Category: asbestos

Tread carefully when speaking with the media

One of the most important professional lessons is to only talk about what you know.  I found this out personally after a disastrous pre-conference workshop many years ago where I did not understand what the workshop participants expected until I began seeing blank and quizzical expressions from the, thankfully, small audience.

On Australian radio on 14 December 2011, a geologist became embroiled in an interview on asbestos and cancer.

Ian Plimer is a well-known Australian geologist and is a professor of mining geology at the University of Adelaide.  Plimer is a controversial and outspoken critic of climate change.  The climate change debate is a fringe consideration in occupational health and safety but today,  Professor Plimer entered the debate on asbestos, a carcinogen that is responsible for hundreds and thousands of work and non-work related deaths.

On ABC Radio, prominent Australian journalist and writer on asbestos industry issues, Matt Peacock, took Ian Plimer to task about Plimer’s 2008 claim that chrysotile, or white asbestos, is not carcinogenic.   Continue reading “Tread carefully when speaking with the media”

Free October 2001 safetyATWORK magazine

SafetyAtWorkBlog evolved out of an online publication, safetyATWORK.  In 2001, safetyATWORK published a special edition of the magazine focussing on the OHS issues related to the collapse of the World Trade Centre (WTC) in September 2011.  That special edition is now available as a free download through the cover image on the right.

The magazine contains:

  • an article by Lee Clarke on planning for the worst-case scenarios;
  • an interview with Peter Sandman,
  • an article by me, Kevin Jones,

and other articles concerning

Australia to ratify ILO OHS Convention, says Senator

The Australian Financial Review (AFR) reported on 14 June 2011 (not freely available online) that Senator Jacinta Collins has publicly stated that an International Labour Organisation (ILO) occupational health and safety convention will be signed by the current Government in conjunction with other conventions on maritime labour, asbestos and part-time work.  The announcement that “Australia will ratify four ILO Conventions this year” was made at the recent International Labour Conference.

Most of the AFR article focussed on the labour relations impacts of the conventions but RMIT’s Professor of Law, Breen Creighton noted that

“Ratifying a convention has no effect in Australian law unless the Australian parliaments legislate to give effect to the international obligations.”

Senator Collins’ speech identifies the OHS protocol as the “Optional Protocol of 2002 to the Occupational Health and Safety Convention”.

A brief discussion on this protocol occurred on this blog in late April 2011 when the ratification was mentioned during the World Day for Safety and Health at Work.

Kevin Jones

Australian IR Minister mentions international OHS conventions action

Chris Evans, the Australian Minister for Workplace Relations issued a media statement on 28 April 2011 concerning the World Day for Safety and Health at Work.  As well as some generalities about OHS harmonisation and government commitment, he said

“The Australian Government is also in the process of ratifying the ILO Asbestos Convention 1986 (convention 162) and the ILO Protocol of 2002 to the Occupational Health and Safety Convention 1981 (Protocol 155).

These ILO instruments will give Australians a world class OHS regime, by entrenching best practice in protecting our community from the harmful effects of asbestos and enhancing data collection and publication to support policy making and research.

“Australia has long been a member and supporter of the ILO in its efforts to promote safe work environments and raise the quality of labour and social standards throughout the world,” said Senator Evans.” [links added]

This seems a positive move but it is significant that no deadline for ratification is identified by Minister Evans.  There are also a couple of obvious limitations or problems with these conventions and protocols. Continue reading “Australian IR Minister mentions international OHS conventions action”

The Social Media is the Message

Melody Kemp in Vientiane writes:

The apoplectic brouhaha that greeted Wikileaks in the past few months has shown us the power of the internet to upstage, discomfit and enrage.  Governments like corporations operate under a variety of ‘commercial-in-confidence’ scores, the cadence of which changes with the degree of self interest at hand.  That Wikileaks has been disclosing documents for years is of no consequence to our reactionary leaders.  Just as labour groups and activists, long been warning industry about workplace hazards, have been greeted with similarly leaden ears.

Earlier this year, a delegation of international labour activists and trade union leaders visited Laos.  While being taken around various work sites by Lao trade union and government officials, they were horrified to find bags of asbestos labeled Produced In China in one roofing tile fabrication shop.  They should not have been surprised.  The nominal communist bloc states of Asia have close trade, military and strategic ties.  In that bloc the proletariat has little status and, like mushrooms, are generally kept in the dark.

One of Lao’s four Vice Presidents is known to foster and enjoy close and at times unseemly business relationships with Yunnan, Continue reading “The Social Media is the Message”

OHS harmonisation documents released for public comment

Late on 7 December 2010 Safe Work Australia released draft OHS regulations and Codes of Practice for public comment.  The documents released are:

According to a Safe Work Australia media release, not yet available online:

“As part of the development of the Consultation Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS), Access Economics on behalf of Safe Work Australia, is surveying businesses across a range of sizes, industries and regions in an effort to obtain data on anticipated compliance costs and safety benefits of the model Work Health and Safety Regulations.   Continue reading “OHS harmonisation documents released for public comment”

The asbestos Triffid goes national

The union campaign on the eradication of asbestos from the island of Tasmania has entered the national political arena in Australia.  On 29 October 2010, the Australian Minister for Workplace Relations, Chris Evans, announced that Geoff Fary, Assistant Secretary of the Australian Council for Trade Unions, will chair the newly established “Asbestos Management Review” (AMR).

The appointment and chairmanship are an acknowledgement that the trade union movement is the major advocate for occupational, public and environmental safety concerning asbestos in Australia.

Fary will be leaving his ACTU role in November 2010 to take up the new position.

One concern with the AMR, even in its early development is the task of raising awareness.  Chris Evans stated that:

“It is critical that we develop a comprehensive understanding of the scope of the problem and set clear targets as to how we address issues relating to awareness, management and removal of asbestos.”

There is the risk of inactivity on any issue that seeks to raise awareness.  As I wrote twelve months ago:

“The asbestos safety advocates should drop “awareness” from the week’s title because awareness equates to “aspirational targets”, former Prime Minister John Howard’s way of promising much and delivering nothing.  Just as everyone accepts that smoking causes lung cancer and climate change exists, people know that asbestos can kill.  Move away from awareness-raising to action.” Continue reading “The asbestos Triffid goes national”

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