MaltaToday
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NEWS | Sunday, 11 November 2007

Hairdressers duped by bogus trainers

Karl Schembri

A private company offering health and safety training courses has been approaching hairdressers and beauty salon operators deceiving them into believing that its courses are required by the Occupational Health and Safety Authority (OHSA).
In what is emerging as a pattern of deceitful abuse of the authority’s name to market health and safety courses, the private company has been calling salons claiming they are legally bound to send their staff for training or risk having their businesses shut down by the authority.
The callers, who refer to fictitious “newly enacted legislation” that allegedly makes the course mandatory, also claim that authority officers are visiting salons to check that all employees have been sent for training and hold course certificates.
Although the case was brought to the attention of the OHSA about a month ago, with the authority issuing an immediate public warning to salon operators not to fall for the scam, hairdressers say they kept receiving calls until a few days ago.
The case has also been taken up by the Association of Hairdressers and Operators of Beauty Salons although its members seem to have stopped reporting the bogus calls since the authority issued its warning.
The secretary of the association, Jesmond Friggieri, said the number of reports received from hairdressers and beauty salons was substantial.
“Reports of such calls have gone down but all sorts of salons were targeted by this company,” Friggieri said.
Employers were asked to send their staff close to the VAT department offices in Birkirkara where they would be picked up and taken to the training centre situated nearby. The course was meant to last around two hours and subscribers were being charged Lm15 each.
“We immediately contacted the association to confirm that no such legislation was recently enacted,” OHSA Chief Executive Mark Gauci told MaltaToday.
“We also made it clear the OHSA does not close down any enterprise solely because the employees had not been trained; and that there is a legal obligation on an employer to provide training that is specific to his particular place of work, the specific hazards and risks and the protective and preventive measures required to be taken, and that it is extremely unlikely that such training could be provided in two hours.”
Both the association and the authority declined to name the private company, but as the law stands there is little the OHSA can do to stop unqualified people from giving health and safety courses.
“The authority has sought legal advice about the matter, and it results that obtaining a conviction will be extremely unlikely in this case, considering the circumstances,” Dr Gauci said.
“Unfortunately the law does not stipulate that whoever gives training courses has to be competent or registered with us. We are working to establish an accreditation scheme that would recognise the minimum level of competence of people giving such courses. Once that is in place, the law will be amended, but it’s a complex territory to cover given that health and safety is very wide-ranging.”
The OHSA also issued a press release and contacted the Office of the Parliamentary Secretary for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, requesting their help to inform all hairdressing and beauty salons about this issue.
“We have also contacted the training services provider to stop making such claims,” Dr Gauci said.
Meanwhile the authority also made it clear it had nothing to do with a seminar organised by the Foundation for Human Resources Development and the Institute of Health and Safety as claimed on The Sunday Times last week, calling the article “incorrect and misguiding”.
Held last Friday at the Foundation’s headquarters for a fee of Lm20, the course aimed at “middle managers and supervisors” involved in monitoring and safety inspections, the course was advertised as being organised by the authority together with the foundation and the health and safety institute.
“The case involves another training services provider, who sent in a write-up to the Sunday Times claiming that a seminar was being organised in conjunction with the OHSA – this is untrue, and the authority saw fit to issue a clarification since this is not the first time that it has happened, in other situations and involving other training services providers,” Dr Gauci said. “We are not linked to any commercial centre or other organisation providing occupational health and safety services.”

kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt



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