxygen facility in the Outfit property resulted in huge fire breakout which resulted in the death of Johnny (Holt and Allen, 2015).
It is clear from that there is serious lack of control in maintenance of workplace environment in the Outfit which cost the life of an employee.
Conclusion:
As per the above discussion it is clear that the authority responsible to maintain proper workplace health and safety requirements in the workplace have failed comply with the requirements of model WHS laws in the country. The serious contraventions with the WHS requirements contributed to the death of Johnny Torrid. It is an act of utmost irresponsibility on the part of the management of the Outfit which cost the life of Johnny.
As a result the environment at the warehouse is not fully safe and healthy for the workers and employees. Immediate corrective actions shall be taken by the authority to maintain proper condition at the workplace within the warehouse with specific focus on keeping the exterior in clean and proper condition to ensure safety and security to the workers.
The Outfit authority shall ensure that there is a standard program in place to keep the warehouse in proper working condition to provide the workers and employees a safe and healthy workplace environment. After formulation of a standard program the management of the warehouse must ensure that it is properly implemented and to achieve that a workplace health and safety supervisor shall be appointed to take cognizance of the workplace practices on regular basis to maintain the workplace environment. The fire as well as the subsequent death of Johnny could have been prevented by maintaining proper workplace environment within the warehouse.
The issue in this section is to determine the responsibility of Al Capone and Sunny Capone on the inability to maintain appropriate workplace environment within the warehouse.
As already mentioned earlier that model WHS laws require the employers to take all necessary steps to provide to maintain standard workplace environment as mentioned in the model laws. The health and safety of the workers are of utmost importance and must be given top most priority by the employers and management. Though employers are often not involve in the day to day functioning of an organization but still WHS laws require the employers to ensure that the workplace environment are proper for the workers and employees. The act holds employers of an organization responsible in case the employers fail to maintain the workplace environment as required for the safety and security of the workers. In case of a company which has a management to conduct the day to day affairs, it is the management which is responsible to maintain proper workplace environment for the workers to ensure that they are safe and secure (Holt and Allen, 2015).
Ensuring proper ventilation within the workplace with proper oxygen facilities along with necessary measures to deal with fire outbreaks are minimum requirements which must be there within an organization. Regular verification of standard workplace environment policy is also part of the overall responsibility of the owners and management of an organization.
In this case Al and Sunny are the 70% and 30% stakeholders of the Chicago Outfit Limited. As per the facts it is not clear whether Al and Sunny are involved in the day to day management of the warehouse. However, even if it is assumed that they are not involved in the day to day management the fact that they have been ignorant to the continuous requests of Johnny for safety and security at the workplace they are accountable for the irresponsible behavior on their part. As per the facts Johnny has apparently sent 20 requests to both Al and Sunny of which none give even a single reply (McLinton et. al. 2018).
The fire that took the life of Johnny was mainly due to the irresponsibility of the management and the employers of the warehouse as they failed to improve the workplace environment to provide a safe and secure workplace environment for the workers.
Conclusion:
Taking into consideration the discussion above it would not be incorrect to say that Al and Sunny have been extremely irresponsible in their behavior to provide a suitable workplace environment within the Outfit. All necessary steps shall be taken immediately to improve the working condition at the warehouse immediately to ensure that the environment is conducive and suitable for the workers and employees to work safely in the warehouse.
References:
Australia, S.W., 2016. National Safe Work Month is held in October each year and aims to improve the awareness of work health and safety in the workplace and to encourage discussion about safety at work by sharing positive workplace stories from across Australia. LAMP, p.39.
Bong, S., Rameezdeen, R., Zuo, J., Li, R.Y.M. and Ye, G., 2015. The designer’s role in workplace health and safety in the construction industry: post-harmonized regulations in South Australia. International Journal of Construction Management, 15(4), pp.276-287. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15623599.2015.1094850 [Accessed on 6 December 2018]
Chan-Mok, J.O., Caponecchia, C. and Winder, C., 2014. The concept of workplace bullying: Implications from Australian workplace health and safety law. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 21(3), pp.442-456.
Holt, A.S.J. and Allen, J., 2015. Principles of health and safety at work. Routledge.
McLinton, S.S., Loh, M.Y., Dollard, M.F., Tuckey, M.M., Idris, M.A. and Morton, S., 2018. Benchmarking working conditions for health and safety in the frontline healthcare industry: Perspectives from Australia and Malaysia. Journal of advanced nursing.
Sellens, E., Norris, J.M., Dhand, N.K., Heller, J., Hayes, L., Gidding, H.F., Willaby, H., Wood, N. and Bosward, K.L., 2018. Willingness of veterinarians in Australia to recommend Q fever vaccination in veterinary personnel: Implications for workplace health and safety compliance. PloS one, 13(6), p.e0198421. Available at: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0198421 [Accessed on 6 December 2018]
Shea, T., De Cieri, H., Donohue, R., Cooper, B. and Sheehan, C., 2016. Leading indicators of occupational health and safety: An employee and workplace level validation study. Safety science, 85, pp.293-304.
Xiang, J., Bi, P., Pisaniello, D. and Hansen, A., 2014. The impact of heatwaves on workers? health and safety in Adelaide, South Australia. Environmental research, 133, pp.90-95.
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