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Hmmmm Mattock, this is indeed ringing bells...
I don't suppose lead coffins were involved as well?
Another day another WSI?
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Quote:quote:Originally posted by troll
Unfortunately, this seems to be the current climate in which we spend much of our working lives. With little or no job security and surviving on short-term contracts we are then expected to overlook certain standards of care expected and provided in parallel industries.Often only a short distance from revving machinery and the spectre of a ticking clock.Our industry does`nt welcome constructive criticism when it should and this nurtures a culture of quiet resent.Open but general discussion has to be the way forwards....
An ex-colleague of mine is a HS professional, I will ask if he can point us in the right direction-just what are the welfare standards and how can we promote a work environment that meets the minimum at least? Anyone?
..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)
See section 5 of the SCAUM manual (1997) - you'll be surprised!. As well as general considerations under the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) there are more specific requirements under The Construction (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regs (1996). These call for many things including running water both hot and cold/warm, changing facilities, toilets etc etc. However, the provisions of these depends upon 'so far as reasonably practicable' - the get out clause.
Keep pushing folks!
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Nuff said.... I do remember this one now. After talking with everyone involved... including the county archaeoligist.. this situation was not bad - and Home Office licence and conditions of working with human remains was done as per the requirements. I checked.
Welfare facilities were shared with the onsite staff.
Another day another WSI?
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Generally speaking unisex toilets are perfectly permissible, provided that the "room" contains a wc and a basin and is lockable from the inside.
I would hazard that the majority of building sites do not have hot water. The usual loo from a small/medium contract upwards is a portakabin/caravan type thing with a water otter i.e. an electric oversonk spouty thing - Heatrae Sadia usually. Nine times out of ten they don't work/aren't wired up. Layouts are available with a section that could be devoted to females. You actually see them at non-league football grounds more often than building sites!
Smaller sites still use portaloos.
We owe the dead nothing but the truth.
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Breaches of Home Office licence ? I expect that this refers to the non-screening of the remains from the public view. I have often wodered how TV programmes such as 'Meet the Ancestors' deal with this - far from hiding the remains they are actually putting them on view in people's living rooms. I suspect that the HO might really see this clause in the licence as relating to the screening of the remains from inadvertent viewing as opposed to site visitors or telly addicts - still, no excuse for not screening a cemetery dig.
Aching-knees - I notice your ref. to the 1996 Construction (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regs - and indeed these are the regulations that our buddies in construction work to, with their hot/cold running water, drying rooms etc. However (and hence the reason for my earlier question), the HSE does not consider that archaeological work = construction (see second ACOP to the CDM Regs.). If the HSE are correct (and this has never to my knowledge been questioned in case law), then the 1996 CHSW Regs. do not apply to archaeological investigations when undertaken in advance of construction. Are there any welfare Regs. applicable to archaeology, or are we just going to have to fall back on the 1974 Act ?
Beamo
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Beamo
That's interesting. Please send any link to the second ACOP.
The act is considered relevant by SCAUM (or was in 1997). Also, as I said earlier on another thread, the Construction Industry lists archaeologist as a construction related occupation for the CSCS.
http://www.cscs.uk.com/occupations/croA-..._available
I believe that we are increasingly part of the construction industry. We are, after all, just poorly paid site-demolition staff.
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Achingknees
The second ACOP was produced in 2001 and came into force in February 2002. Entitled 'Managing Health and Safety in Construction' it is available from HSE for ?9.50.
In the introductory section (working from memory here) is a list of activities that are deemed not to be 'construction' and to which therefore the CDM Regs. do not apply. These include 'archaeological investigations'. This made explicit a view that had been put forward earlier by various HSE Inspectors in response to questions from archaeological contractors as well as IFA and SCAUM.
To the best of my knowledge this assertion by HSE has never been tested in case law, and the case law that has come through on the CDM Regs. suggests that the prosecuting authority will adopt a 'scatter-gun' approach and go after everyone involved at all levels.
As far as I can see, this would only ever work for projects where archaeology is carried out ahead of the main part of construction (in the same way that advance geotechnical work is not considered to be construction). If the archaeologists are on site in the middle of other construction work it would be fairly idiotic to exclude them from the main H & S system that is in place.
The current HSE drive (apart from revising the whole CDM set-up anyway in early 2007) is to target 'Designers' and remind them
of their responsibilities. In terms of archaeology it is likely that anyone involved in the production and agreement of the WSI could be seen as a 'Designer', including me (the consultant) as well as the curator if the WSI is based on a Brief supplied by, or has been signed off by, the curator.
You and I may well be in agreement that archaeology is now part of the construction industry, but the view of the HSE may carry more weight in this matter. If they are correct, none of the H & S Regulations produced specifically for the construction industry would be legally applicable to archaeological work.
Beamo
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There was confusion from the off with CDM. CDM actually applies to the entire project, from inception to completion, not just the construction phase. The first thing a designer has to do is inform the client of his duties and responsibilties under CDM - the first of which is to appoint a Planning Supervisor (often the same designer - the architect). This is how it was initially assumed that archaeology would come under it even if months or years in advance of the construction phase. There is therefore likely to be a PS on the project.
I would suggest that a prudent course of action when awarded a contract, whether contractor or consultant, would be to write (not phone or email) to the Employer and ask if a Planning Supervisor has been or will be appointed. Obviously you should know if there was, it would be in the tender documents with a H&S Plan, but such an enquiry would help protect your rear.
The applicabilty or not of CDM does not of course alleviate H&S site respnosibilties or issues.
We owe the dead nothing but the truth.
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Assuming the Construction regs don't apply we can look to the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regs, 1992.
This provides for sanitary condtions, loos, running water (hot and cold/warm), provision of drinking water.
I have to admit, my unit fails badly on this one. I'm beginning to feel militant!
