Health and Safety goes overboard in garage.

TestTransmission

Wonder who reported him?I would of thought this would be commonplace in alot of garages.

Would of any ye be offended by this?

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/garage-owner-faces-closure-over-nude-calendars-113577.html

Garage owner faces closure over nude calendars

By Jimmy Woulfe Mid-West Correspondent

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

A GARAGE owner who works on his own has been ordered by the Health and Safety Authority to remove calendars featuring photos of topless women or face possible censure.

Following a visit from an inspector, the Limerick businessman was contacted by letter warning him to remove the photographs of "nude/topless women" immediately. The letter claimed the calendars contained a "display of pornographic material at the place of work", which is not allowed.

A spokesperson from the Health and Safety Authority confirmed it had written to the 62-year-old businessman advising him of a "dignity at work issue".

The calendars were sent to the man’s repair workshop by a number of international corporations, including Pirelli.

The garage owner, who asked not to be named, said he was stunned by the letter, as the public do not have access to his back- street premises where he works on his own.

He said he has run the one-man enterprise for over 40 years and had never a health and safety issue and never had an accident in the workplace.

"Over the years I have received calendars from international companies such as Pirelli, Boart Europe, Monark, Mintex. They are fine calendars and feature very tastefully taken pictures of topless models. How anybody could describe them as pornographic beats me.

"They’ve given me until May to remove the calendars and I presume if I don’t they’ll close me down.

"If this is to be the way the law is being enforced then the newspapers on sale in this country which carry topless women every day would have to be banned."

Former Fine Gael leader Michael Noonan said the HSA warning was overzealous.

"This man works on his own in his own business and as far as I know no complaint was made. It appears to be excessively overzealous.

"We now have a situation in Limerick, where we have no minister, no bishop, no hurling team and you can’t even hang a Pirelli calendar on your wall.

"I would be of the view that there are health and safety issues of greater magnitude in Limerick.

"There were serious health and safety issues involving the construction industry during the boom.

"I don’t know what the workload of the health and safety authority is now," Mr Noonan added.



Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/garage-owner-faces-closure-over-nude-calendars-113577.html#ixzz0h7AoFa4K

Henry Ford III

Laughable.

EPM

Must be a quiet week in the HSA...

antodeco

If ever there was a time to use "Pics of GTFO" this is it!

crashplan

Sweet Jebus.

bazz26

This is taking Political Correctness too far.

Jip

The HSA have come out and said the officer in question was over zealous and the whole thing is a bit silly, or words to that affect.

Winty

This is stupid Crap

Sorry but I am so mad

Instead of talking about it what can we do, can we ask the HSA under the freedom of information to explain the reason? If we dont stand up to this nanny state it will never end.

Ideas Please - How do we stop this from getting worse?

peasant

Let's face it ...there ARE people like that out there.

Give them a title, a uniform or even just a hat or a yellow jacket and they think they are God.

Sad little creatures who define their self value by the amount of hassle and discomfort they can inflict on others ...in the name of the law (or whatever is written on the back of their high-viz jacket)

We call them Blockwart

stevenmu

This looks like a case of some HSA inspector trying to file as many issues as possible to try and justify their job. As mentioned in the article with the building boom gone, there must be a seriously reduced workload and they're probably worried that someone might (rightly) realise that there's no need for as many inspectors.

It's this kind of mentality that has led to the inflated public service wage bill that we have today. Instead of being redeployed to areas which need extra workers, like social welfare for e.g., they make up sh1t like this and then extra people have to be hired for the areas that need it while people are still paid to be an areas that don't need them.

OldmanMondeo

Ok, it has been against the law since the early '90s to hang such posters etc. Now it says that the public have no access to the area where the calendar is, however the HSA had access and it is not just men who work for the HSA and somemen find calendars / posters of half naked people vulgar.

What I would say happended is HSA made a call, the garage owner tried to make things difficult for the HSA so they returned the favour...

gofaster_s13

Every garage needs a bit of Boobage(female), they don't operate correctly without Boobage, its a known fact:)

gofaster_s13

OldmanMondeo wrote: »

Ok, it has been against the law since the early '90s to hang such posters etc. Now it says that the public have no access to the area where the calendar is, however the HSA had access and it is not just men who work for the HSA and somemen find calendars / posters of half naked people vulgar.

What I would say happended is HSA made a call, the garage owner tried to make things difficult for the HSA so they returned the favour...

The HSA have access to where ever they want to go. Its only narrow minded people who find calenders of HALF naked people vulgar.

unkel

The Pirelli calendar is art, not porn :rolleyes:

OldmanMondeo

gofaster_s13 wrote: »

The HSA have access to where ever they want to go. Its only narrow minded people who find calenders of HALF naked people vulgar.

Ok Vulgar is to strong a word, how about making people feel uncomfortable?

It is not only the HSA that could be in the workshop / office, what about sales reps. I am trying not to put this in the context of Women in the garage getting upset screaming sexism. There are such calendars in my workplace, personally I am not bothered either way but I would not have one hanging near my desk and would not allow co-workers to have in the office either. the comoany I work for sells car parts and we have both Male and Female sales reps, the type of people who would be in workshops / office of garages, where the public would not be.

