The Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI) has recently published an article about the significant Human Resources trends for 2019. The trends identified include
SafetyAtWorkBlog will be more specific in its occupational health and safety (OHS) “trends” for 2019.
Some media reports on the recent suicide of another Australian Federal Police (AFP) officer indicate a change away from the dominant perspective of addressing the individual worker rather than institutional factors.
This article is not denying that suicide is a personal decision. It is an act that most of us do not understand and struggle to do so; this is partly because, unless a note is left or the person spoke to another about their intentions, we can never be sure why someone takes their own life. As a colleague explained to me, we try to rationalise an irrational act, or at least an act that seemed rational to the person at the time.
The Australian Federal Police has had several
The trade union movement was instrumental in showing that workplace bullying was a pervasive problem in Australian workplaces. Many Codes of Practice and guidances for workplace bullying and occupational violence were written shortly after the action by the Australian Council of Trade Unions almost two decades ago. But, for some reason, although sexual harassment was mentioned in those early documents, it never received the attention in occupational health and safety (OHS) circles that, in hindsight, it should have.
Perhaps a more sustainable and effective strategy would be to focus on the “harassment” rather than the “sexual”, or in
Several people were surprised when Industrial Manslaughter laws popped up on the agenda on Day 3 of the National Conference of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) this week. To ALP members from Western Australia and the Construction Forestry Mining Maritime and Energy Union, Christy Cain and Thomas French put a resolution on the issue to the Conference, which the delegates endorsed.
Most of the media who mentioned this resolution, and it was not many, focused on Cain’s urging of the delegates to
“Kill a worker, go to jail”.
Even though getting the audience to chant was colourful, and the minute’s silence important, the discussion around Industrial Manslaughter laws was more nuanced.
Workplace health and safety was given only a passing mention in the speech provided by Bill Shorten at the 2018 ALP National Conference on December 16, 2018.
In the context of workplace economics and industrial relations, some speakers mention “social investment” or “social progress” and occupational health and safety (OHS) exists in these issues