evidence – Page 153 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Australian IR Minister mentions international OHS conventions action

Chris Evans, the Australian Minister for Workplace Relations issued a media statement on 28 April 2011 concerning the World Day for Safety and Health at Work. As well as some generalities about OHS harmonisation and government commitment, he said

“The Australian Government is also in the process of ratifying the ILO Asbestos Convention 1986 (convention 162) and the ILO Protocol of 2002 to the Occupational Health and Safety Convention 1981 (Protocol 155).

These ILO instruments will give Australians a world class OHS regime, by entrenching best practice in protecting our community from the harmful effects of asbestos and enhancing data collection and publication to support policy making and research.

“Australia has long been a member and supporter of the ILO in its efforts to promote safe work environments and raise the quality of labour and social standards throughout the world,” said Senator Evans.” [links added]

This seems a positive move but it is significant that no deadline for ratification is identified by Minister Evans. There are also a couple of obvious limitations or problems with these conventions and protocols. Continue reading “Australian IR Minister mentions international OHS conventions action”

Trade unions enter debate on profits vs safety

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has issued a media release aimed at addressing or countering some of the concerns over new OHS laws expressed by the business community and some politicians recently.

ACTU President Ged Kearney has said

“Attempts by employer groups to weaken the new regulations are yet another example of business putting profits before safety….. Employer groups called for a national set of health and safety laws, and we would have thought that business would welcome a tough approach to OHS regulations.”

Sympathy for business is unlikely from the union movement but some sympathy is warranted. Australian business was promised that new work health and safety laws would reduce the business costs of complying with laws that differed from across a number of jurisdictions. As companies begin to assess the impacts of new laws on their own business operations, as all companies surely must do, they are noticing additional costs for compliance. Continue reading “Trade unions enter debate on profits vs safety”

Beware OHS statistics quoted in media releases

On 6 April 2011, at the Safety In Action conference in Melbourne, the Safety Institute of Australia and the Australian Institute of Management released the findings of their 2011 Business Survey. The 2010 survey was discussed in an earlier blog article.

SafetyAtWorkBlog was allowed to see a version of the survey results prior to their public release next week but according to the media release of 6 April:

“More than 40 per cent (41%) of the occupational health and safety (OHS) personnel surveyed did not believe their organisation had a ‘well entrenched OHS culture.’ That view was shared by a quarter of human resources (HR) personnel and senior managers involved in the survey. In contrast, just 11 per cent of CEOs and Board members held that view.

Furthermore, almost half of OHS personnel (49%) who participated in the survey believed that efforts to minimise Continue reading “Beware OHS statistics quoted in media releases”

Operational Risk Management – a timeless book, sadly

For several years now Mark Abkowitz’s book “Operational Risk Management” has been sitting on my “to-read” shelf. Given my recent wish for a case study approach to leadership and given the Fukushima nuclear issues, the book caught my attention.

Books that analyse disasters are far superior to watching real-time disasters because the distress is minimised, the analysis can be dispassionate and time can provide a more detailed context. (The quickness of production of some of the books about the BP/Gulf of Mexico suffered from the curse of topicality) Books provide a distance that the constant exposure to “disaster porn” does not.

Operational Risk Management looks at many at many disasters from the last 30 years but the disasters are not only industrial and process disasters, although Chernobyl and Bhopal are covered. Continue reading “Operational Risk Management – a timeless book, sadly”

Managerial OHS walk-arounds and D&O liabilities

The latest edition of The National Research Centre for Occupational Health and Safety Regulation’s newsletter lists two new working papers, one from Andrew Hopkins and one from Neil Foster. Both should be obligatory reading.

Hopkins discusses how to increase the value of the “management walk-arounds” an increasingly common key performance indicator for senior executives. Hopkins, naturally, uses the Deep Water Horizon case as an illustration of the flaws in the process but walk-arounds should not only be for large projects.

Hopkins shows that the VIPs had an inadequate understanding of safety. They identified the slips, trips and falls hazards rather than asking questions about the potential major hazards of the facility. This is a common trap for managers and safety professionals, for those with suitable OHS skills, and one that needs to be actively countered. Continue reading “Managerial OHS walk-arounds and D&O liabilities”

Rotting fish, safety leadership and wizards

In business, government and public authorities, CEOs and executives regularly resign during periods of controversy. Within the 24 hours of each other in 2010 two prominent Australian executives resigned – Brian Waldron and Russell Rees. Waldron because the rugby league team, Melbourne Storm, his previous CEO appointment, was found to have operated unethically during his time at the top. Rees resigned because, he said it is the right time to leave, however there had been serious questions put in a Royal Commission about his handling of the events in Black Saturday bushfires when over 170 people died.

The dominant mantra in occupational safety management is that safety cannot be improved without leadership from the executives. Australian safety conferences are laden with mentions of leadership. Leaders have the potential to inspire, although some stay on for too long.

The leadership sellers in the corporate marketplace (some not dissimilar to wizards) are all pushing the positive benefits of leadership. But there are good leaders and bad leaders. There are inspirational leaders and there are selfish leaders. There are those executives who lead in positive directions and there are those who lead organisations and others astray. There are some people who are not suited to being leaders at all. Continue reading “Rotting fish, safety leadership and wizards”

The How, How likely and How much of workplace safety

I return to the observation Ken made in his article, the obs about the most successful safety places where

“…safety is driven at the shop floor level and led by a committed team of senior executives who can be relied upon to show it by their actions and not just words.”

Of course, at first blush this is about ownership, commitment etc. But I get the impression that it’s something even more fundamental and that’s about pragmatism.

I’m not sure OHS-World is so good at How, How likely and How much: the things that I’d suggest cut-to-the-chase on defining pragmatism.

In contrast, we seem to get all caught up in What and Why as if that is enough to motivate good safety performance. What manifests itself as interminable reports of all the horrible safety failures and the injuries that accompany them. For mine, the only What in this context is a What that matters to the punter. Did something go wrong in a way and situation that is completely relevant to the punter, so it can be used to look for similar potential at the punter’s place? The Why I’m referring to is why a punter should fix stuff, specifically in the context of fixing stuff ’cause it’s the right thing to do or ’cause ya can get busted. Continue reading “The How, How likely and How much of workplace safety”

Category: evidence

Australian IR Minister mentions international OHS conventions action

Like this:

Trade unions enter debate on profits vs safety

Like this:

Beware OHS statistics quoted in media releases

Like this:

Operational Risk Management – a timeless book, sadly

Like this:

Managerial OHS walk-arounds and D&O liabilities

Like this:

Rotting fish, safety leadership and wizards

Like this:

The How, How likely and How much of workplace safety

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: