BlueScope's approach to safety "needs more work", company CEO Mark Vassella said this week.
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It was an admission made at the company's earnings announcement on Monday, the same day a front-end loader fell from a crane at Port Kembla and damaged a ship.
The crane punctured a hole in the ballast at the base of the ship's hold, prompting urgent repairs. No-one was injured.
Mr Vassella's comments also come three months after a contract diver working on one of BlueScope's wharves at Port Kembla died after being trapped between a ute and a crane.
"Tragically in May a contractor was fatally injured while working at the berth in the Port Kembla steelworks," Mr Vassella said this week.
"The company will learn from the findings of the investigations into this tragic accident."
It is understood the diver was unloading equipment from the ute at the time.
Our safety performance frankly needs more work.
- BlueScope CEO Mark Vassella
The steelmaker has prided itself on the high levels of safety at Port Kembla and other sites in recent years, but Mr Vassella said more needed to be done.
"Our safety performance frankly needs more work as the number of people being injured at work is not acceptable," he said.
He said the overall issue was not that safety was poor but rather the pace of improvement had tapered off.
"The issue we've been experiencing in the last several years at BlueScope has been that our safety performance came from really quite poor levels to industry-leading levels, but we've plateaued, we've leveled out in terms of that rate of improvement," he said.
"I know it's harder the closer you get to the bottom but it's still our aspiration that we don't injure anybody and we still have too many injuries at work."
Mr Vassella said the efforts to improve safety will look towards more of a focus on personal responsibility.
"It's going to be less about engineering controls and more about behavioural aspects," he said.
"How do we get our people and make sure they're in the right headspace and give them the opportunities to make the right decision?
"It's a much more nuanced approach than we took when our performance was much much worse."
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Glen Humphries
I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers. I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading.
I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers. I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading.
