The Sunday Herald Sun weighs 1kg today. If the copies home-delivered have the same weight then they breach acceptable OH&S standards. These were first published in a report by David Nery in 2006 into the OH&S issues surrounding newspaper delivery. The report recommended a maximum weight for a wrapped newspaper to be .6kg and at their weight 200 to 300 newspapers delivered per day per person.
I am confident that OH&C officers from all over Australia will be diving in to reprimand the offenders…LOL
I keep samples of these overweight papers as proof when my delivery drivers (my father and I) want to/can sue QLD newspapers for work place injuries and for damages.
Smart move Luke. Let’s see them argue against that.
did the David Nery report in 2006 into the OH&S issues surrounding newspaper delivery get accepted by any government as law or enforcable in any ways.
it was commisioned by the ANF, and concluded with a handful (pardon the pun) of recomendations for deliveries and news paper handeling. but other than offering advice for changing the way we handle bulks of papers, what good did it do? was it just the ANF spending their members money on a fantasticly well written report that will never be enforced by the people who should (publishers)
just a thought?
peter
Peter,
I was given the report in November 2006 and advised the ANF at the time. The CEO at the time, three CEOs ago, aksed me to not publish it as they were talking with News about it.
A year later I was told they were still talking with News.
I’ve not heard anything since.
Distribution newsagents ought to get their own advice on the weight of products thrown and the acceptable volume of throws in a shift.
We sent a couple of emails to our majorrightwingpublisher/supplier rep early this week. We know they got them, both, because one has been actioned very expeditiously – albeit by a third party. The one regarding a request for guidelines for throw weights, however, has been met with a deafening silence so far. The query was made as a result of two Saturdays in a row of a publication turning out to be close to twice the weight recommended in the report. One week it was just under twice, the next, just over. Too, too heavy. The risks are getting close to unacceptable for us, and we simply want to know what the majorrightwingpublisher/supplier considers to be an acceptable risk, so we can work on deciding where we should draw a line. Surely it’s not that hard, given such information has been in the public domain for so long. Clearly the rep has been asked to leave this one for a while.
Not sure if it is the same where you are but when the paper weighs to much the bundles sizes are made so the weight is always the same what ever that is , they are more than happy to cover there own work place health and safety issues ,but stuff the paper boy /girl
The publishers concerned simply won’t care until such time as they get called on it, either in front of a court or perhaps by some pre emptive investigations by Workcover from various states.Obviously, the associations will do nothing, so Mark,perhaps you via this blog could put in a FOI to Workcover Vic and NSW (as a starting point) for figures on claims for injuries caused by throwing newspapers over the last 10 years? It could be a valuable starting point.
What we’ve learned…
1. This is a touchy, sensitive, scary topic for publishers.
2. Our scales are accurate 😀