New South Wales recently ran its annual roundtable for the agriculture sector, focusing on workplace health and safety. A joint media release from the Ministers for Agriculture and Work Health and Safety, Tara Moriarty and Sophie Cotsis, respectively, acknowledged that: “Agriculture remains one of Australia’s most dangerous industries, with consistently high rates of workplace fatalities…
SafeWorkSA has published fascinating information about preventing “harmful workplace behaviours.” The webpage’s eye-catching part is the Hierarchy of Controls for Managing the Risk of Harmful Workplace Behaviours, but the article is curious.
The audience for information from occupational health and safety (OHS) regulators is supposedly everyone, but it is rarely read by anyone other than OHS advocates. However, any information about psychosocial risks and hazards needs to be written in a tone that attracts the attention of those in businesses who have established ownership of these hazards, primarily the Human Resources (HR) person. SafeWorkSA’s page fails to reach this target.
Last week’s International Workers’ Memorial Day in Melbourne is stuck in the back of my mind, niggling into my thoughts. I reread the article I wrote at the time and realised that it did not outline what was said by Victorian Trades Hall Council Secretary, Luke Hilakari or the Premier, Jacinta Allan. Below are my takeaways from Hilakari’s speech and a slightly edited transcript of the Premier’s speech.
This weekend, all the talk in Australia has been about the massive and unexpected electoral swing to the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in the federal election. Most pundits were expecting a majority government, at least, but now the ALP has a substantial majority in the House of Representatives. Possible constraints from a new Senate have yet to be identified.
But this blog is about occupational health and safety (OHS), so why start with an election summary? Industrial relations and, therefore, OHS were almost entirely absent from the election campaigns.
International Worker Memorial Day (IWMD) events are usually moving and solemn occasions. Today’s event in Melbourne, Victoria, was a good example, but something was missing, especially given the calibre of dignitaries who were present. (A list of most of them is below)
Victorian Trades Hall Council secretary Luke Hilakari was on message as the first formal speaker. He was the only speaker who addressed the IWMD theme – The role of AI and digitalisation at work. He was followed by Premier Jacinta Allan, Melbourne Lord Mayor, Nick Reece, Acting CEO of WorkSafe Victoria, and Ash West. The Premier’s attendance was notable as I cannot remember the last time a Premier attended or spoke at this type of event.
Over a decade ago, I served as an occupational health and safety (OHS) adviser for the Victorian government on various public transport infrastructure projects. One of the largest at the time (before Victoria’s ongoing Big Build suite of projects), one project was managed by a Project Superintendent who taught project management at university level.
I was asked to speak about safety at the start of one of the regular project meetings. There was a lot to discuss, but after 10 minutes, the Superintendent, who was also the meeting’s chair, cut me off and moved on to other matters. He also decided to remove OHS permanently from the Project Management meeting agenda and hold it in a separate meeting, which he never attended. Later, he made it clear that he saw OHS as an impediment to the project’s program of works and not part of his considerations.
I was reminded of him recently upon reading a new book about the project management of Victoria’s Level Crossing Removal Project (LXRP), as OHS is rarely mentioned and never in a positive context.
Business ethics has never been a significant focus of occupational health and safety (OHS) organisations or regulators beyond what the law says. OHS advisers in companies and through consultation constantly address ethical or unethical behaviour, even though this is rarely discussed at the academic level or outside of the possibility of prosecution. Over the last four decades, neoliberal ideology and policies have given OHS only grudging attention, if any at all. Neoliberalism is gaining more attention in the OHS literature as the socioeconomic and political sources of hazards are finally receiving serious attention. However, most OHS people cannot remember a world before neoliberalism. It is important to remember that trust in the “free market’ on which neoliberalism was built, the promises of wealth for all, and reflect on how worker health and safety suffered.
