From: "Raynard Looch" 
Subject: KLASS LOOCH ASSOCIATES : OHS CHAT & SKINNER
Date: 17 October 2001 08:27 PM

Hi Colleagues

Time to chat and skinner. 

For those of you who receive this newsletter out of the blue, the reason is that you have enrolled at our forthcoming round of seminars on the OHS Act & related matters entitled "Liability, Sinking ships & Life rafts". I will explain the title at the seminars but thanks for enrolling. I promise that you will walk away more informed, often more about ducking traffic fines than occupational health and safety legislation but informed nevertheless! Ask your colleagues who have attended. I'm notorious for my tangents. You are automatically put onto out OHS CHAT & SHINNER Distribution List but if you wish to unsubscribe, just send me a blank e-mail entitled "Unsubscribe".

I also need to inform you OHS CHAT & SKINNER virgins.....and we will get back to virgins later, this newsletter is deliberately frivolous, offensive, light-hearted and naughty - hell life is screwed up anyway, but my message is very serious!

You will recall that my last newsletter was just after that mass occupational murder on the World Trade Centre. Now I have been thinking. If a suicide bomber is promised paradise is heaven with loads of virgins, what does a gay suicide bomber get promised? Surely loads of female virgins in their faces (not literally) will be hell? Bottom line is you can always trust a gay suicide bomber because he doesn't want to go to hell. Just a thought. Are there anyway any virgins left because there have been quite a few suicide bombers lately?

An now another occupational disease. Anthrax. I always thought it was an animal disease. Now all mailroom employees and other employers and employees alike seem under potential threat. All those envelopes with white powder. I wonder how many employees snorted it by accident ....or deliberately? Please tell me anthrax isn't a STD. Because if I have to be handed another carton of condoms at a robot I'll need a warehouse to store them. Perhaps the house-of-ill-repute across the road can use them?

Did you guys see Faiza Salie's (Chief OHS Inspector) interview in the Engineering News of 2 October? I quote" The Occupational Health and Safety Act of 1994 (?) is to be substantially revamped to be brought in line with the superior Mine Health and Safety Act and, following this, the acts will be merged." I'm busy try to pry or should I say "praai" more information out of her regarding this revamp and will keep you updated. At least it will give me loads of new material for seminars but I have a sneaky feeling that I'll be six foot under by the time that happens. She predictably apportions blame elsewhere for the malaise that the inspectorate finds itself in....namely at the prosecutors. I can see two government departments at loggerheads soon. We all know where the problem lies. Essentially with central government which must supply the resources for an effective OHS inspectorate. But publicly, via the media, apportioning blame elsewhere won't help either girl! Feathers are going to fly. If I get my way.

A riddle based on the above. If OHS incidents are not being investigated due to the huge....groan.... backlogs at the OHS inspectorate (approximately 14 000 cases) and hence not being sent to the prosecution for decision and the prosecution needs the investigated cases to proceed with the cases, how are the prosecutors be to blame for the backlogs? Am I the only one puzzled?

And now for my infamous serious note. Recently during a conversation, someone dismissed the OHS Inspectorate as a spent force and implied that they are virtually harmless. People don't become complacent. Morally we owe our employees a safe and healthy working environment and legally we are bound to furnish them with that safe and healthy environment. I predict that it will be the Constitutional Court and civil suits that will force change more than anything else. But don't under estimate the inspectors. Just look at their powers in terms of section 30 of the OHS Act. And remember, in the unfortunate event that you have a serious accident at the workplace, your fate is determined by the Directorate of Public Prosecutions and not by the inspectorate. Don't be lulled into complacency because we are "enjoying" a honeymoon currently.

I believe new nuisance regulations are going to be introduced. More about it later. Got to keep you gripped.


I need to mention that we are moving premises on 29 November. Telephone numbers will change. A logistical nightmare but we will keep you briefed. We will retain our postal address for quite some time and there will be a recording informing all of our new telephone numbers. I will also do it via e-mail. We hope to up and running on Monday 3 December but I will be chatting to you before that in any case. And those of you have moved recently will know all about the dreaded Electrical Installation Regulation 3 Certificate of Compliance! Call me paranoid. Call me naive. Call me anything but to me it has scam proportions. I have used a certified electrician the entire time I occupied these premises and discovered today via the Certifier of Electrical Compliance that I'm quite non-compliant!  Actually he quoted triple rand figures. Now the same firm that installed the non-compliant installations will bill me to bring them into compliance?????

Folks in Port Elizabeth and Cape Town word wakker and register for our seminars. You are lagging badly behind your Durban and Gauteng colleagues. I am in your neck of the woods on 21 November (PE) and 22 November (CT). Contact Juliette at klooch@cybertrade.co.za or phone her at (011) 880-4517 for Registration Forms.

The Devils Advocate

Ps. To err is human. To err at the workplace invariably has punishable consequences. So is to err inhuman or is to err punishable as well as human? Another thought.