guidance – Page 28 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

First look at Australia’s workplace bullying report

Australia’s Parliamentary Inquiry into Workplace Bullying has released its report that includes 23 recommendations and a dissenting report from the Coalition (conservative) committee members.

The first recommendation that most will look forward is the latest workplace bullying definition. The committee suggests:

“repeated, unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker or group of workers, that creates a risk to health and safety”.

This is no great shake from most of the previous definitions but illustrates further the isolation of Victoria from nationally harmonised work health and safety laws as WorkSafe Victoria’s preferred definition is

“… persistent and repeated negative behaviour directed at an employee that creates a risk to health and safety.”

Regardless of which definition is “better”, Victoria will be further out-of-sync.

The Committee also recommends the Government

“develop a national advisory service that provides practical and operational advice on what does and does not constitute workplace bullying..”

This is sorely needed and will relieve State OHS regulators of the pressure and the resources. No timeline is mentioned but it is likely that the Federal Government will move to establish such a service quickly, as the recommendation is not surprising.

However, the opposition political mantra for any government initiative is how it will be funded. Continue reading “First look at Australia’s workplace bullying report”

Increased productivity and dignity at work are achievable

David Yamada, in his blog Minding the Workplace, states that

“the more we can get the concept of human dignity into our everyday discussions of work, the better.”

SafetyAtWorkBlog is a supporter of dignity at work and it is heartening to see that the concept is being discussed globally. Dignity, as an activator for change, seems to be a missing element in not only The Hedgehog Review but also very recently released reports, OHS guidances and Australia’s debate on productivity.

The Australian Human Rights Commission released a report last week about sexual discrimination called Working Without Fear. A quick word search for “dignity” shows no results, nor do searches for “bully” or “bullying”. This is disappointing but perhaps should not be a surprise as this report indicates again that the Australian Government considers sexual discrimination and workplace bullying to be separate issues although lawyers and the media often overlap the two.

The Working Without Fear report, based on a large telephone survey concludes that

“…. targets of sexual harassment are most likely to be women and less than 40 years of age. Consistent with previous surveys, the 2012 National Survey also shows that the harassers are most likely to be male co-workers, though women were at least five times more likely than men to have been harassed by a boss or employer. Men Continue reading “Increased productivity and dignity at work are achievable”

Challenges for WorkSafe Victoria at WorkSafe Week

As part of the annual WorkSafe Week, WorkSafe‘s Ian Forsyth presented the organisation’s OHS strategy to a large crowd at the Melbourne Convention Centre on 28 October 2012.

Harmonisation

Clearly Forsyth anticipated questions about the Victorian Government’s decision not to implement the model Work Health and Safety laws that will exist in all but two States and territories from 1 January 2013. He stressed that the government is adamant that the WHS laws will not be introduced “in the foreseeable future” and therefore Victorians need to refocus on compliance with the existing Victorian laws. He effectively shutdown any discussion on those laws before they started. The laws are off the Victorian table so let’s start working with what we have.

His stance has great significance for Victorian businesses and almost projected isolationism as a positive move. Part of his, familiar, justification was that the model WHS laws were based largely on the Victorian occupational health and safety laws and so there is little need to change, particular if the change would increase the regulatory cost burden to Victorian businesses. Continue reading “Challenges for WorkSafe Victoria at WorkSafe Week”

John Darley speaks to SafetyAtWorkBlog

Independent Member of the South Australian Parliament, John Darley, provided SafetyAtWorkBlog with some background to the package of amendments he has for that State’s Work Health and Safety laws currently before Parliament.

Darley acknowledged that he delayed the Work Health and Safety Bill since December 2011 and admitted that the Bill looked like common sense but his approach is to jump ahead an consider how the Bill would look as an Act and determine its social impact. The opposition parties in South Australia believed the Bill was so bad that it should have been defeated before it proceeded to the committee stage but Darley knew that could imply that he was not interested in workplace safety. Darley believes that the reassessment of the WHS Bill over such a long time indicates his commitment to the safety of workers.

