Category: change

Shop safety protocols do not go far enough

A group of retail associations in Australia has released a very curious COVID-19 Retail Recovery Protocol.

All shops and malls are workplaces and must comply with occupational health and safety (OHS) laws. A small embarrassment in these protocols is that although it acknowledges that further guidance may be available from workplace health and safety authorities, it provides no links to that COVID19 guidance and gets Safe Work Australia’s (SWA) name wrong! It does not inspire confidence and all that was needed was a single hyperlink to the SWA guidance developed specifically for the Retail Industry.

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Quick OHS News – Danger Money, Red Tape and Toilets

Below is some interesting occupational health and safety (OHS) issues that have appeared over the last week that I don’t have the time to explore in the usual depth but are useful.

Danger Money appears

David Marin-Guzman reports that unions are asking for an extra

“$5 an hour to compensate [disability workers] for risks in assisting clients suspected of having coronavirus.”

The reporter’s Twitter account justifiably describes this as “danger money“, an issue forecast as likely by this blog recently. That such an offer is made by the Health Services and United Workers Unions is disappointing but unions can do little else as the employers have the primary OHS responsibilities. What such action also does though is let the employers off lightly from their OHS duties to continuously improve workplace health and safety. The $5 danger money may be cheaper than implementing other risk control options but OHS laws have a process for this type of decision making that has Cost as the last option to be considered. Allowances do not reduce worker safety risks and they can undermine future OHS initiatives.

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Lessons from the US

The current COVID19 pandemic has presented businesses with a confusing risk challenge. Is the risk of infection a public health issue or an occupational health and safety (OHS) issue? The easy answer only adds to the confusion – it is neither and both.

In relation to epidemics and pandemics these are public health risks within which the OHS risks must be managed. In Australia, many of the OHS regulations and agencies were slow to provide the level of detailed guidance that employers were requesting and this was partly due to the regulators and agencies having to scramble together working groups and experts to rapidly produce such guidance. The situation in the United States offers a useful and reassuring comparison to how the Australian governments have responded but also offers OHS lessons for Australian employers.

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Progress back to the old normal

The discussion about recovery from the COVID19 pandemic is starting, particularly in Australian and New Zealand where the infection and death rates seem to be declining quicker than in other countries. The Business Council of Australia (BCA) released its recovery plan on 20 April 2020. The media release is entitled “Business crucial to a safe return to normal“. The word “normal” is more loaded at the moment than normal 🙂 because it belies an assumption that what existed before the outbreak of COVID19 is how the world should be, even though the pandemic has illustrated weaknesses in what used to be the “normal”.

SafetyAtWorkBlog will focus on those elements of the BCA plan that directly or indirectly affect the physical and psychological health of workers but there is also some text, and subtext, that illustrates the ideological position of the BCA.

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COVID19 disruption may be unprecedented but was it foreseeable? You bet

Almost twenty years ago, there was a surge in discussion and analysis about disaster preparedness, mainly, due to the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 and the aftermath, especially the use of biological weapons. The risks of viruses was considered around that time but there was so much fear and multiple threats, real and perceived, that the preparedness for social harm and disruption due to naturally-occurring viruses was largely overlooked or neglected. However, in this time of COVID19 it is useful to remember that viral pandemics and preparedness were being discussed. Whether the discussions became actions, or should have, is a different discussion.

Professor Lee Clarke’s book “Worst Cases – Terror and Catastrophe in the Popular Imagination” provides a useful and pre-COVID19 lesson.

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Beware a resurgence in Danger Money

“Danger Money” is an occupational health and safety (OHS) and Industrial Relations (IR) concept that must always be watched out for as it can perpetuate a hazard or risk in apparent contravention of the OHS legislative obligations that each employer and worker carries. The concept is at risk of reappearing as the role, income and wages of essential workers are reassessed in this time of COVID19 pandemic and economic reinstatement.

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Safety opportunity from calamity

Australia is starting to settle into a state of stability as the various restrictions on life and work become more consistent. This has also allowed for some to start thinking about the recovery phase – the “bridge”, the awakening, whatever one wants to call it – to reconsider what we think of work and workplaces and our expectations are for the future. Do we resurrect the BC (Before COVID19) employment and economic models or work differently? There is an opportunity to steer work and business into a more sustainable direction that reduces physical and psychosocial harm and regains productivity and profitability. The structures, models and criteria already exist.

And, perhaps, we should incorporate the values recommended by actor, Matthew McConaughey.

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