The middle of the year is a good place to measure progress. Since its inception in February 2008, SafetyAtWorkBlog has been viewed almost 42,000 times. The site has received almost 300 comments and 434 articles have been posted.
For a site that inhabits a niche area, does not receive advertising revenue and provides commentary and unique content almost all the time, the blog is a proud achievement.
Thanks to all the regular viewers.
“The premium has dropped eight per cent from last financial year. This is the third consecutive drop in the Commonwealth sector premium rate.” [my emphasis]
Fantastic news – eight per cent reduction in 12 months! The media release goes on:
“… this is a very pleasing result for Commonwealth agencies as it indicates injuries are continuing to fall due to effective prevention strategies that promote safer workplaces.”
The second quote is from Martin Dolan, CEO of Comcare in Australia, on his second-last day in the job.
But 8%? In one year?
The Comcare media release includes a table of premium figures for the five years. The overall premium rate in 2008-09 was 1.36%. For 2009-10 it will be 1.25%, that’s the 8% fall in Comcare media release terms. In reality it is a fall of 0.11%
The premium rate is indeed low and it may be justified in congratulating Comcare on a job well done but expressing such a fall as 8%? This is a cheeky farewell statistic for a CEO which should have said
“a 0.11% fall from 2008-09 and a decline of 0.5% over 4 years”.
This is surely a fairer statistic and a worthy achievement in itself, if not quite so sexy.
UPDATE: 1 July 2009
Martin Dolan is moving to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.
The improved safety status in workplaces that have an active union presence has been verified through research, but what of the efforts on safety management from outside the union research efforts.
Below is the abstract of an article that was published online late-2008 (and is available for purchase). The research was conducted in a country with a negative safety culture so the improvements may be more marked than from outside Spain. However, the full study (not accessed by SafetyAtWorkBlog) may provide an interesting before-and-after story.
“Occupational accidents severely deteriorate human capital, and hence negatively affect the productivity and competitiveness of countries. But despite this, we still observe a scarcity of preventive practices, an unsatisfactory management commitment and an absence of safety culture among Spanish firms. The result is evident in firms’ high accident rates. This situation is a consequence of the general belief among firms that investing in safety is a cost, and hence has negative repercussions for their competitiveness. The current work aims to identify good practices in safety management, and analyse the effect of these practices on a set of indicators of organisational performance. For this, we first carry out an exhaustive literature review, and then formulate a series of hypotheses. We then test the proposed model on a sample of 455 Spanish firms. Our findings show that safety management has a positive influence on safety performance, competitiveness performance, and economic-financial performance. Hence they provide evidence of the compatibility between worker protection and corporate competitiveness.”
The full article is available in Safety Science (Volume 47, Issue 7, August 2009, Pages 980-991).
B Fernández-Muñiz, J Montes-Peón and C Vázquez-Ordás, ‘Relation between occupational safety management and firm performance’ (2009) Safety Science 47: 980-991.
According to a paper presented at the latest Industrial & Organisational Psychology Conference organised by the Australian Psychological Society, poor quality emails are causing almost as much stress in the workplace as the number received.
New Zealand provisional (?) psychologist, Rowena Brown, was presenting findings from her PhD studies and said
“Email is a double-edged sword. We know that email can help employees to feel engaged with and connected to their work colleagues, however the impact of a poor quality email, combined with the expectation to respond immediately, can create unnecessary stress. Our research raises important issues for employers, who have a responsibility to train their staff in appropriate email etiquette.”
This type of research really doesn’t help business and managers to deal with the stress of their employees because it doesn’t provide any useful control measures. There are more significant causes of stress that demand the attention of OHS professionals and managers.
The same conference illustrates one of those other stressors. Sara Branch, a psychologist Griffith University was quoted on the matter of employees bullying their bosses.
“Upwards bullying, like other forms of workplace bullying, is often more subtle and less obvious to other staff. However, it can also include more aggressive behaviours such as yelling, verbal threats, and confrontational phone conversations.”
“Workplaces need to understand that bullying can occur at any level in an organisation. Although managers clearly have formal authority, they can also be victims of bullying and need just as much support as other staff.”
The study also found, according to a media release about the conference, that one of the main triggers for upwards bullying is organisational change.
“If an employee is disgruntled by change, such as new working conditions, management, or processes, they may blame their manager and respond by bullying them.”