To be honest, if you want to look at half naked people, male or female, go buy a magazine and keep your fetishes to yourself, nobody else needs to see how desprate you are.*

not directed to gofaster or anyone in particular.

edit, I do agree witht the comment about the newspapers with topless models on shop shelves, these are in more view of people than garage calendars.

gofaster_s13

OldmanMondeo wrote: »

Ok Vulgar is to strong a word, how about making people feel uncomfortable?

It is not only the HSA that could be in the workshop / office, what about sales reps. I am trying not to put this in the context of Women in the garage getting upset screaming sexism. There are such calendars in my workplace, personally I am not bothered either way but I would not have one hanging near my desk and would not allow co-workers to have in the office either. the comoany I work for sells car parts and we have both Male and Female sales reps, the type of people who would be in workshops / office of garages, where the public would not be.

To be honest, if you want to look at half naked people, male or female, go buy a magazine and keep your fetishes to yourself, nobody else needs to see how desprate you are.*

not directed to gofaster or anyone in particular.

edit, I do agree witht the comment about the newspapers with topless models on shop shelves, these are in more view of people than garage calendars.

According to the HSA the sales reps should not be in the workshop unless they have been safety inducted, have been issued with a safety statement and are wearing the correct PPE, how many of your female and male reps wear safety boots etc on the job ??

Its just another example of the HSA being over zealous without any cause, a sole 62 year old garage operator(no matter how desparate he is) is not doing anybody any harm by hanging topless calenders in his workshop

godtabh

How does this relate to health and safety? Its a calendar (regardless of whats on it!)

Mr. Presentable

godtabh wrote: »

How does this relate to health and safety? Its a calendar (regardless of whats on it!)

I got a sprained wrist looking at a Pirelli calender when I was 15

JoeySully

It must have been a female inspector

Maybe he should swap them for male topless models for his next inspection and see if they are OK to have on his wall!

Atlantic Dawn

Ive seen more on full show in the window of Debenhams than the Pirelli calendar, will those displays be banned next?

F-Stop

Has anyone contacted the National Gallery to warn them?

gofaster_s13

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Ive seen more on full show in the window of Debenhams than the Pirelli calendar, will those displays be banned next?

Ditto walking through Temple bar on a Sat night:D

PaulieC

nowhere does it state where the calendar actually came from. It could've been full of bowlers, in which case the HSA were probably correct

TestTransmission

Good result


http://www.newstalk.ie/news/news-headlines/hsa-admits-it-was-over-zealous-in-relation-to-topless-calendar638/

“I visited Mike…and he was replacing the calenders – which ironically stand alongside a framed picture of the Blessed Virgin on the walls of his garage”.

Atlantic Dawn

TestTransmission wrote: »

Good result


http://www.newstalk.ie/news/news-headlines/hsa-admits-it-was-over-zealous-in-relation-to-topless-calendar638/

Then it will show religous intolerance towards his Muslim customers, you can never win :rolleyes:

peasant

gofaster_s13 wrote: »

Every garage needs a bit of Boobage(female), they don't operate correctly without Boobage, its a known fact:)

Yepp ...something has to offset the arse-cracks ...yin and yang and all that

Captain Slow IRL

While this is a pisser, it's understandable to an extent. If the calender was in a public area, someone's bound to get offended. Why that person couldn't bring it up with the garage owner rather than tattling is beyond me, although it could easily be a disgruntled customer trying to get some revenge.

We've some Wurth calenders at work, but all are out of the public eye.

Slidey

Things have got that bad in work that our canteen still only has the 2007 calender hanging on the wall. Don't think that it is only one month on display either. All 12 are up for information purposes of course.

Suppliers must be getting tight when we have no 2010 ones

Poly

I was on two safe pass courses, now, I was drunk for the first one and slept through most of the 2nd one, but I missed the part where they warned us of the dangers of pirelli calenders and the like.

Stoolbend

This didn't last long.

Link!

Lord Nikon

Looking at the calender on the wall from the link in the last post, she has more than her baps out. Fair play.

griffin100

You're going to see more of this ****e with the recession. Now that construction and to a great extent manufacturing are gone there are a large number of HSA inspectors with little to do a job to justify so they are targetting all sorts of areas they would not have looked twice at previously. The problem with the HSA is that they recruited a lot of inspectors straight from college during the boom and these geniuses have never worked in the real world - they also have an inflated opinion of their own powers and responsbilities. There is no statute in Irish law that could have empowered the female inspector in this case to direct that the calander be removed. If she was offened by the calendar in the course of her work then its her employers fault for sending her into this workplace. And where in Irish health and safety law is a definition of pornographic? This would have been an interesting case to take to court. IMHO this is more an attempt by the inspector to bully the garage owner into taking down a calander she was offended by rather than to get him to comply with any law; which in itself is an affront to dignity in the workplace by the HSA inspector. If she was in the right the HSA would have backed her up, not backed down as quickly as they did.

dirtydiesel

I wonder are the hsa put on training course to learn about pornography so they can go about their daily business safe in the knowledge they are fully porno qualified.