Category: community

Tory leader calls for a “forensic examination” of health and safety culture

David Cameron, the leader of England’s Conservative Party, has spoken about the health and safety culture that he says is restricting personal and business options in England.

In the full speech, Cameron clearly outlines an ideological agenda but it is a mistake to see this as an attack on the OHS regulator.  Below is an edited summary of the most relevant bits of his speech:

“In almost every area, the Conservative Party aims to remove the obstacles that prevent people from making their own decisions.

That’s why we plan a radical redistribution of power, giving control over education, housing and policing to local people.

…there is a growing sense that too many areas of our life are governed by petty rules, regulations and tick box bureaucracy that flies in the face of common sense, undermines discretion and prevents us from getting on with our lives.

We see it in our police force,… our prisons, …our schools, [and] our hospitals

[the the over-the-top health and safety culture] is… infuriating. It … stifles judgement and discretion……is a straitjacket on personal initiative and responsibility……and is a big barrier to the creation of the big society.

…something has gone seriously wrong with the spirit of health and safety in the past decade.

…it is clear that what began as a noble intention to protect people from harm has mutated into a stultifying blanket of bureaucracy, suspicion and fear that has saturated our country…

How has this over-the-top health and safety culture become embedded in our national way of life? [emphasis added]

  • [European] bureaucratic rules
  • The Labour Government

But the biggest cause of this excessive health and safety culture is the way these rules have been interpreted and used.

What is more the problem is the perception we have allowed to develop that in Britain today, behind every accident there is someone who is personally culpable……someone who must pay.

[It is encouraged by]

  • adverts on television
  • the commercialising of lawyers’ incentives to generate litigation
  • the rising premiums and concerns of the insurance industry.
  • high-profile claims and pay-outs.

This has all helped to create a legal hypersensitivity to risk, accident and injury. And this has had a direct knock-on effect on the health and safety culture.

So it is not just the regulations from Brussels, or even the distrustful, interfering government that has created this culture, or the insurance industry, ……it is that everyone’s so worried about being sued that they invent lots of their own rules on top of the regulations that already exist.

… perhaps the most damaging consequences of this excessive health and safety culture have occurred in our society.

… the health and safety culture actively undermines responsibility.

CONSERVATIVE APPROACH

First, establish clear and specific principles about when health and safety legislation is appropriate, and when it is not, so we can evaluate whether existing or future legislation is necessary.

Second, we will propose practical changes in the law to both help bring an end to the culture of excessive litigation while at the same time giving legal safeguards to those who need them most.

HEALTH AND SAFETY CHANGES

there are three particular scenarios where this is the case.

The first is when consumers have a lack of information, or are unable to understand technical information, about a product or a service they are purchasing.

The second situation in which official action on health and safety is appropriate is where there is an imbalance of power.

The third situation in which there is a case for health and safety oversight is when someone might have a clear motive – normally profit – to put someone else in danger.

That’s because keeping people safe is often more expensive than exposing them to risk.

[REVIEW]

I have asked Lord Young to lead an extensive review on this subject for the Conservative Party. He has a track record of deregulation and cutting bureaucracy. He also has experience in the legal profession and will judge these issues with the care and attention they deserve. And he will look at everything from the working of the Health and Safety Executive, to the nature of our health and safety laws, litigation and the insurance industry.

There are some specific questions I have asked David Young to investigate urgently.

The first question is: how can we best protect what are effectively ‘Good Samaritans’?

In Australia, concern about the effect of increasing payouts for medical negligence led to a full review of civil liability.  Its final report concluded that when an individual is acting in good faith – as a Good Samaritan – and takes reasonable actions to help someone, then they should not be found negligent.

Second, can we help alleviate some of health and safety oversight that currently burdens small, local and voluntary organisations?

Third, do we need a Civil Liability Act?

I know the over-the-top health and safety culture that has grown in our country in recent years provokes a lot of understandable anger.  But anger itself is not solution.  Instead we need a forensic examination of what has gone wrong and the steps we need to take to put it right.”

Cameron’s speech has some valid points even if the ideological path that he has followed to get here may be unpalatable.

What separates this from a Jeremy Clarkson rant is that he is not targeting any one particular bureaucracy or social group.  He acknowledges that there are a range of social factors that have, over time, created what he believes is an “over-the-top health and safety culture”.   Cameron may have chosen extremes to illustrate his points but most OHS professionals would not be averse to a review of OHS laws particularly if such a review included other social structures that make their lives difficult but over which they have no influence.

