Category: culture

OHS is in sports but by another name

After writing a recent article about the relevance of occupational health and safety (OHS) laws to sporting clubs, I attended a sports medicine seminar to access a different perspective on workplace safety.

2015-09-21 18.43.15Having never played sports outside the obligatory high school activities, which in my high school also included snooker?!, the world of locker rooms and team sports is foreign.  But earlier this week I learnt that where OHS professionals talk about productivity, sportspeople speak of performance, and where factories address line speed, sports physicians talk of load management.  I also learnt that professional sportspeople are exempt from workers’ compensation.

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Death from a well-known hazard – culture is only part of the answer

Cover of cif-cole-cb-20150911A coronial finding in Queensland in September 2015 illustrates how daily activities can lead to tragedy but also the role of safety culture.

According to one media report, in investigating the 2009 death of 24-year-old Cameron Cole who was hit as a pipe rack fell from a truck, the Queensland Coroner, Terry Ryan, found that

“…the semi-trailer had been over packed, not properly secured and there was no exclusion zone around the vehicle when the load was being released.”

From this event the Coroner makes many recommendations about the safety management of work practices at that time.  Many of these reflect common work practices that exist to this day on many Australian worksites.

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Yoga and yoghurt – corporate wellbeing

Professional organisations need to maintain personal contact between members and stakeholders even when social media allows for almost constant contact. Such events benefit from having thoughts challenged and recently one such event in Melbourne, Australia challenged its audience about psychological health and wellbeing.

A recent NSCA Foundation event heard from Andrew Douglas, one of the few workplace relations lawyers who can bridge the law and the real world.  He began by describing wellness or wellbeing in a fresh context.

“Wellbeing is that equilibrium that is achieved between challenge and resources.”

This perspective addresses business operations and personnel management as challenges – situations that arise that need controlling or managing.  This is a useful perspective as long as people feel up to the challenge and are not defeatist.

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Quad bike safety discussion is maturing

New research into quad bike safety by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) shows increasing maturity in the discussions on the safety of quad bikes and farms. According to a 2 September report on Australian ABC radio, more attention is now needed for quadbike rider’s actions, workplace conditions and choices.

The attention on the suitability and design of quad bikes has dominated the safety debate over the last few years.  There is no doubt that the design of quadbikes could have been made safer, or that new vehicle models offer better stability or that Operator Protection Devices (OPDs) offer a safety improvement.

The focus on riders has been almost exclusively about “active riding” techniques and the use and suitability of personal protective equipment, such as helmets. Continue reading “Quad bike safety discussion is maturing”

Old school OHS in mining

Cover of RP_SeriousInjuryReportMINING2015In August 2015, Western Australia’s Department of Mines & Petroleum (DMP) released a statistical analysis that seems to do little more than confirm what is already known.  It is important to validate data but the mining sector often promotes itself as leading in occupational health and safety (OHS) but this report seems dull and dated. Continue reading “Old school OHS in mining”

OHS and the politics of fear

Occupational health and safety (OHS) cannot exist outside social, economic and political contexts. Some OHS professionals try to convince themselves that OHS is a special case but to do so ignores the components of change that need to be addressed in order to improve workplace safety. There are parallels between OHS and contemporary political thought.

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