Many Australians expressed concerns over the potential workplace health and safety impacts of various free trade agreements Australia has entered into over the last few years. Those concerns may be starting to manifest if a report in The Age newspaper on 4 June 2016 is correct. Continue reading “OHS training in strife again”
Category: construction
Breakfast seminar provides OHS tidbits
In May 2016, the Safety Institute of Australia (SIA) and Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) held their annual safety breakfast. The speakers were the usual blend of WorkSafe representative, SIA, Herbert Smith Freehills and remuneration survey results but there is always bits of useful information for the old hands and a lot of information for new entrants in the occupational health and safety profession. Continue reading “Breakfast seminar provides OHS tidbits”
Safety footwear needs more safety research
Safety footwear is a standard item of personal protective equipment (PPE) in many workplaces but it can be contentious.
The need for safety footwear
Some years ago I was asked to assess the need for safety footwear in a large manufacturing site. The need was obvious, there was a lot of manual handling of cumbersome objects and the factory was old so the design and layout was based on the lifting and moving of objects rather than a flow of production.
The company wanted this need verified as one of the office staff, clearly of some influence, would enter the factory in high heels and refused to wear safety footwear. This was a clear breach of the company’s safety policies and was causing unrest in the factory. The safety solution was clear
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Trade unions temper language on ABCC safety role
The politics of industrial relations will be a crucial element of Australia’s Federal election due later this year. The Federal Government has already used workplace safety as a reason for the reintroduction of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC). The trade union movement’s latest response is a campaign launched on April 10, 2016 accompanied by an online video. Continue reading “Trade unions temper language on ABCC safety role”
Australia’s ABCC argument is not about safety
Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is on a pathway to an election. On March 21 2016, the Prime Minister wrote to the Governor-General to continue a convoluted process sparked by the Senate’s refusal to pass laws that will allow the reintroduction of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC). One of the justifications for the need to pass the laws is to improve workplace safety, as in the excerpt below for the Prime Minsiter’s letter. This position is unjustified.
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Safety is the first agenda item but the last consideration
It is a common business activity to include Safety as an agenda item in all meetings. This is intended to show that a company sees Safety as an integral component of all business decisions. But such an action can also be used to dismiss Safety by those who do not see it as related to production or the production program.
Some years ago I was an occupational health and safety (OHS) adviser for a client on a construction project. The project had Safety as the first item of business on the weekly progress meeting. I was invited to attend and contribute. The Project Manager opened the meeting, asked if anyone had a “Safety Share”, and then advised that the project had had no incidents in the previous week.
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Master Builders keeping up with tech changes in safety
On February 2016, the New South Wales division of the Master Builders of Australia (MBANSW) launched a new mobile app that applies augmented reality (AR) to access safety information related to construction sites. The software has the capacity to access safety information in the form of videos, text, documents and internet links that can put occupational health and safety (OHS) information into the hands of workers.
There is great potential in this software application and the MBANSW should be acknowledged for supporting a technology that is still in its early development but offers an additional way of accessing important occupational health and safety information at the place where may be most needed – in the hands of workers.
But the app is not the answer to everything and, thankfully, MBANSW never claimed it was. There are technical and organisational limitations to the app but it is a very good start.
Continue reading “Master Builders keeping up with tech changes in safety”