executives – Page 42 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Serious questions raised about the effectiveness of OHS enforcement strategies

Richard Johnstone is always worth reading as he writes perceptively about occupational health and safety (OHS) and its enforcement. The new book from Baywood Publishing “Safety or Profit” provides a chapter by Johnstone that argues:

“…that despite the rhetoric of stronger enforcement and more robust prosecution, the dominant ideology of work health and safety enforcement – ambivalence about whether work health and safety offenses are “really criminal” and viewing prosecution as a “last resort” in the enforcement armory – still dominates the approach of Australian work health and safety regulators.” (page 113)

The importance of Johnstone’s chapter is that he reminds us that much of the current OHS debate is circular and limited and fails to question the soft enforcement strategy that has existed since the

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Moral conflicts in store for Australian politicians and bureaucrats

iStock_000016528694XSmall 2014 is going to present tough challenges to Australia’s politicians and corporate leaders. The Royal Commission into the Home Insulation Program, in particular, is going to illustrate and perhaps generate ideological conflict.

The Home Insulation Program (HIP) was established quickly to address a looming economic crisis. Politicians and business leaders wanted Australia to avoid the global recession and they needed creative solutions. Various importance governance and safety elements appear to have been sacrificed to achieve the economic ends. In 2014, the politicians of the time and bureaucrats will be grilled over why they made these decisions. Various inquiries have already identified that these decisions contributed to the deaths of four young workers. In 2014, these decision- and policy-makers will be held to account for the fatal consequences of their economic decisions.

There has long been a conflict between the pursuit of profit and the pursuit of safe working conditions. The Royal Commission, and the surrounding debate, is likely to place this conflict squarely in the highest levels of Australia’s government and public service. Below are some of the issues that the Australian government and business sector are likely to face in 2014. Continue reading “Moral conflicts in store for Australian politicians and bureaucrats”

Canberra gets its first Industrial Magistrate for OHS matters

The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) has named Chief Magistrate Lorraine Walker as its first industrial magistrate. The establishment of an industrial court in the ACT stems from the government accepting the recommendations of the Getting Home Safely report which in turn was a response to a spike in workplace fatalities in 2012.

Walker is unknown outside of the ACT but the best introduction to her is probably through a long interview she gave in February 2012 to ABC radio in Canberra. Occupational health and safety specifically was not on Walker’s radar at the time of the interview but it may be useful to note her comments on sentencing and how this should reflect, or consider, community expectations. Walker also discusses the importance of the preventive and educative role that penalties can have. How this perspective applies under the recent Work Health and Safety laws will be worth watching.

Kevin Jones

Safety in the C Suite doesn’t always run smoothly

It is rare for workplace safety to gain a half-page in the daily press in Australia but this occurred recently in The Australian. The newspaper’s industrial editor, Ewin Hannan, built an article, “Tunnel Vision on Safety“, around the following quote from a leaked memo from 2010 then head of human resources, industrial relations and safety for John Holland, Stephen Sasse, in relation to the management of the Airport Link project:

“‘‘In my seven years with John Holland, I have never seen any project or management team that was so cavalier about the company’s OHS (occupational health and safety) system, principles and values and I have grave doubts about the management’s team’s capability in safety.’”

This is a remarkable statement but Sasse has been outspoken on safety issues in the general construction sector before. In 2011 a change in the senior management of Leighton Holdings, the parent company of John Holland, created doubt about Sasse’s future and Sasse left the organisation in October 2011. The latter articles also indicate Sasse’s relationship with the union movement which may be part of the reason the unions are repeating their calls for an inquiry into John Holland and its licence with Comcare. SafetyAtWorkBlog has several articles about these industrial relations tensions from 2009. Continue reading “Safety in the C Suite doesn’t always run smoothly”

Lovely chair that helps greatly but is only part of the solution

A diagram of safe posture at modern workstations has become iconic but it has also become a symbol of ergonomic misunderstanding. There are assumptions behind the angular figure about the way modern workers work, the equipment used and the tasks undertaken.

Too often images, such as the one included here, are taken out of context. The image is used as a shortcut to what is considered the “correct” way to sit. The context, the risk assessments, the tasks undertaken, the location of the workstation – basically all of the OHS information included in the workplace safety guides is ignored. People think “the picture has a tick of approval, so why read when the picture says enough”?

This week Steelcase, a one hundred year old company that originally constructed waste paper baskets, launched its Gesture chair. The marketing of this chair is based on the discovery (?) of nine new postures in the workplace:

Continue reading “Lovely chair that helps greatly but is only part of the solution”

Workplace bullying can exist in the boardroom

A most curious article about workplace bullying appeared in the Australian Financial Review (AFR) on 11 September 2013. In discussing recent changes to Australia’s Fair Work Act Nick Ruskin of K&L Gates wrote about the broad definition of workplace bullying to be applied:

“…the intriguing thing is that worker is very broadly defined. Its definition, reliant on the Workplace Health & Safety Act 2011, is so wide it could even include the director of a corporation.

In other words, non-executive directors of corporations will have the same ability as a traditional worker to take a bullying grievance to the Fair Work Commission.

We could see a situation in which a company director alleges they have been bullied by another director and seeks early intervention from the Commission.” (emphasis added)

Continue reading “Workplace bullying can exist in the boardroom”

CSIRO bullying case shows the complexity of the issue for all of us

For some time the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has been plagued with accusations of bullying and harassment. A researcher began court action in 2011. An anonymous website “Victims of CSIRO” was established in 2012 and provides a timeline of disgruntlement for back as far as 2002. In May 2012, Liberal politician Sophie Mirabella, raised the issue of bullying in criticism of the then Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. In July 2012, Comcare issued an Improvement Notice to CSIRO following an investigation

”thoroughly reviewing the workplace systems relating to the prevention and management of bullying behaviour at CSIRO”.

In September 2012, CSIRO whistleblowers spoke of bullying. The CSIRO Staff Association reported anecdotal evidence of increased bullying and harassment in late 2012.

In August 2013 HWL Ebsworth released the independent report (the Pearce report) which, according to the CSIRO, found

“no major or widespread issues with unreasonable behaviour or bullying in CSIRO”.

How does that work? Continue reading “CSIRO bullying case shows the complexity of the issue for all of us”

Category: executives

Serious questions raised about the effectiveness of OHS enforcement strategies

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Moral conflicts in store for Australian politicians and bureaucrats

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Canberra gets its first Industrial Magistrate for OHS matters

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Safety in the C Suite doesn’t always run smoothly

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Lovely chair that helps greatly but is only part of the solution

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Workplace bullying can exist in the boardroom

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CSIRO bullying case shows the complexity of the issue for all of us

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