Category: executives

Election failure, missed opportunities on bullying

Within the last week, Victoria’s State Premier, John Brumby, lost an election allowing the conservative parties in the Australian State to gain power, narrowly, after over a decade in isolation.  Election pledges are now only of historic interest but let’s look at a couple.

The crime of workplace bullying

According to the Australian Financial Review on 2 November 2010 (not available without subscription), John Brumby pledged to have a legal review into the “creation of the offence of bullying under the Crimes Act”.  The Victorian Chamber of Commerce & Industry‘s (VECCI) Steven Wojtkiw opposed the pledge because existing OHS laws were sufficient.  Taking the election context away for a moment indicates a  challenge for those anti-bullying advocates.  Wojtkiw is quoted as saying

“To introduce a greater level of legislative prescription in the area may only add to the increasing complexities already being confronted by employers in managing a modern workplace.”

It could be argued that if industry had already introduced an appropriate approach to reducing the likelihood of bullying in the workplace John Brumby would never have felt the need to make such a pledge.  In many cases, anti-regulation laissez-faire business lobbyists could reduce the “insidious elements of the nanny state” by doing right by their workforce in the first place.

Bullying and harmonisation

Michael Tooma of Norton Rose is quoted in the same article but Tooma uses Brumby’s pledge as an example of another but different nail in the coffin of Federal OHS reform.   Continue reading “Election failure, missed opportunities on bullying”

Do budget cuts equal cuts in safety enforcement?

There are several issues in the United Kingdom at the moment that could affect workplace safety, not including Lord Young’s OHS review.

Great Britain is to undergo enormous funding cuts to most of the civil service.  The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) is to have its budget cut by 35% according to the Trades Union Congress (TUC).

Another issue is that a TUC survey has found:

“Almost half (49%) of safety representatives said that as far as they know, a health and safety inspector has never inspected their workplace…”

The TUC says that the same survey indicates that the threat of inspection is a major motivator to OHS improvements.  In a media release on 1 November 2010 TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said:
“Knowing that an inspector is likely to visit is one of the key drivers to changing employers’ behaviour and making the workplace safer and healthier.  It is a scandal that nearly half of workplaces in the UK have never been visited by a health and safety inspector.”
And those inspectors are most likely to come from the HSE .  Data from the HSE shows that the number of enforcement notices has hovered around 10,000 each year for the last decade.  The number of prosecutions over that time have steadily declined.
What is really required is the number of the inspections undertaken by the HSE but this information is not included in the latest annual statistics.
If safety improvements are made in businesses due to the threat of an OHS inspection by a regulators, how does the HSE plan to keep the pressure on when it will lose over a third of its budget? Continue reading “Do budget cuts equal cuts in safety enforcement?”

Australian OHS expert in advisory role on Gulf oil spill

Australian Professor Andrew Hopkins is currently in the United States advising the Chemical Safety Board in its investigation of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Several months ago it was rumoured that Hopkins would be part of the Commission of Inquiry, a rumour quickly denied by Hopkins and others.

According to a media release from FutureMedia, Hopkins will

“…spend several months working at the Board’s office in Denver as well as interviewing company managers in both the US and in London, where BP is headquartered.”

Hopkins has been interviewed by many media outlets in relation to the Gulf Oil Spill and BP’s safety culture due to his investigation of the Texas Oil Refinery explosion at a BP facility in 2005.  Continue reading “Australian OHS expert in advisory role on Gulf oil spill”

Australian business is outraged over OHS changes but is it all piss and wind?

Australian business groups have written an open letter to the New South Wales Government protesting about the decision to continue with some OHS processes specific to New South Wales regardless of previous commitments to support the harmonisation of OHS laws.  As the letter was published as an advertisement  (Page 6 of  The Australian on 20 October 2010), it is not readily available online but the letter needs a little bit of deconstruction to better understand the politics and ideologies behind the letter and the business associations.

