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New Zealand Herald,15.04.2002 An analogy between stress and metal fatigue was not lost on MPs hearing submissions in Auckland on tougher workplace safety legislation. Some levels of stress can increase people's performance, said Auckland occupational medicine specialist David Black, just as metal becomes harder with a bit of flexing. But bend the metal too many times, Dr Black told Parliament's transport and industrial relations committee, and it breaks. It was a stressful business all round for members of the committee, responsible for knocking out kinks in the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill. http://www.osh.dol.govt.nz/hseamend/hseamend.html First, they heard a litany of warnings from employers that stiffer fines, mandatory employee participation on safety committees, and an end to a Government monopoly on prosecutions would usurp existing management efforts to create safer workplaces. Then they faced pleas by mothers of young men killed in workplace accidents for all these measures and more, given alleged failures under the existing legislation to offer even the most basic protections. So they could have been excused for feeling like the fatigued metal of Dr Black's analogy with workplace stress, which employers will be liable for managing under a controversial new provision. Dr Black, who is a medical practitioner as well as senior lecturer at the Auckland Medical School, acknowledged many people in industries such as broadcasting thrived on stress and without it would be unable to perform adequately. "It's a motivator and determinant of their personalities," he said. But there came a point where the law of diminishing returns took over, in which too much stress pushed people to what was popularly termed burnout. Submissions from employers have been almost universally opposed to widening the definition of a workplace hazard to include physical or mental harm caused by work-related stress. They fret that without some focused clinical definition of stress, they will be assailed by legal claims from workers who arrive on the job weighted down with emotional baggage from their home life and private pursuits. Christine Le Cren of Auckland quarrying and transport firm W. Stevenson and Sons drew another analogy, with attempts to make the state responsible for citizens from cradle to grave. "It seems the employer is going to be responsible for employees from dawn to dawn, 365 days a year," she said, describing the law amendment as punitive and creating uncertainty for companies needing to know what "non-productive" costs faced them. She said her company was already driven by a realisation that safety was good for business, without the threat of a fivefold rise in fines. ANZ Bank safety manager Dr David Farlow said the bank did not deny stress was seen as an issue of increasing significance in the workplace, but feared vexatious or even vengeful claims if it were specifically defined as a hazard. Dr Farlow, whose organisation has been dubbed "the stress bank" by unionists in a play on its own marketing as "The Yes Bank", said it was already relatively easy to obtain medical certificates with little substantive evidence for so-called work-related stress. Doctors had admitted to the bank that it was sometimes easier to fill out stress as a reason for sick leave rather than detail someone's personal problems. But it was hard for employers to address such problems if they were unable to communicate with staff on sick leave and the bank was concerned at an ability to use "stress" as an excuse for not tackling issues such as performance. He cited an extreme case in which an employee who was suspected of serious fraud frustrated inquiries by staying away for six weeks on a medical certificate. Dr Black accepted it was not easy defining stress, but said it was in many cases the only identifiable sign of severe shortcomings in a work environment. The present system allowed some employers to sidestep their responsibilities in having caused such stress. Specifying it as a workplace hazard would allow safety inspectors to identify problems at their source. ===== Dr. David Black Dr David Black is an Occupational and Environmental Physician currently working at the New Zealand Institute of Occupational and Environmental Medicine in Auckland and as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Medicine at the Auckland Medical School. Dr Black originally trained in radio engineering, and worked in that industry for ten years before entering Medical School in 1977. He began an academic interest in Radiofrequency Safety while an academic at the university of Otago Medical School in 1986. Since that time he has qualified as a Specialist in Occupational Medicine and was Chief Medical Officer of Air New Zealand until 1997. His practice is now divided between clinical and academic Occupational and Environmental Medicine and consulting in Radiofrequency Safety. Dr. David BLACK
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