hours of work – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Publicity about the right to disconnect was “overblown”

Recently, the “right to disconnect” gained some prominence in Australia. This right, now legislated, allows employees and workers to choose not to respond to employer communications outside of contracted working hours. This was part of recognising that time away from work allows one to focus on non-work matters like family, socialising, mental relaxation, and more.

According to much mainstream media and the statements and lobbying of various business associations, the sky would fall (a phrase that appears with any proposed change that business groups do not like). A significant change has not happened, and the sky has not fallen. At a recent labour law conference, Fair Work Commission President Adam Hatcher described the publicity as overblown.

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Another alleged work-related death at EY. This time – India

The workplace culture of EY and other major consulting companies came under scrutiny several years ago following an apparent work-related suicide at the offices of EY in Sydney. EY’s workplace culture is again being examined after the death of a young EY employee in India, allegedly due to work stress.

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Kevin’s “Law of Common Sense” and the Right To Disconnect

This week, the “Right-to-Disconnect” became law in Australia. According to a prominent business newspaper, the Australian Financial Review (AFR), this is the latest example of the risk of the sky falling. It is not. Instead, the right-to-disconnect is a rebalancing of the exploitation of workers’ psychological health and that of their families. But you wouldn’t know this from the mainstream media coverage. There is no mention of mental health in the printed AFR article.

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The immediate future of OHS in the UK

Later this week, the United Kingdom hosts an election which the Labour Party, the “party of working people,” is expected to win. Its party manifesto has been out for some time, but its workplace strategy has received less attention. Given the synergies between the UK and Australian industrial relations and occupational health and safety (OHS), Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay, deserves an outsider’s analysis.

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An economics perspective on overwork

As Ingrid Robeyns’ Limitarianism book hits the Australian bookshops, an earlier examination of the role of excessive profits of “affluenza” from 2005 is worth considering. How does this relate to occupational health and safety (OHS)? The prevention of harm and the reduction of risk are determined by employers deciding on what they are prepared to spend on their workers’ safety, health, and welfare. Employers are looking desperately for effective ways to meet their new psychosocial harm prevention duties. Economists identified strategies in 2005.

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Let’s talk about work-related suicide

Occupational health and safety (OHS) has been fairly successful in reducing the frequency and numbers of traumatic workplace injuries largely because such injuries cannot be hidden or may occur in front of others and increasingly on video. It is a sad reality that work-related deaths generate change and progress. Sometimes the more deaths, the more significant that change or, the quicker that change occurs. However, it is even sadder that change often requires a death.

Note: this article discusses suicide.

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Worker mobilisation and OHS

Occupational health and safety (OHS) professionals, like anyone else, base their decisions and advice primarily on their living memory. This partly explains the trend of emphasising “lived experience” sometimes over history or research. But it is understandable that we trust experiences from people face-to-face over what we read or what Grandad sort-of remembers from his first job. But history is important, especially when new sources of history are being unearthed or old sources are re-evaluated.

Recently, Michael Quinlan has been working on the recently digitised records of Australia in convict times and the 1800s. This research, conducted with colleagues, reveals new perspectives on industrial relations and worker health and safety. Recently, he presented to the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) on Moibilising and Organising Workers – Lessons from Australian History 1788-1900. (I know, but bear with me).

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