Mike's Minute: Is the CEO to blame for work and safety?

I am more knowledgeable about the Pike River tragedy than Tony Gibson's Auckland Port court case. 

But out of Pike River came the law that got Gibson, as former boss of the Port of Auckland, over the death of a worker. 

He has been found guilty. He may appeal. 

You would imagine if the verdict stands and a penalty is imposed, it would have a severe chilling effect in the world of CEOs. 

Just where is the line for a boss in looking after the safety of the staff, beyond the broad-based and widely understood rules? 

Do court cases like this now reset those boundaries as to what you must, or might do, in regards safety in a large workplace? 

Some workplaces are inherently dangerous because of their nature. 

Rules will be in place, but how tight do those rules need to be? And it's out of that sort of expectation that life in general can sometimes be brought to a sort-of standstill by the “just in case” mentality. 

Work and safety is driven by good intention but is stifling in the real world. 

In taking the very specific responsibility right up the chain to the corner office for a person falling off, or falling over, or into something, that's a tremendous amount of very specific expectation – especially in a large company when the numerical gap between the boss and a bloke on the floor, or the machine, might well be large.

It's an interesting concept, to judicially skip any number of people between the victim and the CEO.

What I know about Pike River was it was a top-down mess. If you were looking for blame, there was no shortage of it to spread around.

A lot of people wanted Peter Whittall to pay, but that was more predicated on him being an easy target, not because he, and he alone, was responsible.

How much of the new law came out of the same mentality? 

"Don't worry about the detail or fairness, let's just look to have someone pay".

And if that is what drove it, is that good law? Or is it a lot of potential trouble and a reason not to be the boss?

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