health – Page 95 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

The productivity debate in Australia misses the opportunities presented by wellbeing

At the moment Australian business is campaigning on the need to increase productivity rates in Australian workplaces. It, with the recent support of some State governments and ideological colleagues, is seeking to achieve this by weakening the recent changes to the industrial relations structure encapsulated in the Fair Work Act. Fair Work Australia, trade unions and industry associations are primarily focussed on the industrial relations elements of this ideological fight over productivity.

Evidence of the potential productivity and economic benefits of improved occupational health and safety has been missing in the debate yet it is this linkage that Dame Carol Black has been talking about recently in Australia. It seems there is a keen audience for her perspective in Australia as she will be visiting the country four times in 2012.

At a recent OHS conference in Melbourne one speaker said some OHS positions in the United States are being renamed Occupational Health Productivity in recognition of the importance of wellbeing in the OHS roles. Renaming “wellbeing” as “productivity” provides a different context to OHS activities and should better gain senior executive attention as it would be easier to see how this activity fits with traditional operational thinking. Continue reading

Executive Director says WorkSafe has been reactive on workplace mental health

Ian Forsyth, Health and Safety Executive Director, for WorkSafe Victoria spoke at a breakfast seminar on 7 February 2012. As a report on what WorkSafe has been doing and what they plan to do in 2012, it was reasonable but there were several issues that raised eyebrows or confused some in the audience.

Workplace Bullying

Ian Forsyth spent some time speaking about the importance of workplace bullying, repeatedly stressing that most calls to WorkSafe about bullying do not fit the definition that would allow WorkSafe to act. No mention was made of the divergent views on workplace bullying coming through the public comment phase of the draft national code on workplace bullying over the last few months.

Several times Forsyth stressed that there were other avenues for action or appeal on matters that do not fit the WorkSafe definition, such as the Fair Work Ombudsman and other authorities. This is the reality but the comments provide no real solution to handling the thousands of calls WorkSafe receives on workplace bullying each year. Continue reading “Executive Director says WorkSafe has been reactive on workplace mental health”

Australia inactive on environmental tobacco smoke

Safe Work Australia has released a couple of packages of draft codes of practice in line with the Australian Government’s OHS harmonisation strategy but where is the code that addresses the established risk of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) or second-hand smoke? This is a question that was asked during the recent Safe Work Australia week by Smoke Free Australia, an alliance of employee and health groups.

Smoke Free’s media release stated that

“….thousands of Australians are working in areas contaminated by highly toxic, carcinogenic tobacco smoke – and Safe Work Australia has done nothing to prevent it”

Stafford Sanders, the coordinator for Smoke Free Australia, was struggling to understand why ETS had not been given prominence in the new draft codes of practice given that second-hand smoke is a known killer. Continue reading “Australia inactive on environmental tobacco smoke”

Workplaces are under-prepared for first aid incidents

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has reported that

“Less than 10% of people are aware they need to cool burn wounds for 20 minutes in cool water as a first aid measure.”

Research* published in the AMA’s Medical Journal of Australia, in October 2011, found that

“Unprompted, 82% of (7320) respondents said they knew to cool the burn with cool or cold water but 41.5% said they didn’t know for how long cold running water should be applied.”

SafetyAtWorkBlog has followed the issue of first aid treatment for burns and the evidence for burn creams.

The application of the recommended treatment for burns continues to be a contentious issue in practice in Australian workplaces. Part of the reason could be that first aid treatment in many workplaces is seen as little more than a “bandaid treatment” because this is the first aid treatment most seen and most received. But this perception does not site well with the evidence for burn treatments.

The first aid (band aid) treatments in most workplace is quick and usually does not interrupt work. To properly treat a burn, a worker must stop work for twenty minutes. Most workplaces where burns are likely to occur, for instance, construction sites, manufacturing, food preparation, are unlikely to welcome a stoppage of one worker for twenty minutes. Can one imagine a burger flipper at a fast food restaurant standing with a hand under a running tap for twenty minutes? It would be unlikely that this absence could be covered. Continue reading “Workplaces are under-prepared for first aid incidents”

Nail gun incident results in $25k fine and lifelong blindness

Western Australia recently prosecuted a company over an incident where a worker was blinded in one eye by a nail that ricocheted from a nail gun. According to a WorkSafeWA media release:

“The injured contractor was using a nail gun to attach steel holding straps to roof timbers. The nail gun had been purchased 12 months earlier, and came with an operating manual that provided safety instructions.