Along the way, the chance for the political boot up the jaxy of the regulators and the unions, and those dreadful Europeans, will be irresistable for the Conservatives, but if planned for occupational health and safety may salvage some useful tools.

It must be remembered that the Conservatives are not in power in England but even from here in Australia, the Prime Minister Gordon Brown looks like a dead man walking.

Some commentators have already responded to the “outrageous” suggestions in Cameron’s speech.  More union response similar to this from Grahame Smith, General Secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress, can be expected.

“The families of the tens of thousands of workers who have been killed and maimed at work will find these comments deeply offensive. David Cameron has sent a chilling message to the working people in the UK that any future Conservative Government will attack the health and safety laws that trade unions have spent decades fighting for.

“This is not about draconian legislation. This is about the failure, or unwillingness, of employers, community groups and others to grasp the very basics of our health and safety system.

“We have witnessed what poor regulation has done for our finance sector and the economy. We do not want to see this attack on health and safety legislation having a similar catastrophic effect on human lives. Our economy will recover. Individuals killed at work and their families never recover from the consequence of poor health and safety regulation.

“We would say to David Cameron if you want to learn about the true consequences of health and safety failures read Hazards Magazine and come to Scotland and meet families who have lost loved ones due to health and safety failures by employers. Don’t subscribe to the trivial nonsense which is churned out by sections of the media.”

Smith is correct to remind Cameron to not rely on the media from which to develop policies, particularly the English print media.  Smith comparison of OHS legislation to financial market regulation is also valid.  Legislation should never be used as a blanket control mechanism but requires targeting.

Another union, Prospect, had this to say

On behalf of 1,650 HSE inspectors, scientists and other specialists, Prospect negotiator Mike Macdonald said: “There is a world of difference between petty bureaucracy enacted under the label of health and safety and HSE regulation designed to prevent deaths in the workplace.

“Measures aimed at preventing death and injury at work run the risk of being overshadowed by inappropriate obsessions by local authorities with minor issues that are often an excuse for withdrawing services on the grounds of cost. Given the importance of health and safety to the British economy and UK businesses we would welcome any changes that boost workers’ safety as well as business competitiveness.

“But confusing the two continues to perpetuate a negative image of health and safety regulation and masks the bigger picture: as the figures for 2007/08 show 32,810 employees were exposed to fatal and major injuries at work.”

If (when) the Conservatives come to power in England, Cameron and Lord Young will need to structure an inquiry that is inclusive and designed to be constructive.  Many people will approach such an inquiry with decades of suspicion and many memories of despair and disappointment. In many ways the laws require a rationalisation, not a revolution and this is what Cameron needs to “sell” as he gets ready for the next election, due in the first half of 2010.

Kevin Jones

Union continues pressure on asbestos as an urgent public health issue

Following on from Asbestos Awareness Week, an ABC media report on 3 December 2009 says that the Australian Workers Union is continuing to apply pressure to the Tasmanian Government and Cement Australia for testing of former employees  and local residents for exposure to asbestos.

An epidemiological study of former employees has been agreed to by the company and is being conducted by Monash University.  Dr Yossi Berger of the AWU wants the study to be expanded to residents.

The logic is sound, particularly in Railton where the entire community has been exposed to asbestos production and products over decades.   Asbestos should be considered as more than a work-related hazard.

The union position on this pernicious substance received recent support from Matt Peacock’s book “Killer Company” that brought to the public’s attention the issue of asbestos bags being used in carpet underlay over many years.  Peacock says that cases of mesothelioma that just appear without any direct link to asbestos-handling , use or manufacture could come from unsuspecting exposure to asbestos in seemingly innocuous sources, such as underlay.

The union must be fairly confident that the results of any study will provide incontrovertible proof of the spread of the asbestos hazard, so that there can be some “oomph” behind a broader public campaign.  As mentioned at a recent Asbestos seminar, the evidence may exist but it needs to be translated into a format that the national decision-makers will accept and cannot contest.  Then large-scale improvements are possible.

Kevin Jones

Australia’s Go Home on Time Day

November 26 2009 was Go Home On Time Day in Australia.  The intention of this day, organised by The Australia Institute, was to highlight the difficulty many workers face in a achieving this seemingly simple task.  The Australia Institute’s expresses the aims this way:

  • The typical full-time employee is working 70 minutes of unpaid overtime a day, which equates to 33 eight-hour days per year, or six and a half standard working weeks.
  • Across the workforce, the 2.14 billion hours of unpaid overtime worked per year is a $72 billion gift to employers and means that 6% of our economy depends on free labour.
  • Converting unpaid overtime into full time jobs would create 1.1 million new jobs
  • Unpaid overtime harms our health, our personal relationships, our communities and our workplaces

The work/life balance advocates would say not doing unpaid overtime as a regular part of the job is an important balancing technique.

