On 2 January 2011, WorkSafe Victoria launched a new advertisement that presents a new twist on their “homecoming” campaign. It focuses on the “door knock” – a process many police dread where they must inform the family of the death of a relative.
The ad is a fresh and new dimension on the long-running OHS awareness campaign and is welcome. Continue reading “WorkSafe tries new twist on OHS ads”
‘Why is the most important reason for good workplace health and safety standards not at work at all?’ asks the Homecoming advertisement by implication. Because the injured or killed worker will leave his/her family behind, or harm them if they are injured or killed. S/he needs to think about them and the workplace H&S standard; about their pain and the OHS standard. About them and his/her possibly unsafe behaviour at work so s/he can return home in one piece; return to them. And the imagery is of a patiently waiting young boy, waiting for his father at the front of the house holding a ball. How desperate, lost and lonely that little boy would be if his father (in this case) was killed at work. Your heart goes out to him and thereby an emotional driver has been activated. And, in truth, tragically, such occasions do happen, too often.
Then the father appears and the boy smiles from ear to ear, we can feel the happiness permeating the ambrosia of human wellbeing. Father has come home safe and sound, boy is happy, family is whole, healthy and safe. I can’t remember, does mother peak smilingly from behind the corner as dinner simmers in the kitchen? Your heart swells. Good advert wouldn’t you say?
It’s very hard to change people’s behaviour. It’s hard to get people to effectively achieve sustained improvements in anything. Therefore, haven’t the marketers achieved a lot with this series of advertisements?
Let’s see: first, are there likely to be any OHS improvements at work as a result of any of these ads? I haven’t seen any, have you? Think hard, what exactly has changed?
Secondly, have managers been touched by these ads so that they will now rush out and make dramatic OHS improvements? Continue reading “WorkSafe’s Homecoming Advertisements”
In mid-November 2010, a gymnasium in Queensland was fined A$70,000 following the death of a 19-year-old Michelle Maitland. Ms Maitland fell and hit her head on a part of the floor that was not covered by a safety mat. The case has been regularly reported in Queensland media since the death in June 2009 and the reports provide additional details of the fall and the hazard control measures that could be considered.
Workplace Health & Safety Queensland was unable to provide SafetyAtWorkBlog with details of the case or comment as the gymnasium has lodged an appeal against the judgement.
This tragic death is the latest illustration of a challenge that businesses and OHS regulators have faced regularly – the line between public liability and occupational health and safety law. Businesses have applied a rule of thumb where injuries related to work activities are OHS matters but risks presented to customers or visitors who are in the workplace have been dealt with through public liability insurance. The Maitland case shows that businesses may face an insurance payout as well as an OHS prosecution.
The significance of this demarcation will greatly increase with the introduction in Australia of new laws that redefine a “workplace” as wherever work is being undertaken. Continue reading “The intersection of OHS and public liability becomes more urgent”
Printing is expensive and the internet has provided an attractive alternative and low-cost distribution network that particularly suits OHS information. The precursor to the SafetyAtWorkBlog, the Safety AT WORK magazine, was distributed as a PDF magazine only and online for years. Publishing online allows for all the printing costs to be outsourced to the subscribers or readers, or at least those who choose to print guidances, alerts, etc.
But it is reasonable to expect that during a national Workplace Safety Week, hard copies of government OHS guidances should be made available to those people who register or attend government-sponsored events, particularly if that event is a (“soft”) launch of a new guidance.
Today I attended a WorkSafe Victoria seminar where a panel of safety experts discussed government OHS requirements as they relate to procurement. The seminar was also a launch of the new WorkSafe guide Health and safety in construction procurement – A handbook for the public sector No hard copies were available in the seminar for participants. This raised the odd situation where it was possible to attend a seminar on a new guidance, listen to a WorkSafe representative talk about the guidance, listen to three panelists praise the guide but not have a copy of the guide. Continue reading “Hard copy OHS publications”
Australian business groups have written an open letter to the New South Wales Government protesting about the decision to continue with some OHS processes specific to New South Wales regardless of previous commitments to support the harmonisation of OHS laws. As the letter was published as an advertisement (Page 6 of The Australian on 20 October 2010), it is not readily available online but the letter needs a little bit of deconstruction to better understand the politics and ideologies behind the letter and the business associations.
The letter says Australian industry signed on to the national harmonisation process because of the need for an effective way of improving safety, fair legal processes and national consistency. Yes, to some extent but more often industry groups have been calling for a reduction of red tape for the purpose of reducing administrative costs. Reducing the injuries and fatalities of workers is not the same as “improving the safety of Australia’s workplaces”.
The ideological gap is shown in the argument against the national imposition of “reverse onus of proof”. The letter uses Victoria as an example of a jurisdiction without the reverse onus of proof and says
“Victoria, which was used as the model for the new national laws and which does not have union prosecutions or reverse onus, has between 30% and 50% better safety outcomes than NSW depending on the measurement used“. (my emphasis)
What is a “better safety outcome”? Less deaths? Less cost to business? Is it fair to compare NSW to Victoria? And can the variation in “safety outcomes” be directly related to reverse onus of proof? Continue reading “Australian business is outraged over OHS changes but is it all piss and wind?”
The OHS investigation process into the deaths of installers of insulation in Australia has led to charges being laid against Arrow Property Maintenance Pty Ltd.
On 28 June 2010, Queensland’s Department of Justice and Attorney-General has charged the company with breaches of both the Electrical Safety Act 2002 and the Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995 following an extensive investigation into the fatal electrocution of a 16-year-old teenage insulation installer in Stanwell in 2009.
The charges relate to unsafe electrical work and unsafely working at height during the installation of fibreglass insulation.
Interestingly the Department has also mentioned in its media release (not yet available online) a separate prosecution under the Electrical Safety Act 2002 that is strengthened by it also being an
“… alleged breach of a Ministerial Notice issued on 1 November 2009 Continue reading “More OHS charges laid over insulation installer deaths”
In 2005, a series of safety posters based on The Simpson TV characters was released in support of the National Safety Council’s Orlando Congress, as reported in SafetyAtWork Bulletin at the time, picture right). The posters have finally reached Australia and will be unveiled at the Safety In Action exhibition on 2 April 2010. They are sure to be popular.
A small selection of Simpsons posters will be available through WorkSafety Solutions, the Australian distributor. Many more have been added through the original US distributor, SafetyWorld since the original launch. Continue reading “Simpsons safety reaches Australia after 5 years and at twice the price”