health – Page 83 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Premier Andrews and Industrial Manslaughter becoming a conspiracy

Both a swing AND a roundabout

The pursuit of Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews for Industrial Manslaughter (IM) over the spreading of COVID19 from quarantine hotels is developing into a conspiracy if a recent interview with Federal politician, Barnaby Joyce, is any indication.

Previous SafetyAtWorkBlog articles have discussed the opinions on Andrews and Industrial Manslaughter espoused by journalist Robert Gotttleibsen and Ken Phillips. On television on September 28, 2020, breakfast television’s Sunrise program interview the National Party’s Joyce and the Australian Labor Party’s, Joel Fitzgibbon. Host, David Koch, asked Joyce about the resignation of Victoria’s Health Minister Jenny Mikakos over the Hotel Quarantine issues, and Joyce floridly replied:

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A new COVID19 Code of Practice, but why?

In mid-September the Australian Government released a draft work health and safety Code of Practice about the management of COVID19. It is a good draft to which occupational health and safety (OHS) professionals should submit comments as COVID19 or similar coronaviruses are going to be part of our working lives for many years to come.

The curious part of this draft Code is that it was released by the Attorney General’s Department (AGD) and not its subsidiary Safe Work Australia (SWA).

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A wicked start to a virtual safety conference

Recently the Australian Institute of Health and Safety (AIHS) conducted an online conference under the title SafeFest. The intention was to challenge the established orthodoxy of workplace health and safety. One of the conference’s first speakers was David Whitefield talking about safety as a “wicked problem”. It is a perspective that occupational health and safety (OHS) professionals have heard before but it is one that is an important reminder.

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WFH strategies and evidence

Last week’s article on the occupational health and safety (OHS) risks of Working From Home (WFH) reminded me of a report from late 2019 that I always meant to write about but forgot. In November 2019 the International Labour Organisation (ILO) released a report called Telework in the 21st century: An evolutionary perspective. It ‘s a collection of articles on teleworking from around the world and, although it is pre-COVID19, it remains fairly contemporary on telework and WFH practices and risks.

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WFH. What-Ifs. WTF?

On September 12 2020, The Australian’s workplace relations journalist Ewin Hannan wrote about working from home (WFH), a reasonable topic as many Australians have been asked to do this, often at the request of the State Government, in order to reduce and control the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. The structure of the article centred on the additional costs and risks to employers from having workers work from home, especially in relation to potential injuries and workers’ compensation. This perspective on occupational health and safety (OHS) is seriously skewed, but it reflects the dominant perspective in the media and the community. A little bit more research would have provided a more accurate picture about Working From Home.

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Sexual misconduct research – Interview with Professor Marie Bismark

A lot of recent attention has been given to incidents of sexual harassment in Australian legal and finance corporations, in particular, and how these are being (mis)managed. COVID19 has thrown a big focus on the working conditions of health care workers. Last month, Australian research on sexual misconduct was released that is, essentially, a Venn diagram of the issues of sexual harassment and misconduct with health practitioners.

The lead author of the study, Associate Professor Marie Bismark, professor of Public Law at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, spoke exclusively with SafetyAtWorkBlog about the research findings.

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“the point is not science, but safety”

Early last year Professor Andrew Hopkins wrote the following about making important safety decisions:

“If you are a CEO in charge of a large company operating hazardous technologies, you cannot afford to wait for conclusive evidence. You must act on the basis of whatever imperfect knowledge you currently have.”
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This seems relevant to those who have had to make decisions about COVID19 this year. In response to the Hopkins quote, I wrote:

“This applies equally to directors and managers of companies of all sizes. It is hard, it is uncomfortable, but it is part of running a business. It is the application of the “precautionary principle” which, if the precaution proves valid, you are a hero, a visionary and a leader; if it does not happen, you are seen as a doomsayer – a reputational potential that few are willing to risk. However, in terms of OHS and the safety of people, the precautionary principle should be given prominence over reputation for many reasons, for if there is a disaster and fatalities the precautionary principle will be analysed through hindsight and may be influential in arguing reasonable practicability.”

The continuing COVID19 pandemic is a disaster with an horrendous fatality rate and the Precautionary Principle has started to be discussed in academic research about COVID19 and face masks.

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