Night shifts and large gaps between work-as-prescribed and work-as-done: Maritime NZ case

Final post from the Maritime NZ case where the CEO (Gibson) was charged under a failure to exercise due diligence for a work fatality (Ports of Auckland Limited (POAL).

Some extracts on night shift work and work-as-done:

· “prior to Mr Kalati’s death, there was a culture, particularly on the nightshift, of the stevedores engaging in unsafe practices or “cutting corners”

· “in the period leading up to Mr Kalati’s death, non-compliance was a regular feature on the nightshift”

· “I accept that lashers would commonly undertake unsafe and/or non-compliant practices during nightshift”

· Part of the transcript (image 1) is listed in the report, explaining while the rules were technically the same on night shifts, the culture “was different … [where they] wouldn’t really follow the rules to get the work done faster”

· “and so everybody was doing it, so if you didn’t, you’d sort of be the odd one out and… which didn’t make you cool”

· “The existence of a culture of non-compliance on the night shift highlights the need for POAL to have had adequate systems in place to understand work as done on the night shift. It was the responsibility of POAL’s officers to ensure that such systems were in place and effective”

· It’s observed that while the monthly H&S report listed total numbers of monthly observations, but didn’t provide detail on the nature of the observations nor “the time and dates of observations” (e.g. how many were done during night shifts?)

· “The prosecution … submit that [field observation coaches] observations were insufficient at capturing and recording work as done, particularly on the night shift”

· “Further, [field observation coaches] had limited ability to observe night shifts. Prior to Mr Lander’s 2020 initiative, the OPCs were not required to work night shifts or weekends. Mr Tahiwi said that they were “predominantly a dayshift team”

· It’s estimated that “90% to 95% of the [field observation coaches] would work the dayshift with 5% to 10% working the nightshift”