Category: accountability

Corporate culture on show from ASIC at the Governance Institute

20160731_211159On 22 July 2016, the Governance Institute of Australia conducted a seminar at which John Price (pictured right), a Commissioner with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) discussed Board and Organisational Culture.  The issue of culture has been an important discussion point with ASIC and Australian businesses recently and this discussion included consideration of the role of occupational health and safety (OHS).

Although the seminar was not a speech, the discussion paralleled many of the points that Price made in this May 2016 speech.   The speech is a useful insight into how an Australian corporate regulator sees culture and it is not very different from how the OHS profession sees it.  Price references the Criminal Code that

“…defines corporate culture as including an organisation’s attitudes, policies, rules, course of conduct and practices.”

He also said that

“Culture matters to ASIC because poor culture can be a driver of poor conduct.”

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Worker democracy reappears and OHS needs to be ready

Tripartite consultation of occupational health and safety (OHS) is largely a relic of the past. It remains in the structure of government policy formulation and in workplace safety legislation but, largely due to the decline in trade union presence in Australian workplaces; OHS consultation occurs more linearly than through formalised tripartism.

A recent example of contemporary consultation, that is likely to include OHS, was reported on in The Guardian newspaper on 17 July 2016. The incoming UK Prime Minister, Theresa May, wants to encourage the inclusion of a worker on company boards.  It is a curious suggestion from a Conservative Prime Minister which has been leapt on as “workplace democracy” by some commentators. The workplace democracy or “industrial democracy” push is not a new idea and was once seriously proposed in 1977 but, according to an article in The Conversation, the political time was not right.  Whether that time is now is debatable. Continue reading “Worker democracy reappears and OHS needs to be ready”

“We are the safest” – No, only half right

Governments around the world love to be able to claim their State or Country as the safest in the world, when they can.  Australia has been plagued by such claims between various States but a report released on July 6 2016 shows that such claims are only half the story.

The Institute for Safety, Compensation and Recovery Research (ISCRR) released its report about “Work-related injury and illness in Australia, 2004 to 2014“. The report makes this extraordinary finding:

“Across Australia, there are twice as many estimated work-related injuries as there are accepted workers compensation claims. This indicates that many injuries do not progress into the nations workers compensation systems” (page 2)

This statement seems to indicate that political statements made on the basis of workers’ compensation data, the major rationale for most of the “we are the safest” statements, are only half right!

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Culture – piss or get off the pot.

Andrew Hopkins has described organisational culture as “the way we as an organisation do things around here”.  The sociology of this statement is sound and the occupational health and safety (OHS) context seems to be an accepted element of safety management.  But for OHS professionals to continue to advocate the importance of a safety culture it is necessary for them to be aware of how culture is being interpreted and applied elsewhere. The Australian Labor Party recently stated that the Australian banking system needs a Royal Commission because, as Senator Sam Dastyari stated:

“We’ve seen scandal after scandal. We’ve seen failure after failure and we’ve seen a banking sector and a culture develop where effectively these matters are constantly being ignored”.

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Miserable failures in OHS of labour hire workers

Two recent occupational health and safety (OHS) prosecutions in South Australia related to labour hire employees and providers indicate changes in enforcement approach and clues for change as they illustrate how some people and companies have almost no regard for the safety of its employees.

According to a SafeWorkSA media release dated 28 May 2016 (not available online at the time of writing):

“The Industrial Court convicted Queensland based labour hire company, Fix Force (Qld) Pty Ltd, and imposed a penalty of $150 000 plus court costs.

On 22 October 2012, Mr Clinton Benson, a contracted employee on the South Road Superway project, suffered life threatening injuries when his head was crushed between a lifting arm and welding table.

Following investigation by SafeWork SA, Fix Force (Qld) Pty Ltd was charged with offences under the then Occupational Health Safety and Welfare Act 1986 (SA), for failure to ensure its employee was safe from injury and risk to health whist at work, as far as was reasonably practicable.”

Continue reading “Miserable failures in OHS of labour hire workers”

OHS consultant guilty of impersonating a SafeWork SA inspector

There are several important lessons from a recent conviction of an occupational health and safety consultant (OHS) in South Australia for impersonating a SafeWork SA inspector on multiple occasions.

According to SafeWorkSA’s media release, Sam Narroway has been found guilty of impersonating a SafeWork South Australia Inspector and fined $A15,000.  Presiding Industrial Magistrate Lieschke stated that

“In my view these are serious offences – they involved risk to the community, damage to the credibility of SafeWork SA and to professional work health safety consultants”.

According to LinkedIn and as acknowledged in the Court judgement, Sam Narroway is now the Chief Executive Officer of Australian Workplace Safety Group.  Narroway has described this new company as a successful venture and indications are that he intends to restart his career.

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