I have been writing about how occupational health and safety should apply to professional contact sports for a few years. The emergence of concussion, traumatic brain injury, and CTE has changed how sports are managed and the sports themselves. I hope when you have 14 minutes to spare, perhaps on your smoko, walking at lunchtime …
I have been writing about concussion and CTE prevention in professional sports, especially the Australian Football League (AFL), for a while. The current controversy in Australia is concerning a risk waiver. This debate should generate interest in workers’ compensation and occupational health and safety. This guest post from Eric Windholz (there have been others) is …
Most countries and regions seem to have a sport of cultural significance. Australia has several, but all professional sports are played in workplaces, the players are employees, and the sporting clubs are employers. Most have a supervisory and administrative body. Recently, an Australian Rules Football player, Elijah Hollands, displayed signs of a mental health condition …
[Guest post by Eric Windholz] Last week I again had the pleasure to contribute to the Headfirst: A Concussion Podcast, this time talking about recent developments concerning the compensation of athletes (and in particular, AFL (Australian Football League) players) suffering concussion. The key takeaway – the more things change, the more they stay the same.
David Michaels devoted a whole chapter to sport-related concussions and brain damage in his 2020 book “The Triumph of Doubt“. He wrote about how the National Football League obfuscated over the appearance of concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and how the the NFL downplayed the injury’s significance by referring to repeated head trauma as Mild …
Eric Windholz has released a perceptive paper on Industrial Manslaughter (IM) that neatly summarises the risks and rationales behind these legislative changes to Victoria’s occupational health and safety (OHS) laws. Windholz explains two functions of the amendments – a motivator for employers to improve OHS in their workplaces and to provide a pathway for bereaved …
Documents related to the development and implementation of Industrial Manslaughter laws in Victoria and seen by SafetyAtWorkBlog say that the Department of Justice and Community Services will draft a policy paper on the laws prior to the proposed Industrial Manslaughter Bill being presented to Parliament in October or November. October’s Work Health and Safety Month …
