ethics – Page 49 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Principled pragmatism – Human Rights included in OHS Due Diligence

On 16 August 2012, Australia’s Workplace Relations Minister, Bill Shorten, said in Parliament, in relation to new asbestos management initiatives, that”

“On 14 March this year, in my first ministerial statement on workplace health and safety in this place, I said that every Australian who goes to work should return home safely. I know both sides of the House endorse this universal human right and today I reaffirm our commitment to this principle…” (page 13, Hansard. emphasis added)

It is very common to hear safety professionals and company executives echo the statement that workers should return home in an uninjured state. But few would be aware or, perhaps, agree that this is a human rights statement.

Following an earlier blog post, one reader has pointed us to the United Nations Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights that were released in 2011. According to the author, John Ruggie, these principles:

“… highlight what steps States should take to foster business respect for human rights; provide a blueprint for companies to know and show that they respect human rights, and reduce the risk of causing or contributing to human rights harm; and constitute a set of benchmarks for stakeholders to assess business respect for human rights. Continue reading “Principled pragmatism – Human Rights included in OHS Due Diligence”

Is safe work a basic, or fundamental, human right?

Early this century, according to a draft conference paper* in the SafetyAtWorkBlog archives, the late Eric Wigglesworth OAM posed the following question:

“In addition to our basic human rights of freedom of speech and freedom of religion, should there also be freedom from injury as a basic human right?”

The expectation of a safe and healthy work environment and a workplace without risk is often expressed as a human right, but is OHS a “human right” and what does it mean?

According to one website

“on June 29, 2008, the XVIII World Congress on Safety and Health at Work signed the Seoul Declaration on Safety and Health at Work.”

According to the International Labour Organisation

“…the Declaration also emphasizes that the right to a safe and healthy working environment should be recognized as a fundamental human right.”

The Seoul Declaration mentions human rights only in passing but the reference exists. It is one thing to make a statement and to do so on a global platform but to make this applicable at specific industrial or national levels seems different.

Where do workers and managers learn about respect?

The origins of workplace bullying behaviour seem many. One of the issues to, hopefully, emerge from Australia’s inquiry into workplace bullying is how to prevent and minimise bullying, but to do so, one will need to identify the causes. And these causes need to be more than an amorphous, unhelpful concept like “workplace culture”.

David Yamadamake this comment in his blog, “Minding the Workplace“, about a recent article in a New York Times blog (gosh, social media feeds social media. What’s a newspaper, Daddy?):

“Doctors and lawyers in training may have no idea how to conduct themselves as practitioners, other than being influenced by a lot of unfortunate “role models” on television. If we want to prevent workplace bullying, the training schools for these professions are the first and perhaps best places to start.”

This point links thematically to several recent SafetyAtWorkBlog articles about defining a safety profession, moving from a practice to a profession, workplace culture and workplace bullying. Continue reading “Where do workers and managers learn about respect?”

Vulnerability and arrogance

“How can this be allowed to happen nowadays?” the distressed wife of a seriously injured worker asked me recently. Her husband was sitting next to her, his eyes still victims of the recent terror that nearly killed him. She saw that and struggled to join him in his very dark and personal space. This now would become a life time job for her.

This meeting captured for me one of the most fundamental factors at most workplaces. That workers’ most common feeling at work is that of vulnerability. Of course many workers find comfort and pride in their job. Of course it feeds them and their families. Of course it can provide personal identity and purpose. And of course there are many managers who understand all this.

But it’s also true that much too often this is not the case. That’s one reason why when suddenly factories or mines close, or car manufacturers ‘shed’ 200 workers, or car part factories go bust workers are not only shocked, but it substantiates their sense of vulnerability, “What a shock, I thought they loved us!”

Not only is this painfully evident when a negligently poor H&S standard results in crippling a worker for life, but is typically present on a daily basis. Permanent fear of job loss results. The fact that a worker can be disciplined or sacked for a number of events that can be defined and redefined by creative managers feeds that feeling. That’s another reason why so much bullying and humiliation occur and so much stress is experienced. Continue reading “Vulnerability and arrogance”

Through Wilful Blindness I begin to see

Put your hand over your ears and start saying La La La La La La La. That is willful blindness (or, technically,deafness, but let’s not quibble).

Margaret Heffernan, author of a new paperback edition of “Wilful Blindness – Why we ignore the obvious at our peril“, discovered wilful blindness while researching the trial of the Enron executives. Heffernan says that

“Judge [Simeon] Lake was applying the legal principle of wilful blindness: you are responsible if you could have known, and should have known, something which instead you strove not to see.” (page 1)

Heffernan’s book is not simply a new book on business management. Heffernan acknowledges that wilful blindness is not limited to a workplace, person or management theory. She also says wilful blindness is not always a negative. It is this breadth of approach to the topic that increases the worthiness of her book. Continue reading “Through Wilful Blindness I begin to see”

NSW inquiry into workers’ compensation illustrates short-termism

UnionsNSW are campaigning strongly on OHS issues during an inquiry by Joint Select Committee on the NSW Workers’ Compensation Scheme into workers compensation. They make the point that a focus on the reduction of injury is the most effective way of rendering a workers compensation scheme “profitable”. By neglecting worker safety, injuries increase and there is a higher demand on compensation and rehabilitation resources.

A major concern in the campaign is that the government is focussing on reducing costs and, in workers’ compensation schemes, that often results in fewer resources for injured workers and their families.

Tim Ayres, Secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, was quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald:

“If NSW employers want to save money on workers’ comp premiums, they should focus on reducing their premiums by providing safer workplaces where workers don’t get injured and killed.”

But a draft submission, seen by SafetyAtWorkBlog, by the International Governance and Performance Research Centre (IGPRC) of Macquarie University provides some balance into the rhetoric. Continue reading “NSW inquiry into workers’ compensation illustrates short-termism”

Where are the safety profession thinkers?

The most successful safety management improvements come from a multi-disciplinary approach. The biggest leaps in safety management have come not from the established safety academic profession of engineering but from those outside that discipline – sociologists (Andrew Hopkins) , psychologists (James Reason) and, increasingly, philosophers.

Recently philosopher Alain de Botton was interviewed in the Australian magazine, Dumbo Feather (issue 30, 2012). When asked whether the discussion of philosophical ideas exists in popular space, he said:

“I care about a mass audience because I somehow believe that the mass is right. I believe in a democratic sense that if you’re not reaching a broad number of people with your ideas, that there’s probably something wrong with your ideas. It might not be everything that’ wrong with them, but something presentational or structural. We live in very open societies, where if your message is a good one it should be able to get out there.

So when the typical academic says, ‘Well, you know, I don’t want to be open to popular scrutiny’ or, ‘I’m not interested in discussing my material with just anyone’, my response is ‘Well, why?’ What is it about your field of study that makes it inevitably beyond a broader public acceptance or recognition or discussion?”

de Botton is not talking about safety, per se, but he is talking about the communication of ideas and communication, or consultation, is a crucial element of successful safety management.

Why is it that the most useful and interesting perspectives on workplace safety are coming from non-traditional safety disciplines?

Kevin Jones

Category: ethics

Principled pragmatism – Human Rights included in OHS Due Diligence

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Is safe work a basic, or fundamental, human right?

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Where do workers and managers learn about respect?

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Vulnerability and arrogance

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Through Wilful Blindness I begin to see

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NSW inquiry into workers’ compensation illustrates short-termism

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Where are the safety profession thinkers?

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