The Australia Institute has provided SafetyAtWorkBlog with some statistics from the special day’s 20,000 registered participants which may illustrate some of the difficulties of achieving that work/life balance.

Over 55% of registered participants managed to leave work at the contracted time on 26 November 2009.  Of those who could not, almost 70% said they could not because they “had too much work to do”.

Of those who went home on time, these were the most common activities:

  • Spent time with family/played with kids
  • Exercised/went to the gym
  • Household jobs/chores
  • Caught up with friends
  • Walked the dog

Those who admitted to working unpaid overtime (1836) gave the following reasons

To get the work done

86.5%

Because my boss/employer expects it

28.8%

To help colleagues

23.1%

To ensure my job is safe/secure

21.6%

To demonstrate how hard I work

14.2%

Because everyone else does it

13.6%

There seems to be only one genuinely positive and collegiate reason, to help colleagues.  The others indicate job and personal insecurity, unreasonable workloads or bad time management on behalf of employees and employers.

The statistics are of mostly curiosity value but are further indications of the social structural problems that contribute to increased work mental health risks.  Of those who signed up but could not get away from work, a couple of reasons given were

  • Boss knew I was trying to go home on time and loaded me up.
  • Management laughed.
  • My Boss said I was not to say the words out loud.

These days are intended to raise awareness of specific issues in society and Go Home On Time Day is a worthwhile addition but as with Asbestos Awareness Week, at some point awareness must move to action.

Kevin Jones

Asbestos Awareness Week calls for action

During Asbestos Awareness Week 2009 in Melbourne Australia the trade union movement pledged to begin a national strategy to control and remove asbestos from Australia.  This would have been a very tall ask any time in the last two decades but Asbestos needs to compete now with Climate Change for the attention of the media, the decision makers and the heartstrings of the community.

It is accepted that in the near future more people will be touched directly and indirectly by asbestos-related diseases but, at the moment, the issue is concentrated in low-income industrial suburbs and, as such, is still dismissed by some (often in suburbs with large trees and no pubs) as a disease that only strikes the blue-collar smokers.  The social inequity of asbestos-related diseases should be studied in some depth as it is likely to shame governments into action on this hazard.

Jim Ward - Australian Workers Union

At a seminar in late November 2009, a small audience in the Victorian Trades Hall was told of the success of the Tasmanian campaign in gaining government support for the removal of all asbestos by 2030.  Jim Ward of the Australian Workers Union spoke of the approaches to Goliath Cement (“The James Hardie of Tasmania”). Ward told how the CEO of Goliath did not blink at the request to remove asbestos.  Ward said this type of response has been repeated throughout Tasmania.

The audience also heard from several who are at the frontlines of dealing with asbestos-related diseases.  Vicki Hamilton and Tim Tolhurst spoke of the frustration of having inadequate disposal facilities in regional areas of Victoria.  The challenge here is immense as the temptation to bury asbestos in the back paddock when no one’s around is strong even though it is selfish and immoral.  Vicki and Tim showed how a structured program across the community is required because one cannot encourage the removal of asbestos until there is a place to safely dispose of it.

Vicki Hamilton of GARDS

Pat Preston, ex-CFMEU and now with the Asbestos Contractors’ Group, spoke of the legislative and operational problems faced by licensed asbestos removal contractors.  The holes and conflicts all complicate the process of asbestos removal and disposal and increase the cost, particularly of asbestos removal.

Several speakers pointed to the anomaly that the removal of asbestos from domestic buildings of less than ten square does not required licensed removal, thereby “encouraging” small volumes of asbestos to be hidden at the bottom of domestic rubbish bins.  The OHS risks to waste collectors are not dissimilar to those who dispose of toxic and trade waste down the toilet next to the workshop when WorkSafe or the union is not around.

Of course the audience and speakers seem to all agree that there is no safe level of asbestos exposure.  There are certain to be those in Australia who are “asbestos-skeptics” and many seem to have the ear of the decision-makers.

