business – Page 184 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Compliance or Confidence?

A reader has been inspired by recent articles discussing OHS compliance to contribute their own article on some of the issues raised:

“Compliance”, while being a way forward in OHS, misses the mark. We should ask the question: Why do regulators want compliance anyway?

Compliance, or conformance as is alternatively used, is a means to an end. Not an end in itself. In haste to improve the world via compliance we sometimes forget that.

Compliance presumes that rules laid down by regulators are a “good enough” way to achieve safety. Compliance’s foundation is the minimum-standard. Foundations cannot be anything like the maximum-standard because best practice regulation knowledge backs up our common sense that maximum standards would be bad and expensive. But wouldn’t it be comforting to be able to encourage and get more than just the minimum?

Some who have felt the stick end of compliance might think some regulators believe their rules and guides are the only path to safety. But the fact is that even the best codes & regulations have flaws; they do change. Furthermore, exemptions get provided, position papers and codes of practice get written to fill the gaps. And they get re-written. Sometimes the reasons for a rule are lost in time. Shamefully, sometimes valid reasons never existed. Sometimes rules are written to serve the purposes of some over others or to empower authority. We can know this because COAG and the OBPR have to warn against it. Continue reading “Compliance or Confidence?”

Regulating The Great Leap Forward (Into The Bleeding Obvious)

Col Finnie has provided the following article in response to OHS compliance checklists:

It’s gotta be time to bite-the-bullet. The wish-fulfilment approach – that people will apply some sort of system to how they look after safety because that’s the only sensible way to do it – well, that’s not working, particularly it seems, in the small business area.

Time to regulate for the obligation to have something that can, at very least, lay the foundation for a comprehensive systematic approach. Seems just a bit whacked to me that a demonstrable systematic approach is required once a worker is injured (with the return-to-work obligations) and yet there is nuthin’ for the prevention stuff.

Getting a slapping from a magistrate for having no safe work procedures (as one part of a systematic approach) would work as an incentive if people were busted as often as they are for road traffic naughtiness; but we know that frequency of OHS busts are just not going to happen.

The Great Leap Forward (Into The Bleeding Obvious) would have to be regulated in a smart way. Continue reading “Regulating The Great Leap Forward (Into The Bleeding Obvious)”

Australian Governments’ flawed strategy on new OHS laws

Lawyer Andrew Douglas’ latest article for SmartCompany illustrates the conflicting approach to the enforcement of alcohol and drug policies in workplaces. Douglas illustrates the constant struggle for business operators between employment law and safety law, workplace relations and human resources. Case law has progressed the management of human capital more quickly than has safety management over the same workplace issue of alcohol and drug use leading to a difficulty in determining the best managerial approach to the hazard.

Douglas’ discussion of the role of case law in changing managerial approaches also has relevance in the OHS harmonisation process currently occurring in Australia. In the early days of this process, the legal fraternity believed, and often publicly stated, that the operation of the law will be “ironed out” only after several years of prosecutions and case law. These statements seem to forget that behind almost all OHS prosecutions are one or more injured workers and the reality is often forgotten when part of a lawyer’s motivation is also to seek a precedent or a clarification of the law. Continue reading “Australian Governments’ flawed strategy on new OHS laws”

OHS compliance checklists

For several months some Australian OHS regulators have been providing “Compliance at a glance” checklists. These are not intended to establish compliance, particularly in the small business sector as listed on one regulator’s website , but are more brief indicators of areas for greater improvement.

Nevertheless the items listed in the “red zone” of the checklists establish a benchmark of NON-compliance. These items are listed below:

No clear understanding of safety responsibilities.
No time or money allocated to meet safety responsibilities. Continue reading “OHS compliance checklists”

South Australia drops new OHS Bill less than one month after introduction

The South Australian Government has confirmed to SafetyAtWorkBlog that the Work Health and Safety Bill introduced into Parliament on 7 April 2011 has been withdrawn less than one month later.

South Australian politics has been in turmoil since the resignation of the Industrial Relations Minister, Bernie Finnigan, on 22 April 2011. Finnigan presented the WHS Bill to Parliament and had the running of the Bill. The IR portfolio, including this Bill, was given to Patrick Conlon and Conlon decided to withdraw the legislation.

A spokesperson for Minister Conlon has advised SafetyAtWorkBlog the Bill was withdrawn for procedural reasons. Finnigan was in the Upper House and Conlon is in the lower. For Conlon to take carriage of the Bill, it needs to be introduced into the Lower House and that is likely to be within weeks.

Conlon has also decided to take advantage of the situation by allowing South Australians to make representations on any concerns they may have with the legislation.

This delay makes it more difficult for South Australia to meet the deadline for the legislation at the end of 2011 but it also takes a little of the gloss from being the first State to support the national OHS harmonisation process by introducing its own legislation. Continue reading “South Australia drops new OHS Bill less than one month after introduction”

New work health safety laws in NSW parliament

The New South Wales Government submitted its version of the Work Health and Safety Bill into parliament on 4 May 2011. Neither the Bill or speeches are yet available on-line [Update – see comments below] but NSW Greens MP, David Shoebridge, has provided some indication of what was presented. Hopefully more information will be available tomorrow.

Shoebridge confirms what many expected

“The Work Health and Safety Bill and Occupational Health and Safety Amendment Bill will remove the capacity of unions to prosecute for breaches of Occupational Health and Safety laws….”

“These bills will also remove the jurisdiction of the Industrial Relations Court and abolish the reverse onus of proof…”

These changes are simply the political cost of the national harmonisation process. Whether the removal of these powers will decrease workplace safety levels in NSW is highly debatable, as the lack of these in other State does not seem to have affected safety levels. Continue reading “New work health safety laws in NSW parliament”

CEOs go undercover over workplace safety

The new initiative of Worksafe Victoria, placing CEOs undercover in their own workplaces, is a major change of direction and should produce a considerable amount of attention.

The online campaign, called The Skeleton Project, ostensibly applies the “Undercover Boss” concept to musculoskeletal injuries (MSIs) and workplace safety more generally. Elsewhere SafetyAtWorkBlog has mentioned that the “undercover Boss” concept is a realisation that CEOs and other senior executives have allowed themselves to become out of touch with the real world working environment of their companies or that the corporate management structure pushes executives into isolation however there are many positives in getting “out and about” as the CEOs in the new campaign do.

Category: business

Compliance or Confidence?

Like this:

Regulating The Great Leap Forward (Into The Bleeding Obvious)

Like this:

Australian Governments’ flawed strategy on new OHS laws

Like this:

OHS compliance checklists

Like this:

South Australia drops new OHS Bill less than one month after introduction

Like this:

New work health safety laws in NSW parliament

Like this:

CEOs go undercover over workplace safety

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: