All safety is political.  It always has been

My great uncle dug into coal mine tailings with his bare hands to try and rescue the school children and teachers buried during the Aberfan disaster.  His own grandchildren died.  Both of my grandfathers suffered from lives spent underground; they both died young, one from lung cancer and silicosis. 

For me, all safety is political.  It always has been.  It’s not party-political – but it can be.  It’s political in the sense that all decisions in every aspect of our lives are a function of power and authority. 

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Psychosocial hazards discussions are everywhere, as they should be

New information about the need to prevent psychosocial hazards at work keeps coming.  Victoria will join the workplace mental health train a little later than planned.  It went from engine to caboose in four years. SafeWorkNSW has released guidance on Designing Work to Manage Psychosocial Risks and an enforceable undertaking by a New South Wales mine from a psychosocial incident.

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The economics of OHS and the need to think upstream

Michael Belzer and Michael Quinlan have outlined the economics of occupational health and safety (OHS) in the editorial of the latest edition of The Economic and Labour Relations Review. This contrasts with earlier research about the business case for OHS as it broadens the pool of influences more broadly. They write:

“The economic approaches to OHS in the papers in this issue identify externalities and suggest that incomplete market analysis has created an inappropriate permission to ignore uncompensated costs in labour, product, and service markets; these incomplete markets lead to greater social risk as well as inefficiency. More integrated understandings of OHS are challenging but research performed without them leads to narrow and partial understandings.” (page 483)

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Shortcomings of the legal perspective on work health and safety

The most common question occupational health and safety (OHS) consultants receive from clients is, “Do I comply with the law?” This request is telling because the client starts from a legal rather than a safety base. This is not surprising, as OHS commentary is dominated by lawyers whose focus is on minimizing their clients’ exposure to prosecution.

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The most recent guidance on office safety, including psych safety and working from home

In December 2024, WorkSafe Victoria released “Office Health and Safety – A Guide for Employers“. Sadly, it seems to have (half) dumped the Officewise brand. If WorkSafe had kept it, the guide would have been part of an illustrious history stretching to the last century when the first edition was published in 1995. The new guide has some interesting advice on occupational health and safety (OHS) issues related to working from home, but workplace mental health seems more prominent than in earlier editions.

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Seeing OHS law as a social law could change how OHS is seen and its future

Occupational health and safety has traditionally been considered under the category of industrial, or industrial relations, but largely this is due to the major advocates of OHS being the trade union movement. So OHS seems to fit with workers’ rights under the issues of wages and conditions, but really OHS is a social law.

According to one definition social law is:

“…any law, rule or regulation (including international treaty obligations) applicable in any jurisdiction concerning 
– labour, 
– social security, 
– the regulation of industrial relations (between government, employers and employees),
– the protection of occupational, as well as public, health and safety, 
– the regulation of public participation, 
– the protection and regulation of ownership of land rights (both formal and traditional), immovable goods and intellectual and cultural property rights, 
– the protection and empowerment of indigenous peoples or ethnic groups, 
– the protection, restoration and promotion of cultural heritage, and 
– all other laws, rules and regulations providing for the protection of employees and citizens.”

OHS meets several elements of this definition.

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Latest OHS News from Herbert Smith Freehills

One of the most important sources of information about occupational health and safety (OHS) is seminars organised by law firms. A great example was a webinar hosted by Herbert Smith Freehills on October 30, 2024, as part of its Safety Leadership Series. It was a general discussion on Australia’s most prominent OHS issues but outlined increasingly significant consequences.

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