Lone Working

[DAVE IN KENT]

For those of you who are the boss/manager of your companies i would like to ask, if you were sending an engineer out to a job that was on an isolated site with no permanant members of staff and the potential risk of chlorine gas and phosphuric acid would you allow for two men on that site. are there any legal requirement that my employer should be adhering to? For your information staff employed by the owner of the site are required to work in pairs but as a subcontractor my employer do not seem to take any notice of this and my wife is concerned about my safety

[james.wilson]

well depnds on the risk assesment but must say if the site think they need 2 guys then i think your employer should explain why they think not. I would advise either a system in place to check you are ok, or 2 people. I personally think your wife has a point mate....(but dont tell her she'll ony worry lol)

[camerabloke]

For those of you who are the boss/manager of your companies i would like to ask, if you were sending an engineer out to a job that was on an isolated site with no permanant members of staff and the potential risk of chlorine gas and phosphuric acid would you allow for two men on that site. are there any legal requirement that my employer should be adhering to? For your information staff employed by the owner of the site are required to work in pairs but as a subcontractor my employer do not seem to take any notice of this and my wife is concerned about my safety

health and safety take prcendance here. if you are not happy with working there , say so, and your employer will have to take measures to ensure your safety

[james.wilson]

id discuss with your employer rather than a refuse. I always think its better to ask why and understand than to go 'im not doing that'. I think if you highlight your concerns your employer should take them seriously. I know we would. but i wouldnt be so happy if someone just said im not doing it without discussing first. Might just be me though but it gets my back up

i agree with cb though i think h&s should take precedence and im sure they will too

[RussS]

I don't know if you have an equivalent of a U.S. orginization called OSHA. It stands for Occupational Safety and Health Administration. They could surely help. Use this site to poke around and see if you can find something base a question on. www.osha.gov

[Monteey]

Exactly, if you dont feel safe, dont work simple as that, if the site insists on 2 men for every job then whats the difference between them and you.

We do a risk assessment on everything we do and anything we feel would be unsafe we have the option to not do

[Service Engineer]

an isolated site with no permanant members of staff and the potential risk of chlorine gas and phosphuric acid would you allow for two men on that site.

As an employee i'll do nothing that im not happy about doing. I consider it my right to refuse doing anything I consider to be potentially risky or harmfull to my health.

[camerabloke]

id discuss with your employer rather than a refuse. I always think its better to ask why and understand than to go 'im not doing that'. I think if you highlight your concerns your employer should take them seriously. I know we would. but i wouldnt be so happy if someone just said im not doing it without discussing first. Might just be me though but it gets my back up

i agree with cb though i think h&s should take precedence and im sure they will too

jeez, james agrreing with me again, ill be a mod soon

[james.wilson]

good god no lol

i know im agreeing with more peolpe than ever lol

[camerabloke]

i thought that would be the answer