Workplace Health & Safety What does health and safety at work involve? Who’s responsible for health and safety in the workplace? What does taking “all practicable steps” mean for employers? What are my health and safety duties as an employee? What are my employer’s health and safety duties? What will happen to my employer if WorkSafe finds my employer to be unsafe? I feel unsafe at work, what do I do? My co-workers and I have complained about safety issues at work, but it is still unsafe, what can we do? What happens if I’m unable to work because of a workplace accident?
You have the right to a safe workplace at any employment. The law says employers must do everything reasonably practicable to keep employees and everyone else in the workplace healthy and safe at work.
This section will talk about the health and safety rights you have at work.
It’s not just about making sure you don’t trip over power cables. Your employer must identify hazards which may take place in the workplace and take all possible steps to reduce or to eliminate these hazards. These also include:
Your employer must take steps to identify and tackle these issues, including having relevant support people, policies, and procedures for when things might go wrong.
The main responsibility for health and safety in the workplace lies with the employer or whoever else is responsible for the workplace. However, employees and others doing work for the employer also have responsibilities to themselves and others.
There is an obligation on the employer to “take all practicable steps” where they are aware of or should reasonably have been aware of a safety risk.
Taking “all practicable steps” means doing everything that is reasonably practicable in the circumstances, taking into account:
As an employee, you have a general duty to take all practicable steps to ensure your own health and safety at work and to make sure you don’t harm anyone else. For example, if you work in a dangerous environment, you must use suitable protective clothing or equipment that your employer has provided where required.
You are also required to co-operate with reasonable health and safety policies and procedures communicated by your employer and, as far as reasonably able, comply with any reasonable instructions they give you.
Your employer must take all practicable steps to make sure that you and other employees are safe while at work. This includes taking all practicable steps to:
WorkSafe might just try to work with your employer to help them develop safer processes. However, employers who break the law on health and safety can be fined up to $100,000 if they’re an individual and up to $500,000 if they’re a company.
If they break the law and this causes an employee to be exposed to serious harm, the employer can be fined up to $300,000 and up to $1.5 million if they’re a company. If they recklessly create a serious risk, they could be jailed for up to 5 years and fined up to $600,000 if they’re an individual, or fined up to $3 million if they are a company.
You have the right to a safe workplace. If you feel unsafe, you should first talk to your employer about your concern and request for them to eliminate or reduce the safety risk. If no action or unsatisfactory action is taken by the employer, you can complain to WorkSafe.
WorkSafe is a part of MBIE (Department of Labour) that makes sure that employers follow safety law. You can contact them on 0800 030 040 or http://www.worksafe.govt.nz/worksafe and report the unhealthy/unsafe issues and practices. You don’t have to give your name when you complain. They can send an inspector to your workplace to investigate your complaint.
If you think that something at your workplace is a health and safety concern, you have a right to raise the issue with your employer and have your concerns listened to and properly considered.
If that doesn’t help and you believe that continuing work will cause you serious harm, you have the right to refuse to work after notifying your employer of the reasons for refusing to work.
If several of you in your workplace are really worried about health and safety issues and your employer hasn’t done anything to deal with your concerns, you might be able to go on a strike. For this to be legal, you need to have good reason to believe that there is a very serious risk to your health or safety. Even if you’re still going to work, it counts as a strike if you refuse to do certain things that are usually part of your job.
Remember, you should also contact WorkSafe to try to resolve the problem. You don’t have to give your name when you complain.
If you have an injury at work, most of your medical fees will be covered by Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). Employers must pay the ACC levy to cover any employees who are hurt at work. If you’re injured due to a workplace injury, you’ll also be paid a part of your wages through ACC whilst you’re away from work.