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+--- Thread: Hazardous waste on sites (/showthread.php?tid=286)
Hazardous waste on sites - troll - 13th October 2006
"knee-jerk damn the bosses nonsense". Tom, yes- it is tiresome.Intensly so. Particularly after years of saying the same things over and over again only to be met with silence. Frankly, I`m not remotely interested in where current game rules allow "blame" to lay. I`m sick to death of being on the receiving end.My employer has a duty of care and if that has`nt been discharged (had`nt bothered asking client/believed client without documentation) then my employer is responsible.Seems to me that the pseudo-legal speak so loved by the grown-ups in archaeology today is simply a framework of blame adjustment and damage management.If we take a step back a minute and remember that we are in fact discussing an industry-wide health and safety blindness, we could stay on track.Some things desparately need saying. If archaeologists actually listened to what was being said instead of getting all emotional, hurt and defensive, we might just evolve into a profession.
..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)
Hazardous waste on sites - tom wilson - 13th October 2006
Quote:quote:Originally posted by troll
we are in fact discussing an industry-wide health and safety blindness
No we aren't; we are discussing needles on site, and no-one is suggesting that anyone should work in those conditions.
If your unit is unaware of whether a site is safe, that's an omission on their part, but that wasn't what you were complaining about was it? You were complaining about them not doing contamination surveys.
As I said:
'archaeological contractors aren't responsible for the sites they send staff onto, only for the staff themselves'.
You appear to be making the same point:
'My employer has a duty of care and if that has`nt been discharged (had`nt bothered asking client/believed client without documentation) then my employer is responsible.'
Same content; different emphasis.
'Have a good plan, execute it violently, do it today'.
General MacArthur
Hazardous waste on sites - 1man1desk - 13th October 2006
Troll is right that his (or anyone else's) employer has a duty of care. Where we differ is in the action to be taken in the case of an archaeological unit.
An archaeological unit's duty of care in this particular respect can be discharged through a combination of three potential courses of action:
1. before accepting the contract, check the terms to make sure that the financial/programme risk arisign from potential contamination is not to be carried by the archaeological contractor.
2.before accepting the contract, or at any rate before going on site, obtain information about potential contamination from the client. Take that information into account in the project risk assessment and H&S plan. If the information suggests that the site will not be safe for archaeological work, don't go on site until it has been made safe by the client.
3. if unexpected contamination is identified during the work, take appropriate steps (potentially including leaving site) to ensure the safety of staff.
Getting involved in prior assessment/survey for contamination is not the archaeologists' job - it is the client's responsibility to get it done. It is a very specialist field, for which specialist companies charge lots of money, and it is unlikely that any archaeological unit in this country could do it properly. If there is a unit that can do it, they should charge for it as a separate service to the client, not carry it out for free as an H&S obligation to their staff.
1man1desk
to let, fully furnished