Darley said that union right-of-entry was not an issue of concern in December 2011 but he came to see the significance of the issue after delegations and meetings with people affected by workplace deaths but who were also very dissatisfied with the operations of the OHS regulator, SafeWorkSA. The union OHS representatives offered an alternate but Darley felt that union access needed Continue reading “John Darley speaks to SafetyAtWorkBlog”

New workplace safety laws set to pass in South Australia in October

South Australian Independent Member of Parliament, John Darley, has been negotiating on that State’s Work Health and Safety laws for many months. On 17 October 2012, according to a media release from SA’s Premier Jay Weatherill and Workplace Relations Minister Russell Wortley, Darley agreed to support the passing of the laws after achieving some amendments. Those amendments involve changes to

height limits,
duty of care,
the right to silence, and
the right of entry.

Tammy Franks, a Greens MLC, was able to achieve an expansion of the number of days available for OHS representative training.

A spokesperson for John Darley told SafetyAtWorkBlog that another change was for any WHS codes of practice to undergo a small business impact assessment in consultation with the Small Business Commissioner. Darley’s spokesperson said that the MP had met with Business SA after it changed its position on the WHS laws. The amendment above is likely to address the small business concerns that BusinessSA raised in its letter to its members earlier this month. The flip-flopping of BusinessSA on workplace health and safety laws was always curious and it is likely to put the organisation at a negotiating disadvantage once the laws passed. It may try to claim a mini-victory through the small business change but the change appears to have occurred due to Darley’s efforts and not through any relationship with the South Australian Government. Continue reading “New workplace safety laws set to pass in South Australia in October”

BusinessSA’s backflip on OHS laws carries short-term gain but long-term risk

Australian business associations have different perspectives on the need to harmonise occupational health and safety laws across Australia but BusinessSA has performed an enormous backflip in only a month on new Work Health and Safety Laws. In a letter (now a media release) to the industry association’s members, BusinessSA has called on the South Australian Government to defer the laws until a scheduled national review in 2014. The major points of the letter are discussed below.

Objections to the letter on some of the LinkedIn discussion forums have been voiced by some safety and legal professionals, the principle concern being that all state governments agreed to the initiative of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in 2008 to harmonise the OHS laws. Employer groups, unions and OHS regulators have been closely involved in the harmonisation process. Other parties, including BusinessSA made submissions. According to the 2008 submission, these were the six key issues:

“Self-regulation: The appropriateness of the duty of care, consultative mechanisms, performance-based (as opposed to prescriptive) regulation, and education/training in facilitating an effective (self-regulating) OHS system.

Causality and uncertainty: Can, and should, governments attempt to regulate with respect to potential future hazards, given the enormous pace of technological change and uncertainty relating to that change and where causes of Continue reading “BusinessSA’s backflip on OHS laws carries short-term gain but long-term risk”

The need for safety stories

Many companies and organisations take in OHS graduates, often as part of a program of internships, but sometimes because they are “cheap” new starters. Whatever the process, graduates are hungry to learn but often they believe their profession started when they did. Increasingly there is an ignorance of history and this puts the graduates at a distinct disadvantage.

Graduates often are strong on theory and poor on the practical. This is understandable in some ways but graduates can be handicapped by not knowing what their older and more experienced work colleagues know. On the job training and instruction is often passed down but the stories are not and the history of safety seems passed over. Continue reading “The need for safety stories”

Category: guidance

First look at Australia’s workplace bullying report

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Increased productivity and dignity at work are achievable

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Challenges for WorkSafe Victoria at WorkSafe Week

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John Darley speaks to SafetyAtWorkBlog

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New workplace safety laws set to pass in South Australia in October

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BusinessSA’s backflip on OHS laws carries short-term gain but long-term risk

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The need for safety stories

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