Category: hazards

Australia’s harmonisation program may be on life support but it’s getting stronger

In April 2012, this blog said that the harmonisation of occupational health and safety laws (OHS) in Australia was coughing up blood. On 1 January 2013, two more Australian States introduced new OHS laws based on the model Work Health and Safety Act and Regulations of the harmonisation process. (only two left, Victoria and Western Australia) As Acting Workplace Relations Minister, Kate Ellis, said in a media release yesterday:

“As of today 64 in every 100 working Australians will be covered by modern, best practice and consistent laws…”

On the national front, harmonisation has failed but from the perspective of those individual States that have introduced the WHS laws, the process has increased the influence and attention of workplace safety in their jurisdictions.

Laws do not improve worker safety by themselves. They require support and commitment from both business owners and workers. Those fierce and, often, confused critics of the WHS laws need to accept that their campaigns have failed. The maturity of those critics will now be judged by the critics’ preparedness to accept the situation and work within the new laws to improve the safety of their members and clients.

Australian businesses will not benefit from constant white-anting of the new laws, undermining safety laws for political reasons benefits no one.  Continue reading “Australia’s harmonisation program may be on life support but it’s getting stronger”

It can take a long time to learn how to manage workplace safety

On 21 December 2012 in the South Australian Industrial Court, Amcor Packaging (Australia) was fined $A96,000 over a breach of the occupational health and safety (OHS) laws.  That type of sentence appears frequently in SafetyAtWorkBlog but the difference this time is that it is the third similar OHS prosecution and fine applied to Amcor in South Australia.  Amcor Packaging has had similar OHS problems in Queensland and Victoria.

According to a SafeWorkSA media release (not yet available online), the latest prosecution involved an incident in November 2010 where:

“Two workers were walking on conveyor rollers to guide an unstable stack of cardboard when one inadvertently stepped into a gap between the rollers. The female worker was then struck by the arm of an automated pallet sweeper, sustaining multiple fractures to her lower leg and ankle.”

Cover from 2012_sairc_59In his judgment on the case, Industrial Magistrate Stephen Lieschke said there was no risk assessment at the plant and a lack of engineering controls.  The two previous Amcor offences in South Australia also related to inadequate engineering controls.

Recurrence

Magistrate Lieschke also said that

“The two prior offences are highly relevant to this sentencing process, as the court is left with a low level of confidence that Amcor will not commit any future offences…..,”

In June 2008 law firm Holding Redlich mentioned an increase in an OHS penalty against Amcor by the Court of Appeals: Continue reading “It can take a long time to learn how to manage workplace safety”

Australia’s workplace bullying report is a missed mental health opportunity

Cover of Workplace Bullying Final ReportThe report, issued last week, from Australia’s Parliamentary Inquiry into Workplace Bullying, is a terrific discussion on workplace bullying but is a major missed opportunity to achieve necessary change, and change in this area equates to the reduction of, principally, psychological harm to workers and their families.

The report starts off shakily by giving prominence to a statement that is clearly wrong. Page 1 of the report quotes Carlo Caponecchia and Anne Wyatt, saying:

“Bullying is the key workplace health and safety issue of our time.”

Caponecchia and Wyatt may believe that, but to open a Parliamentary report with this quote shows poor judgement from the Committee by giving workplace bullying prominence over other workplace health and safety (WHS) hazards and issues. Workplace bullying may indeed be the most difficult workplace health and safety challenge but that is very different from what the quote says. Continue reading “Australia’s workplace bullying report is a missed mental health opportunity”

PCBUs, farms, quad bikes and safety – a speculation

Soon another Australian State, South Australia, will be using the concept of the PCBU – the Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking in its occupational health and safety laws. This concept has the potential to expand OHS laws well beyond the traditional factory fence or office and the recent discussion on the safety of quad bikes may illustrate this.

Until there are Court cases to clarify the Work Health and Safety laws and concepts it is worth looking at the source of these concepts. Safe Work Australia explains the PCBU in an interpretative guideline.

Businesses may be “enterprises usually conducted with a view to making a profit and have a degree of organisation, system and continuity”. In terms of quad bike use, this could be a farm.

Undertakings “may have elements of organisation, systems, and possibly continuity, but are usually not profit-making or commercial in nature.” Probably not a farm. Continue reading “PCBUs, farms, quad bikes and safety – a speculation”

Grandad’s safety rules remain relevant over 50 years later

A safety colleague showed me an old book about workplace safety that his father had found in a book sale.  It’s called “Safety on the Job” and was produced by the Master Builders Association of Victoria “for free distribution to the Building Trade” around 1959.  The cover mirrors the iconic Australian cartoon from 1933 by Stan Cross.

On the cover is a stamp saying “J Division”.  J Division was part of Melbourne’s Pentridge Jail, the section for:

“Young Offenders Group – Later for long-term with record of good behavior”

The publication is not specifically designed for young workers but there is some excellent information, for the time, included on “standard crane whistles”, explosive power tools regulations and trenching.

Most intriguing is the chapter “Common Sense Suggestions for Managers, Supervisors, Foremen and Safety Officers, etc.”  It is surprising how many of the suggestions remain relevant today.  Perhaps the booklet was trying to generate common sense rather than reflecting it.  Below are the first ten suggestions.

  1. “When you make your daily rounds it is your job to make them a hazard-hunting inspection as well. Continue reading “Grandad’s safety rules remain relevant over 50 years later”

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”

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