I am a fan of NPR’s radio program, All Things Considered. Occasionally, it reports on workplace health and safety matters. On July 19, 2024, it reported on the unacceptable number of deaths from trenching activities in the United States. The content was shocking and disappointing (the default setting for many reactions to occupational health and safety (OHS) matters), but the report’s format is an excellent example of journalism.
Recently, SafeWorkNSW launched a health and safety campaign for those who provide services in people’s homes, essentially Home Care providers. The message is good and simple, but this article is less about the campaign than the risk assessment and checklist forms they promote.
Many checklists expect a Yes/No answer but fail to ask a question. SafeWorkNSW’s Home Safety Risk Assessment is an example of this problem.
Continue reading “Yes, No or N/A?”Most submissions to the inquiry into Sentencing Occupational Health and Safety Offences in Victoria are now publicly available. They raise a lot of different issues and some grumbles even though the Sentencing Advisory Council provided some structure to the topics it wanted addressed.
A major purpose of any penalty is to deter harmful and damaging actions from being repeated. SAC reiterates that any sentence
The CFMEU’s Dr Gerry Ayers opens his submission with Deterrence by quoting Gunningham and Johnstone from 1999, who wrote:
Work health and safety is a fundamental human right. Last year, I asked “so what?” Australia is strengthening the relevance of this international human right at the local level, but you wouldn’t notice unless you looked hard.
The federal government’s Joint Standing Committee on Treaties has been receiving public submissions on the ratification of ILO Conventions 191 and 187. It’s such a hot topic that it received only two submissions!!; neither opposed the ratification, but they provide some useful context to the aims of occupational health and safety (OHS) in Australia.
Later this week, the United Kingdom hosts an election which the Labour Party, the “party of working people,” is expected to win. Its party manifesto has been out for some time, but its workplace strategy has received less attention. Given the synergies between the UK and Australian industrial relations and occupational health and safety (OHS), Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay, deserves an outsider’s analysis.
There is a cost-of-living crisis in large parts of the world, there is a climate emergency, there are wars and political instability and insecurity everywhere. Why is occupational health and safety (OHS) still considered important? Well, it isn’t really when compared to these global and existential crises, but that is the microcosm in which we operate. However, this does not mean we should withdraw into our safety shells and ignore the world. We can’t; the world intrudes on our microcosm and affects us directly and indirectly.
So, it is useful to understand how pressures external to our work and workplaces affect our choices and the choices of employers.
Our experience with a global pandemic has blurred the lines between what is public health and what is occupational health. In that context, it’s worth considering the public health strategies and interventions. There are three levels of interventions: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Recently, on NPR’s All Things Considered, a public health specialist in the United States, Dr. Cedric Dark, discussed public health proposed strategies in relation to gun control in light of a recent report by the US Surgeon General.
