Leo Ruschena has been a fixture in the occupational health and safety (OHS) scene in Victoria Australia for many years. In a short while he retires from his work as an OHS Lecturer with RMIT University. Retirement often means that knowledge and wisdom becomes less accessible to the public so SafetyAtWorkBlog spent some time with him recently and asked him to reflect.
Ruschena began his career as a chemical engineer with an economics degree working for nine years at Mount Isa Mines. In the mid -1970s he received a scholarship to study occupational hygiene in London UK, achieving his Masters. At that time OHS was an emerging area of study, legislation and political discourse. As Ruschena sees it:
Subscribe to SafetyAtWorkBlog to continue reading. SubscribeHelp
According to the abstract of a recent piece of research from Canada: "Financial benefits combined estimates of the tangible financial benefits arising from averted disabling work-related injury and illness and intangible financial benefits associated with improved employee retention and morale, improved production quality and strengthened corporate reputation. Applying these plausible…
In a SafetyAtWorkBlog post from early 2008, "Is OHS a Joke?", I included an example of the misunderstanding of occupational health and safety (OHS) by a supermarket worker. This echoed some of the myths being busted by the United Kingdom's Health and Safety Executive. OHS is less of a joke…
Recently I have been critical of political speeches concerning occupational health and safety (OHS) for being bland, safe, unadventurous and lacking vision. Recently a reader sent me these words: "In recent years occupational health and safety has become the forgotten element of national workplace relations policy. It’s now time to…