Recently, SafeWorkNSW launched a health and safety campaign for those who provide services in people’s homes, essentially Home Care providers. The message is good and simple, but this article is less about the campaign than the risk assessment and checklist forms they promote.
Many checklists expect a Yes/No answer but fail to ask a question. SafeWorkNSW’s Home Safety Risk Assessment is an example of this problem.
Continue reading “Yes, No or N/A?”Later this week, the United Kingdom hosts an election which the Labour Party, the “party of working people,” is expected to win. Its party manifesto has been out for some time, but its workplace strategy has received less attention. Given the synergies between the UK and Australian industrial relations and occupational health and safety (OHS), Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay, deserves an outsider’s analysis.
Last week the Australian Institute of Health and Safety (AIHS) National Conference contained some excellent speakers and one or two stinkers. (I will not be reporting on the last speaker of the conference, who spent his first ten minutes “roasting”. i.e. insulting the delegates!) Safe Work Australia’s Marie Boland was an important and informative speaker who nudged the occupational health and safety profession to be more active.
[This article discusses suicide]
WorkSafe Victoria has charged a government agency with breaching occupational health and safety (OHS) laws over the suicide of an employee. The UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has a different perspective. Several OHS researchers, academics and trade union lobbyists are battling the HSE to become more involved with investigating suicides that have the potential to be related to work. The Australian circumstance is a little different.
RUOK? Day is held in September each year in Australia. The workplace suicide awareness campaign has been very successful, but over time, I have observed a decline in effectiveness, certainly at the local communication level. It may be a victim of its own success as almost all awareness campaigns struggle to maintain their original freshness. Perhaps it is time for a change. Perhaps that change is being forced upon us.
The calls for banning engineered stone‘s importation are curious and likely to be acted on later this week.
Politicians, unions and some OHS associations have undertaken a risk assessment and determined that elimination is the most effective harm prevention strategy. Previous risk assessments of silicosis have been reported on in this blog for some time without banning the material. The risks have not changed even with increased inspection and enforcement. So what has changed? Politics.
“Jobs” is a term regularly used in election campaigns as creating jobs can provide wealth directly to those working and less directly to their employers. But rarely are “safe jobs” mentioned. The Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews mentioned “safe jobs” in his campaign speech for the election later this month. Perhaps more interesting is his pledge to put people before profit.
Andrews was speaking of his success in creating 600,000 jobs since he came to power eight years ago. He said:
“…..when we came to government, we promised we’d get Victoria back to work. Since then, we’ve created nearly 600,000 jobs. More than 300,000 since September 2020. But it’s not just jobs. We want them to be good, secure, safe jobs. It’s why we introduced Australia’s first-ever wage theft laws. And it’s why we made workplace manslaughter exactly what it is: a crime. But when it comes to making Victoria stronger, safer and fairer, our work is far from over.”