The letter says Australian industry signed on to the national harmonisation process because of the need for an effective way of improving safety, fair legal processes and national consistency.  Yes, to some extent but more often industry groups have been calling for a reduction of red tape for the purpose of reducing administrative costs.  Reducing the injuries and fatalities of workers is not the same as “improving the safety of Australia’s workplaces”.

The ideological gap is shown in the argument against the national imposition of “reverse onus of proof”.  The letter uses Victoria as an example of a jurisdiction without the reverse onus of proof and says

“Victoria, which was used as the model for the new national laws and which does not have union prosecutions or reverse onus, has between 30% and 50% better safety outcomes than NSW depending on the measurement used“. (my emphasis)

What is a “better safety outcome”?  Less deaths?  Less cost to business?  Is it fair to compare NSW to Victoria?  And can the variation in “safety outcomes” be directly related to reverse onus of proof?   Continue reading “Australian business is outraged over OHS changes but is it all piss and wind?”

Harmonious fragility or fragile harmony – OHS and politics in Australia

Less than 24 hours after mentioning the fragility of Australia’s OHS harmonisation process, confirmation comes from an unexpected source, Kristina Keneally, Premier of New South Wales (pictured right).  It would seem that Keneally’s decision to change her stance on OHS is more to do with a general package of industrial relations and, union-friendly, reforms, as reported in the Brisbane Times on 14 October 2010  (video available HERE). Yet she has stated that

“”We will not therefore introduce the model OHS legislation as it is currently drafted.”

The media has been quick of highlighting this new tension between State and Federal agendas.  Prime Minister Julia Gillard was asked about Keneally’s statements and responded:

“….I think the Keneally Government should honour the agreement it made. It had an extensive period of time to raise issues of concern – and indeed it did, through its Minister at the Workplace Relations Ministerial Council table. Issues were raised, issues were discussed. When you are reaching uniform laws, it is obvious that states and territories come with different perspectives. They’ve got their own laws. If no-one moves then you never get national uniformity.

So, yes, New South Wales raised issues along the way, but it accepted the outcomes and it signed the deal. We require the deal to be delivered.” Continue reading “Harmonious fragility or fragile harmony – OHS and politics in Australia”

UK case exposes the hypocrisy of leadership commitment

Most safety professionals can tell stories about how workplace injuries are hidden so that bonuses or rewards are still distributed even though they are not warranted.  Most of these examples are at the shop-floor level where rewards, although much anticipated, are minor – first aid kits, movie tickets, sometimes money – and where peer pressure can be quite overpowering.  But occasionally a situation is revealed where senior executives also rort the system in order to obtain a reward or a bonus.  In September 2010, the UK union Unite has revealed just such a case in Network Rail, a case where the chairman has acknowledged that greed played a role. Continue reading “UK case exposes the hypocrisy of leadership commitment”

Tooma takes aim at the Environment Minister over accountability

Participants at the 2010 Safety In Action conference and the 2010 ASSE Conference will be familiar with lawyer, Michael Tooma‘s faith in due diligence to improve safety management in Australia.  In the lead-up to his appearance at another Australian OHS conference in October 2010 he has again restated his faith but this largely ignores the changed political context of OHS harmonisation on which the new Work Health and Safety laws are based.

I have mentioned Australia’s current peculiar political position elsewhere.  The uncertainty of Federal politics overlaps and could greatly affect the OHS harmonisation process, or rather, its application.  It seems even more likely that the Labour Governments in Queensland and New South Wales will fall at their next State elections rendering the fast becoming an ideal of OHS harmonisation dead.

Tooma (pictured right) makes no mention of the changed political reality in a recent media release concerning his upcoming conference appearance although he is willing to take a pot shot at the Federal Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, over the lack of accountability over the deaths, fires and injuries that resulted from the botched home insulation scheme. Continue reading “Tooma takes aim at the Environment Minister over accountability”

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