One speaker provided a fresh perspective that was very appropriate but surprising for a couple of reasons.  Anthony La Montagne, of the University of Melbourne, has undertaken ongoing research on job stress, cancer clusters and, clearly, asbestos issues.  La Montagne provided the glum news that several promising medical techniques for early detection of asbestos have come to nought.  The only effective risk reduction technique is for those who may have been exposed to asbestos to quit smoking as this smoking appears to exacerbate asbestos-related disease.

Several speakers noted that in the Asbestos Awareness Week 2008, there was a motion to have the Government undertake action on asbestos.  The resulting inaction was embarrassing and motivating with participants committing themselves to continuing to lobby for controls on asbestos.  This is going to be a considerable challenge if they continue through the same lobby process that they have applied for the last few years.

Tom Tolhurst of ADSVIC

The asbestos safety advocates should drop “awareness” from the week’s title because awareness equates to “aspirational targets”, former Prime Minister John Howard’s way of promising much and delivering nothing.  Just as everyone accepts that smoking causes lung cancer and climate change exists, people know that asbestos can kill.  Move away from awareness-raising to action.

Research the social inequity of asbestos in low-income areas.  Many domestic houses have asbestos houses or in their roofs, particularly in low-income areas which are also the areas where asbestos workers live.  If the reality and scope of this situation was proven to a level and in a format that policy-makers accept, the asbestos control option would be much stronger.  Even if the government continued its inaction, a case could be put to the discrimination tribunals and human rights sector to shame the government to represent all citizens equally.

Market the asbestos week.  White, pink and striped ribbons are becoming a fundraising cliché but the marketing of social health issues works.  There must be a coordinated approach to getting sponsors and support into the promotion of asbestos-related diseases on a large scale.  Once there is serious money behind the issue, one can fund research and present data that convinces decision-makers of the reality of the issue.

Pat Preston of Asbestos Contractors' Group

Undertake a public health cost-benefit analysis of asbestos-related disease, as one speaker advocated at the Victorian Trade Hall.  There are many lessons from the compensation issues of James Hardie Industries but one is that compensation creates wealthy (for a short while) families of dead workers and can do little of health benefit to the mesothelioma sufferers.  It is surprising that the fact has not clicked in the government mind that compensation for asbestos-related diseases provides an important but only symptomatic relief.  The government is applying paracetamol to an issue that requires surgery.

The union seminar was heartening in that it showed how many people are actually tackling the issue of asbestos-related diseases.  But it also operated under a cloud of frustration with an occupational and public health risk that is not receiving the government support that other similar matters are.  Trade unions are a vital part of any plan to control asbestos but just as many people in the leafy suburbs are isolated from asbestos risks, so the audience for the asbestos message is limited by the message remaining within the trade union context.

Tony La Montagne of the University of Melbourne

There needs to be a creative approach to generating sufficient community outrage over the unnecessary deaths of workers from asbestos so that the government cannot avoid action.  The James Hardie legal action and the lobbying of Bernie Banton, and others, was about compensation, about making a company accept its social responsibility, about making it pay.  It worked, but James Hardie still cannot afford the compensation bill that is the reality of decades of profits from a toxic substance that kills.

In 2009 several Australian Governments have helped out this company by contributing $A320 million to the company’s compensation fund.  Why?  When did the government decide to cover the costs of a company’s exploitation of workers?  This is on top of having to fund the public hospitals that have to deal with mesothelioma victims.  The government, and the taxpayer, is paying twice!

Let the company fail and allow the class action lawyers to pick over the assets.  Or better yet, keep James Hardie Industries alive and bleed it just enough so that it can fund the removal of its toxic legacy for the next thirty years.

Every shareholder in James Hardie that receives their dividend cheques from whichever country James Hardie moves to next (Zimbabwe cannot be far off) needs to understand that those dividends could be used to ease the pain of the workers who generated the corporate profits rather than contribute to their own bloated share portfolios.

Kevin Jones

Grass Roots Safety

For over 40 years, the Australian State of Victoria has had several safety organisations that exist under the radar.  In the 1960s the Department of Labour & Industries supported the generation of safety groups but many groups simply appeared.

These groups are, what in contemporary times would be referred to as, networking groups.  The members were from a range of industries, often from a particularly industrial part of Melbourne of regional areas.  The groups met usually once a month sometimes in a factory canteen to talk about safety and to see if any members could suggestion solutions to particular problems.

