Teen who died in horrific accident while on £3-an-hour Government apprenticeship scheme

Twirlywoos · 15 Jul 2015 at 10:04

**** the wages and fines, don't know why you lot are hung up on so much irrelevant poppy ****. Why isn't a government apprenticeship scheme tightly regulated which puts priority on health and safety for individuals? I wonder how many other government endorsed firms are overlooking safety and training. This sort of stuff should never happen in the UK, accidents are one thing but what happened to this lad is tragic.

cheesyboy · 15 Jul 2015 at 10:05

RoboCod said:
1st reply, bang on.

Sensationalist political headline to rouse debate. Next.

It's very relevant to take the wage, the government supported scheme, and the age of the worker into account when considering the factors which allowed this tinpot company to operate these conditions.

arknor · 15 Jul 2015 at 10:13

majnu said:
**** the wages and fines, don't know why you lot are hung up on so much irrelevant poppy ****. Why isn't a government apprenticeship scheme tightly regulated which puts priority on health and safety for individuals? I wonder how many other government endorsed firms are overlooking safety and training. This sort of stuff should never happen in the UK, accidents are one thing but what happened to this lad is tragic.

gov dont care its one more employed person

RoboCod · 15 Jul 2015 at 10:15

cheesyboy said:
It's very relevant to take the wage, the government supported scheme, and the age of the worker into account when considering the factors which allowed this tinpot company to operate these conditions.

Are you aware of the full details of the accident? Are you the coroner? Were you there at the day of the accident? Are you familiar with the 'tinpot" company? You seem to know a lot about the situation.

Accidents happen, regardless of age and wage. The tabloid title is just aimed to cause outrage at the government and their schemes. Yet as already mentioned, apprenticeships have existed a long time, in some instances where the employee paid themselves to be there!

StriderX · 15 Jul 2015 at 10:15

arknor said:
gov dont care was one more employed person

FTFY

cheesyboy · 15 Jul 2015 at 10:20

RoboCod said:
Are you aware of the full details of the accident? Are you the coroner? Were you there at the day of the accident? Are you familiar with the 'tinpot" company? You seem to know a lot about the situation.

Accidents happen, regardless of age and wage. The tabloid title is just aimed to cause outrage at the government and their schemes. Yet as already mentioned, apprenticeships have existed a long time, in some instances where the employee paid themselves to be there!

The company was, as I've already pointed out in previous posts, cutting costs to the bone, including in safety areas, and treated apprentice staff as budget labour. This was all cited in court.

The company was, as a result of these corners being cut, found guilty of the death - there's no scientific linkage between the wage/age/government backed scheme and the accident, but the circumstantial evidence is plain to see for anyone with even a base level of reasoning. The accident may have not been linked to those other factors, but it probably was.

RoboCod · 15 Jul 2015 at 10:32

cheesyboy said:
The company was, as I've already pointed out in previous posts, cutting costs to the bone, including in safety areas, and treated apprentice staff as budget labour. This was all cited in court.

The company was, as a result of these corners being cut, found guilty of the death - there's no scientific linkage between the wage/age/government backed scheme and the accident, but the circumstantial evidence is plain to see for anyone with even a base level of reasoning. The accident may have not been linked to those other factors, but it probably was.

£Wage does not equate to likelihood of an accident at work. This was my point.

Lack of safe working practices/working outside standard operating procedures is in fact the issue at stake.

Dis86 · 15 Jul 2015 at 10:39

Diddums said:
A lathe. Christ, that must've been grim

As someone who's seen the aftermath of such a thing...it is.
Can't understand why there wasn't an emergency stop button or bumper bar in close reach though. The ones I used to work around had a foot pedal - if it wasn't depressed then the machine shut down.

cheesyboy · 15 Jul 2015 at 10:43

RoboCod said:
£Wage does not equate to likelihood of an accident at work. This was my point.

Lack of safe working practices/working outside standard operating procedures is in fact the issue at stake.

The government supported scheme allowed them to hire young, cheap, inexperienced labour. The sort of employee who wouldn't pipe up about safety issues such as loose overalls, bypassed machine safety mechanisms, and insufficient training (because they don't realise, or are too reticent) - the scheme acted as an enabler in this regard.

This sort of employee needs more protection, for those reasons, and a government apprentice scheme should be expected to provide it.

cheesyboy · 15 Jul 2015 at 10:44

Dis86 said:
As someone who's seen the aftermath of such a thing...it is.
Can't understand why there wasn't an emergency stop button or bumper bar in close reach though. The ones I used to work around had a foot pedal - if it wasn't depressed then the machine shut down.

