2020 will be the fiftieth anniversary of the collapse of the West Gate Bridge which resulted in, amongst others, the deaths of 35 workers, changed Victoria’s approach to occupational health and safety (OHS), instigated a Royal Commission into the disaster, strengthened trade union influence and established an industrial antagonism to the John Holland group of businesses that continues today.
Last week,
Conversations about occupational health and safety (ohs) occur very rarely unless you are an educator who talks about this stuff every day. We manage health and safety and advise on it but rarely get a chance just to talk about safety with peers. This is where documents like the recent transcripts of Australia’s Senate inquiry into industrial deaths can be helpful. For instance Andrea Madeley said this on August 29 2018 in Adelaide:
“I do not think that the Robens model of work health and safety was ever based on anything beyond encouragement. It was a model designed to lift and encourage employers, not to enforce laws, and we see that today, still. The guiding principles, even today, on enforcing work health and safety laws really are more about encouraging and educating. I don’t have a problem with that as long as we’re not treating the people that are suffering in the process like outcasts. Their loss is virtually ignored unless you happen to be a financial dependant.”
Given that it occurred almost fifty years ago, it is easy to forget the times in which Lord Robens issued his report into the management of workplace health and safety. It was controversial in its day and the Australian iterations of his OHS principles were similarly opposed when they were introduced in the 1980s.
The trade union push for Industrial Manslaughter laws in Australia continues as the various State and Federal elections loom. Last week the Senate Inquiry into Industrial Deaths heard the clearest explanation of the need for these laws for some time as Dr Paul Sutton of the Victorian Trades Hall Council went beyond the usual chants of “what do we want? when do we want it?”
Sutton’s proposal for the Victorian laws differs from Queensland’s by taking inspiration from England to pierce the corporate veil to the senior manager level rather than leaving it at the top executive level.
This week in Australia, the Senate Education and Employment References Committee inquiry into industrial deaths conducts public hearings in three States in three days. Transcripts will be available shortly but it is worth looking at the record of the last public hearing from August 7 2018 to see the type of questions the panel are asking and how some of Australia’s business and occupational health and safety organisations are responding.
Mark Goodsell of the Australian Industry Group (AiGroup) seemed to struggle at times but this may have been partly due to his choice not to repeat the content of the AiGroup submission and instead comment on some of the other submissions. Goodsell points out:
“We made the point in our submission, and a number of the other submissions also made the point, that industrial deaths have decreased in absolute terms in Australia over the last decade or so. As a proportion of the workforce, that’s a broad pattern across all states and most industries—in fact, all industries but not all to the same degree. That’s not widely acknowledged in a lot of the submissions. It is in the employers’ submissions but most of the other submissions appear to either not acknowledge that or just jump over that.” (pages 36 & 37)
This Senate Committee is looking at industrial deaths so the focus on fatalities is understandable.
Last time we looked at the Australian Senate Inquiry into “The framework surrounding the prevention, investigation and prosecution of industrial deaths in Australia“, various submissions were considered. The Inquiry is continuing to hold public hearings, the most recent of these provided an opportunity for relatives of deceased workers to present their arguments. It is an enlightening insight into a pain that few of us will face but also into the struggles of many to effectively enforce workplace health and safety with, and without, Industrial Manslaughter laws.
The first couple at the 17 July 2018 hearing was Michael and Lee Garrels, the parents of 20-year-old
In November 2016, 53-year old Paula Schubert hanged herself. On July 25 2018 the Northern Territory Coroner Greg Cavanagh described the behaviour of managers at her employer, the Norther Territory Department of Children and Families/Territory Families as bullying.
The full Coronial Findings are an important read for any organisation to understand how managerial activities and attitudes can negatively affect workers.
The Australian trade union movement is confident that Industrial Manslaughter laws will be introduced in each Australian State and Territory over the next few years. Recently the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Law Report program looked at these laws and their discussion in the current Senate Inquiry into “The framework surrounding the prevention, investigation and prosecution of industrial deaths in Australia“.
Much of the radio program contains a general discussion about workplace fatalities with agreement that the long term trend in workplace fatalities is downwards. But no one seems to know the reason for this trend.