One group, the Western Safety Group encompasses the western suburbs of Melbourne, a zone of concentrated manufacturing plants and one which includes a major zone of chemical production.  (In my youth I would try to catch lizards in the buffer zones around the plants)

A risk with any grass roots association is to reach a level of sustainability without becoming a commercial entity.  WSG and  the Central Safety Group have achieved this in different ways.  In each WSG meeting, which usually runs for around one hour during the day, there is a 10 to 15 minute window for sellers of new OHS products and services to sell their wares.  This is a pragmatic solution to the reality that an OHS network’s membership list could be lucrative.

The Central Safety Group has a different approach because it has developed a different character.  The CSG, of which I am a Life Member, has conducted its meetings in the centre of Melbourne and with the decline of manufacturing and industry in the city and inner suburbs, the membership has moved from an industrial to managerial approach.

CSG does not allow for the promotion of OHS services and products and is much the better for it.  Allowing commercialism into a community or networking group makes it a trade show or exhibition and defeats the purpose.

These two groups, and there are others, have had a fluid membership that has probably topped no more than about 80 members at a time but this is an advantage.  Members appreciate the face-to-face discussion.  Meetings have minimal formality and foster camaraderie even amongst industrial competitors.

Mostly the safety groups that have lasted have done so by maintaining an independence from the OHS regulator although most groups have at least one member who works with WorkSafe Victoria.  Although some of the groups have existed for decades, there is no mention of them on the WorkSafe website although WorkSafe has made several attempts to create a safety group directory and a meeting of Safety Group secretaries almost 10 years ago began discussions with WorkSafe to establish a single webpage listing.

The groups are also, largely, independent from the larger safety organisations although those safety organisations have made moves to support safety groups.  Moves that have been mostly rebuffed.

Over the last few year the Western and the Central Safety Groups have established websites (CSG’s will be functioning in December 2009) as the most efficient way to communicate with members in between the monthly meetings.

Such networking groups have huge advantages over professional associations who have such a broad range of issues to consider.  The safety group “model” talks about safety and funds itself from annual membership fees of much less than $A100 in most circumstances.

In some circumstance “small is beautiful”, welcoming, professionally satisfying and productive.  Victoria’s safety groups are a good example of groups of like-minded OHS professional helping each other out rather than trying to climb the greasy pole.

Kevin Jones

Safety awards and the new media option

In yesterday’s article on Kerrin Rowan, mention was made of how important local community support is.  A reader has drawn our attention to a front page article in the Plains Producer newspaper of 9 October 2008 (not available online)

It reminded us of the significance local newspapers have in the rewarding the achievements of local citizens and that the front page article, inversely, illustrates how almost all daily metropolitan newspapers ignore OHS and RTW award winners.  There seems to be no mention of Kerrin in the online site for The Adelaide Advertiser.

But then safety awards seem not to be newsworthy.  Daily newspapers seem to see safety awards as a marketing tool and throws them all in the PR basket, even those worthy of greater attention. Kerrin’s story is one of the few exceptional rehabilitation stories and yet even with this level of “human interest”, such a story is ignored.

The newspapers are happy to receive the advertising revenue for a half page ad inserted by the OHS regulator congratulating the award winners but no one in the newspaper publishers seems to see any newsworthiness in the award winners.

Perhaps it is time for the OHS regulators to give up trying for the attention of the traditional media and go Web 2.0 with blogs, Twitter and Youtube.  Although, SafetyAtWorkBlog would still be looking for the human interest.  Recently we did not report on some OHS award winners for OHS management systems, principally because it is difficult to describe explain such a system in an article.  What could be done is to report on the significance of the award for the winners but that does not assist readers with OHS solutions, one of the aims of our blog.

OHS people and blog readers like pictures and video.  They like to use the technological capacity of the internet in a combination that traditional media cannot match.  OHS regulators and award conveners could do more to support the newer media by a prompt turnaround in video or images from the awards night.  These are already produced before, or on, the awards nights but often take over a week, if at all, to be accessible to the media.  The new media and its readers want immediacy and immediacy allows the community to share in some of the exhilaration felt by the award winners.  Topicality is tenuous.

Some OHS awards have been running for over ten years but still gain no traction in the metropolitan newspapers.  Our advice is to embrace the new media and see where it leads.

Kevin Jones

Unpaid overtime is the new danger money

In Australia there is increasing pressure to work more hours than what one is paid for. Many different organisations use this fact to push for various improved benefits, in many circumstances the statistics are used in support of wage improvements.

But working beyond contracted hours will certainly affect one’s work/life balance as there are only so many hours in the day and if work dominates one’s life, family time or rest will be sacrificed. The imbalance leads to a range of negative psychological and social actions. An article in Wikipedia on working time summarises this.