With the increased attention to psychosocial hazards in the occupational health and safety profession, it is necessary to pay attention to these sorts of studies but they are simply new perspectives on established issues that should already be monitored and changed.
These studies may illustrate the issue that OHS professionals can use to gain that managerial or client attention but they should be handled carefully so that these specific issues do not dominate the understanding on the manager or client.
SafetyAtWorkBlog advocates looking outside the OHS discipline for new evidence and understandings of workplace issues be it sociology or psychology but one must avoid reacting to hype.
The fragility of Australia’s agreement for OHS harmonisation is illustrated in an article by Michael Stutchbury of The Australian. He mentions the potential domino effect resulting from the West Australian Treasurer’s desire to keep his options open. New South Wales and Queensland see that a (politically unpalatable) out is possible.
The freshest information in his article was that the CEO of the Business Council of Australia (BCA), Katie Lahey, has described OHS harmonisation as “linchpin” in the government’s push for a seamless national business economy, according to Stutchbury. This perspective is one that should be watched closely as the BCA is not renowned for its OHS innovation or advice.
Stutchbury misinterprets the pledge by the Construction, Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU)
“to make safety the key to their battle against the ABCC’s powers”.
The union is applying safety to their industrial relations battle with the ABCC because their initial attack failed. The Government has watered down the ABCC’s powers but the ABCC will continue to exist. Indeed the “lawlessness” of the unions has caused the Government to continue with regulatory oversight of the construction industry beyond the ABCC. The unions are flogging a dead horse (albeit for excellent ideological reasons) and, as a result, are reinforcing the political and community perspectives of union “thuggery”.
The ABCC action against unions has not been on the basis of health and safety, as far as SafetyAtWorkBlog is aware. It has been on the issue of union conduct, the way the union progresses on OHS matters. The ABCC concerns stem from the process itself and not the origin of the process.
The Australian union movement needs to realise that it is its heavy-handedness on industrial relations that is impeding its progress on several fronts. It is not getting the ear of what traditionally has been a sympathetic political party and it is failing to gain any ground in the community because of its brash conduct. As a result it is not attracting new members.
It is also disappointing that health and safety is trotted out as a Plan B. This has happened repeatedly and has resulted in the tactic being seen as minimally effective. The union movement needs to see that OHS is a core value of union membership. Workers can be confident that an OHS issue brought to management with the union’s support will get an audience, and is more likely to get fixed.
The unions will gain new members by emphasising the positive and direct benefits of union membership. A possible campaign start could be
“You will be safer at work with a union”.
There is a place for ideological protest. The point needs to be made that the powers of ABCC are inappropriate. But the ABCC was introduced in response to union arrogance and excessive testosterone. A change of culture in the union movement some time ago would have allowed it to focus on the future of its members rather than continue with its outdated and unpopular belligerence.
According to various Australian media reports, the natural gas plant at Varanus Island in Western Australia is now back to full capacity following the major pipeline explosion in 2008.
The government has estimated that the explosion blasted $A2 billion from the state economy and will be pursuing the pipeline’s owner, Apache Energy, through the courts.
The government says the pipeline was inadequately maintained and corrosion led to the failure of the pipe.
Apache has already been in the courts seeking an injunction to stop the Western Australian Mines & Petroleum Minister, Norman Moore, from seeing a “a federal-state government report into alleged regulatory lapses that may have contributed to the Varanus Island blast”.
Apache’s move is peculiar but the WA government has become more involved in the investigation of this explosion than others and the company has not been happy with the investigation process for some time.
Western Australia’s WorkSafe has just released its latest guidance on working alone and it is the most practical look at the hazard from any OHS regulator in Australia.
Importantly, it differentiates between “alone” and “remote”. In 1995, when the Victorian First Aid Code of Practice raised the issue of isolation, there was considerable confusion. How can someone in the metropolitan area be isolated or remote?
The WA definition of “alone” is very useful and needs to be kept front-of-mind in OHS policy and procedure production. It could be used in the review process of existing policies and prores to ensure their applicability.
“A person is alone at work when they are on their own, when they cannot be seen or heard by another person, and when they cannot expect a visit from another worker or member of the public for some time.”
The working alone guidance identifies four industry types that require special support for working alone:
Although SafetyAtWorkBlog advocates low-tech control options as much as possible (usually because of increased reliability) thankfully this guidance discusses mobile phones, satellite communications, GPS locators and other communications devices.
