Managing occupational health and safety (OHS) is most successful when it considers a range of perspectives or disciplines in identifying practicable solutions. Books are often successful in a similar multidisciplinary way but it is becoming rarer for books to contain a collection of perspectives. A new book has been published on Safety Culture which matches this multidisciplinary approach.
Category: book
Workers’ Inferno
Recently the 20th anniversary of the Esso Longford disaster was commemorated in Victoria. Coinciding with this anniversary was the release of a book about the disaster and its personal aftermath, Workers’ Inferno, written by Ramsina Lee.
This book has been in development for many, many years and the Lee’s writing talent is on display in the structure of the book and the stories within. These stories largely linear But the multiple strands allow Lee to jump from one to the other providing a variety tone.
OHS needs to accept the influence of neoliberalism and rebuild
Many have been claiming that the era of neoliberal economics and the associated politics is over or, at least, coughing up blood. However, occupational health and safety (OHS) is rarely discussed in terms of the neoliberal impacts, and vice versa, yet many of the business frustrations with red tape, regulatory enforcement strategies, reporting mechanisms and requirements and others have changed how OHS has been managed and interpreted.
One of the most readable analyses of neoliberalism in Australia comes from
Pressure, Disorganisation and Regulatory Failure
A reader recently asked why I haven’t written about the recent retirement of Professor Michael Quinlan. Michael has featured in many SafetyAtWorkBlog articles over many years and has been a major supporter for industrial, labour relations and occupational health and safety research in Australia and elsewhere for a long time.
He has many legacies but this article will focus on one tool he developed with his associate Phillip Bohle – the Pressure, Disorganisation and Regulatory Failure (PDR) model. PDR is explained at length in this excellent 2011 research paper written with Elsa Underhill and is summarised in the table below:
Bill Shorten reflects on the Esso Longford disaster
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Tonight, SafetyAtWorkBlog will be attending the launch of a new book that includes personal stories about the 1998 Esso Longford explosion – Workers’ Inferno. The book is being released on the 2oth anniversary of the explosion that killed two workers, injured many others, disrupted gas supplies to the State of Victoria, resulted in a then-record fine for occupational health and safety (OHS) breaches and generated a Royal Commission. It is also, perhaps, the best example of a company trying to blame the worker for a major incident.
The Federal Opposition leader, Bill Shorten, was an official of the Australian Workers Union at the time and today he published an opinion piece Continue reading “Bill Shorten reflects on the Esso Longford disaster”