“In contrast, a work week that is too long will result in more material goods at the cost of stress-related health problems as well as a “drought of leisure.”  Furthermore, children are likely to receive less attention from busy parents, and childrearing is likely to be subjectively worse.  The exact ways in which long work weeks affect culture, public health, and education are debated.”

Australia has yet to have the debate on the matter of working hours that has been seen in Europe and England but the issue exists very much in Australia, although it has yet to gain any traction.

According to a media report by the Australian Council of Trade Unions a new research report by the Australia Institute

“… found that each year, the average full-time Australian worker does 266.6 hours of unpaid overtime, or an extra six-and-a-half working weeks…. The think tank estimates that through unpaid overtime, workers are forgoing a total of $72.2 billion in wages or 6% of GDP.”

The Australian Institute report found the following

  • Forty-five per cent of all Australian workers, and more than half of all full-time employees, work more hours than they are paid for during a typical workday.
  • Unpaid overtime is more common among people who work a ‘standard’ business workday (that is, not shift work) and among white-collar workers.
  • Workplace culture is a dominant contributing factor, with 44 per cent of people who work unpaid overtime saying that it is ‘compulsory’ or ‘expected’ and another 43 per cent saying that it is ‘not expected, but also not discouraged’.
  • Across the workforce, the average employee works 49 minutes unpaid during a typical workday.
  • Full-time employees work 70 minutes of unpaid overtime on average, while parttime employees work 23 minutes.
  • Men work more unpaid overtime than women (63 minutes versus 36 minutes a day). Men with young children work a great deal more than women with young children (71 minutes compared with 30 minutes).
  • Unpaid overtime increases with income: people in low-income households work an average of 28 minutes of unpaid overtime a day compared with 61 minutes for people in high-income households.
  • When asked what would happen if they didn’t work unpaid overtime, most say that ‘the work wouldn’t get done’, suggesting that the demands placed on employees are too much for many people.
  • A majority of survey respondents who work additional hours said that if they didn’t work overtime they would spend more time with family, and many said that they would do more exercise.

The report clearly states that allowing “unpaid overtime” has a strong cost in social and individual health but there is an OHS perspective that over gets overlooked due to public health and industrial relations dominating the issue.

In a media statement from October 2009, as an example, Deloittes quoted some scientists, in support of a anti-sleep device, on statistics that have been bandied around for some time:

“…scientists equate fatigue to blood-alcohol levels: if a person has been awake for 18 hours, it’s the equivalent of having a .05 level of alcohol in their body; if they have been awake for 21 hours, it’s equivalent to a.08 level.”

There are several further examples on negative health impacts in the Australia Institute report.

It can be strongly argued that by allowing, or expecting, “unpaid overtime”, employers may be encouraging workers to travel home while impaired and that employers are creating a work/life imbalance by requiring “unpaid overtime”.   Certainly it could be argued that even during unpaid overtime, the cognitive function of the employee is less than expected, or even have the worker unfit for work.

Arguing about unpaid overtime clearly makes the debate one of money not safety or wellness or the social contract, and this is the argument’s inherent weakness.

Arguing for compensation for “unpaid overtime” is arguing for “danger money” – how much money will a worker accept in order to keep working into the unhealthy and dangerous hours beyond their regular contracted hours?  This type of argument disappeared almost twenty years ago in Australia when the Australian awards system was reformed to remove allowances in relation to working at heights, picking up roadkill, or working in excessive heat.   It was agreed that “danger money” was inappropriate and that OHS principles demanded the risks involved with these tasks be reduced rather than “paying workers” to place themselves at risk.

ACTU Secretary Jeff Lawrence, in his media statement in support of Go Home on Time Day, and The Australia Institute in its media statement on its report both underplay a major point in the debate on working hours when they argue in economic terms.  Lawrence says

“If the work demands are too much to complete in a normal working day, then employees should be paid for their extra hours, or their employer must hire more staff.”

The institute mentions wellness in passing but emphasises in its media release

“..the 2.14 billion hours of unpaid overtime worked per year is a $72 billion gift to employers and means that 6% of our economy depends on free labour.”

Employing more staff is preferable but removing the culture of unpaid overtime is far more important.   Arguing on the basis of economics, ie “being paid for their extra hours”, may expose the worker to greater risk of injury or illness at the workplace or on the way home.   Quality of life, work/life balance and personal health and safety are stronger arguments for “going home on time”, arguments supported by The Australia Institute and the Australian Greens.

Kevin Jones

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