One of the safety instructions was that the nail gun was “for use with timber to timber fixing or materials of similar or lesser density”, but Mr Vlasschaert and the contractor had been using the nail gun to attach steel straps for 12 months without incident.

On the day of the incident, the contractor had experienced several ricochets where the nail had failed to go through the steel straps and instead flew into the air. Mr Vlasschaert asked him if everything was alright, and contractor said it was, so he had been left to carry on the work.

Soon after this conversation, the contractor was struck in the eye by a nail that had ricocheted, resulting in the permanent loss of sight in his left eye.”

The worker mistook his sunglasses as safety glasses. Protective eyewear was available in the employer’s car at the domestic building site.

This prosecution, which resulted in a $A25,000 fine, highlights several relevant OHS issues. Continue reading “Nail gun incident results in $25k fine and lifelong blindness”

Bullying Code of Practice illustrates the huge challenges of OHS in Australia

Australia has released a draft Code of Practice on “preventing and responding to workplace bullying“. As it is the latest publication on this issue by an OHS authority, it deserves some analysis.

The draft code has applied the established definition of workplace bullying as:

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

It covers direct and indirect bullying and includes the new communications technologies through which stalking and cyberbullying can occur.

Unintentional bullying

Curiously the draft Code also includes “unintentional bullying”:

“Bullying can also be unintentional, where actions which, although not intended to humiliate, offend, intimidate or distress, cause and should reasonably have been expected to cause that effect. Sometimes people do not realise that their behaviour can be harmful to others. In some situations, behaviours may unintentionally cause distress and be perceived as bullying.”

This section has generated some discussion already. Professional colleagues today explained to me how inappropriate acts may be construed by the recipient as bullying even through the proponent does not see the actions as such. The quote above importantly emphasises the role of perception, a concept that is not traditionally associated with OHS, where facts, figures and engineering solutions are more comfortable. Perceived bullying, injustices and abuse have been more often dealt with through human resources networks. It is difficult to see any way of investigating workplace bullying without substantial support from an HR professional. It is similarly difficult to see any way of preventing bullying without access to this resource. Continue reading “Bullying Code of Practice illustrates the huge challenges of OHS in Australia”

There is a whiff of media manipulation on recent allegations of bullying at WorkSafe Victoria

WorkSafe Victoria has been heavily criticised in the media over recent days about “revelations” of workplace bullying within the authority, a government authority that has the role of regulating workplace safety, a role that includes reducing the risk of bullying.

It would be easy to only look at the newspaper articles of this week but the issue has been bubbling away for some time. WorkSafe has always struggled with addressing workplace bullying in its own staff, the community and other government agencies. But this is not unique. A 2010 report on bullying in the Victorian public sector showed a high incidence of workplace bullying across the public service going back to 2005. What makes the WorkSafe situation different is that the hazard of workplace bullying is being alleged in the organisation who should know best how to control it.

The Age has reported previously on bullying in the public service previously in 2005. The Age reported then that

“The Government’s own research, based on a survey of 14,000 public sector workers, found that more than one in five had been bullied or harassed by colleagues or managers in the past year. A further 40 per cent had witnessed others being abused.”

Karen Batt, a long-serving State Secretary of the Community & Public Sector Union (CPSU), has been outspoken on workplace bullying every time the matter has been raised in survey reports and the media for many years. The recent Age articles quote her extensively and The Age’s publisher, Fairfax, has even posted recent audio of Batt’s opinions.

But it is important to ask why the issue of workplace bullying at WorkSafe has reappeared, now, in late September 2011. Continue reading “There is a whiff of media manipulation on recent allegations of bullying at WorkSafe Victoria”

Category: health

The productivity debate in Australia misses the opportunities presented by wellbeing

Like this:

Executive Director says WorkSafe has been reactive on workplace mental health

Like this:

Australia inactive on environmental tobacco smoke

Like this:

Workplaces are under-prepared for first aid incidents

Like this:

Nail gun incident results in $25k fine and lifelong blindness

Like this:

Bullying Code of Practice illustrates the huge challenges of OHS in Australia

Like this:

There is a whiff of media manipulation on recent allegations of bullying at WorkSafe Victoria

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: