The Overtime Load-In at the Heritage Theatre
You are the head technician on a load-in at a heritage theatre built in 1928. The crew is four people: yourself, one experienced rigger, and two casual staff on their second shift. The bump-in was scheduled for eight hours but the truck arrived three hours late because of a highway closure. The producer wants the show ready for a 7:30 pm preview, and it is currently 2:00 pm. Your crew has already worked six hours today, and the venue's enterprise agreement caps shifts at ten hours without a written variation. The fly tower has a working load limit of 250 kg per line set, and the set has three pieces weighing 180 kg, 210 kg and 240 kg that all need to fly. The two casual staff have been asked by the producer to 'just get it up quickly'. One of them has never used a counterweight system.
1. Identify the competing pressures in this situation and explain which one takes legal priority, with reference to the hierarchy of WHS duties.
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The pressures are: (1) the producer's deadline for the 7:30 pm preview, (2) the ten-hour shift cap in the enterprise agreement, (3) the physical limits of the fly tower at 250 kg per line set, and (4) the competence gap of the two casual staff.
The WHS Act places the primary duty of care on the person conducting the business or undertaking (PCBU) to ensure health and safety so far as is reasonably practicable. That duty cannot be traded away for a show deadline. The producer's instruction to 'just get it up quickly' does not override it, and as head technician you are a worker with your own duty to take reasonable care and to not place others at risk.
The shift cap is the first hard stop. If the crew has already worked six hours, a full bump-in plus a show call would breach the ten-hour cap without a written variation. The correct move is to escalate to the production manager, document the truck delay, and either negotiate a variation with genuine consultation or re-sequence the work so the preview is a reduced technical run.
The competence gap is the second hard stop. A worker who has never used a counterweight system cannot be assigned to fly a 240 kg piece under time pressure. That is a foreseeable risk with a known control: supervised training and a competent person on the line. Pair the casuals with the experienced rigger on ground-level tasks and keep the flying to the rigger and yourself.
2. The producer insists the 240 kg piece goes up immediately. Outline the sequence of actions you take, in order, and justify each.
Read the worked answer
Step 1 - Stop and verify. Check the actual weight against the rigging plot and the line set's rated capacity. The 240 kg piece is within 250 kg, but that leaves only 10 kg of margin for strops, shackles and the batten itself. Recalculate the total imposed load including hardware. If the hardware pushes it over 250 kg, the piece cannot fly on that line set at all and must be ground-supported or split.
Step 2 - Refuse the unsafe instruction in writing. A worker may cease unsafe work under the WHS Act if there is a reasonable concern of serious risk. State the reason plainly: unverified load calculation and an untrained operator. This is not insubordination; it is the duty of care.
Step 3 - Consult. Raise it with the production manager and, if the venue has one, the health and safety representative. Consultation is a legal requirement, not a courtesy.
Step 4 - Control the risk. Options in order of preference: eliminate by redesigning the set so the piece is ground-supported; substitute a lighter construction; engineer the control by having the experienced rigger perform the fly with a documented load calculation and a secondary safety; or administrate by scheduling the fly for the next morning with a full crew.
Step 5 - Record and review. Log the near-miss, the calculation and the decision, then debrief before the next bump-in.