They bypassed safety mechanisms on the machines to keep them running

RoboCod · 15 Jul 2015 at 10:49

cheesyboy said:
The government supported scheme allowed them to hire young, cheap, inexperienced labour. The sort of employee who wouldn't pipe up about safety issues such as loose overalls, bypassed machine safety mechanisms, and insufficient training (because they don't realise, or are too reticent) - the scheme acted as an enabler in this regard.

This sort of employee needs more protection, for those reasons, and a government apprentice scheme should be expected to provide it.

You're putting the safety issues on the individual (and therefore the amount they get paid). Whilst safety of course is everyone's responsibility, it's down to the employer to conduct risk assessments, identify issues and safeguard it's employees from threat. You're right, the employee needs more protection, but whether they'd paid him £3 or £6.50, the accident may well have happened all the same.

thep02 · 15 Jul 2015 at 10:53

RoboCod said:
You're putting the safety issues on the individual (and therefore the amount they get paid). Whilst safety of course is everyone's responsibility, it's down to the employer to conduct risk assessments, identify issues and safeguard it's employees from threat. You're right, the employee needs more protection, but whether they'd paid him £3 or £6.50, the accident may well have happened all the same.

So what's your point?

cheesyboy · 15 Jul 2015 at 10:53

RoboCod said:
You're putting the safety issues on the individual (and therefore the amount they get paid). Whilst safety of course is everyone's responsibility, it's down to the employer to conduct risk assessments, identify issues and safeguard it's employees from threat. You're right, the employee needs more protection, but whether they'd paid him £3 or £6.50, the accident may well have happened all the same.

I'm not putting it on the employee, I'm simply saying the profile of the employees makes it easier for unscrupulous companies to exploit them and put them at risk. And part of that profile is the age and price of them, as well as actual workplace inexperience and a reasonable expectation that they would be at an upstanding firm who might have been vetted for an apprentice scheme.

My point is that the article, whilst seemingly sensationalist, is actually correct to conflate the wage/status of the employee with the occurrence of the accident.

RoboCod · 15 Jul 2015 at 10:54

thep02 said:
So what's your point?

Nitefly said:
Teen dying is very awful. Wage is also awful.

But they aren't directly related.

RoboCod said:
1st reply, bang on.

Sensationalist political headline to rouse debate. Next.

RoboCod said:
Accidents happen, regardless of age and wage. The tabloid title is just aimed to cause outrage at the government and their schemes. Yet as already mentioned, apprenticeships have existed a long time, in some instances where the employee paid themselves to be there!

thep02 · 15 Jul 2015 at 10:56

Yeah lots of words and supposition an apparently unread story yet you're banging on like you have a point but aren't making one, are you ian d smith?

peige · 15 Jul 2015 at 11:07

A spinning part on a lathe, liable to have been spinning at a high rpm as he was polishing/deburring the part is a really dangerous thing, his overalls were baggy, the part rolled them over and then tugged him in, quickly. Not nice.
Reality is that this sort of thing is done but you don't put an inexperienced person on it, you put somebody on it that knows what they are doing.

Generally apprentices don't earn a lot because they don't do that much productive work, they are taking the time of your main employees, your teaching them effectively, they guy sounds like he was just using them as a money spinner, no wonder it went wrong.

ubersonic · 15 Jul 2015 at 11:23

bitslice said:
Maybe they should put it where the chuck is, then at least a body part will smash it as it whizzes by.

Wrist band with a wire connected to a pull to trip switch would be a perfect safety but trouble is when they get implemented people don't use them because they are uncomfortable/restrictive.

RoboCod · 15 Jul 2015 at 11:24

thep02 said:
Yeah lots of words and supposition an apparently unread story yet you're banging on like you have a point but aren't making one, are you ian d smith?

I'll repeat it again as you missed the first few times....

Wages are not correlated to likelihood of accident at work.

ubersonic · 15 Jul 2015 at 11:28

Unicorn · 15 Jul 2015 at 11:34

Seen someone loose an arm in a lathe and I helped the guy free, pulled his overalls which twisted up around the machine pulling him in. It was only by the footpedal it lifted him off the machine did turn off. I cut his overalls off and kept hold of him whilst a colleague raised the alarm. I honestly can't forget the images seeing it but seeing such thing makes you very aware that health and safety in the workplace is more important than getting a job done despite the pressure.

It was only luck that me and my mentor was working on fixing a pillar drill in the machine shop else he would have been in there alone and most probably of died from blood loss.

His compensation he got was almost the same amount of this for an arm! Life seems so cheap when u compare it :/