politics – Page 133 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

OHS reviews need to leap forward to relevance

Several times recently people have suggested that common sense is an adequate control measure for some workplace hazards. The United Kingdom’s politicians have been talking about common sense and OHS for several months but perhaps we can apply the broad concept of commonality, implicit in the UK’s advocacy of “common sense”, to OHS information so that people and businesses feel empowered to educate themselves on how to work safety and without risks to health.

Australia’s (seemingly) derailed review of OHS legislation is based on removing red tape but a major focus of OHS reviews in England is

“…putting common sense back at the heart of Britain’s health and safety system…”

Even though reducing bureaucracy is part of the UK review, common sense is certainly the political mantra being applied to the review, being under taken by Professor Ragnar E Löfstedt for the Department of Work and Pensions, as seen by a recent speech by Prime Minister David Cameron to the Conservative Party conference, when discussing the empowerment of local councils:

“…one of the biggest things holding people back is the shadow of health and safety. I was told recently about a school that wanted to buy a set of highlighter pens. But with the pens came a warning. Not so fast – make sure you comply with the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002. Including plenty of fresh air and hand and eye protection. Try highlighting in all that.”

According to an audio interview with one of the members of the Löfstedt review, Andrew Bridgen MP, the report is due to go to the Minister, Chris Grayling, at the end of October 2011.

In the interview, Bridgen states that people:

“…use health and safety as an excuse not to do things they don’t want to do.”

But the UK is struggling with what to do in response. There has been a strong campaign by the OHS regulator, Health and Safety Executive, to tackle the “elf ‘n’ safety” myths but this will take a long concerted effort and is likely never to succeed completely. Many in the media like reporting about seemingly silly local government and regulatory decisions. This helps depict government as the “fun vampires“.

However the current situation in England, and its echoes in Australia, illustrates the importance of planning for the long term. Continue reading “OHS reviews need to leap forward to relevance”

Politicians are exploiting proposed OHS laws for their own benefit

South Australia’s Industrial Relations Minister, Rob Lucas, stated in the Adelaide Advertiser on 3 October 2011 that

“The Liberal Party has always supported strong work safety laws which protect workers at work sites.”

This may be the case within the limitations of that sentence but the conservative political parties have not always been supportive of the basis for safety management, the creation of evidence through authoritative research. According to a 2003 submission by the Australian Council of Trade Unions

“After the election of the Liberal/National Coalition in 1996, the Federal Government decided that:

the NOHSC budget must be cut by $5.9 million each year;

a further 5% cut was imposed across the board; and

redundancies had to be covered from within the NOHSC budget.

This represented a cut of $6.6 million (35-40%) to the NOHSC annual budget……

The April 1996 NOHSC decision on allocation of its $14 million budget cut OHS research and information, and education and training. National standards work was also decreased. These areas are central to a national approach to OHS.” [emphasis added]

Around the time of these severe budget cuts Australia had begun moving to a system of national uniformity in OHS. The impact of this political decision hamstrung the research efforts of NOHSC just as the uniformity momentum was increasing. As the National Research Centre for Occupational Health and Safety Regulation has written

“A notable development in standard setting in Australia during the 1990s was the movement towards national uniformity in standards in regulations and codes of practice. The process was overseen by the former NOHSC, which in 1991 established a tripartite National Uniformity Taskforce, which identified several key first order priorities for achieving national uniformity: plant, certification of users and operators of industrial equipment; workplace hazardous substances; occupational noise; manual handling; major hazardous facilities; and storage and handling of dangerous goods.

NOHSC developed standards in the first six of these areas, and the jurisdictions were well on the way towards adopting these standards by the end of 1996, although it should be noted that jurisdictions were quite inconsistent in their adoption, particular in choosing whether to implement the standards in regulations or codes of practice, in their drafting styles and, in some cases, the substance of provisions. The national uniformity process was not complete when the Howard government came to power in 1996, and that government first significantly down-sized and then abolished NOHSC, with the result that the move towards national uniformity slowed dramatically after mid-1996.”

Rob Lucas seems to ignore the history of his own party’s decision. Continue reading “Politicians are exploiting proposed OHS laws for their own benefit”

WorkSafe should explain its role in increasing a small business’ OHS penalty by $50k

In June 2010, SafetyAtWorkBlog discussed the case of company director Peter Angelico and why the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), following a request by WorkSafe Victoria, doubled the financial penalty over an OHS breach. Peter Angelico is currently working his way through the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) trying to determine how the increased penalty can be justified as in “the public interest”.

The VCAT hearing is set for 7 October 2011 in Melbourne. Angelico, the proprietor of A Bending Company, is not contesting the original judgement for he says in his applicant statement, seen by SafetyAtWorkBlog, that:

“Releasing information that can help prevent a future accident is always in the public interest. There are no winners from workplace injuries and it is vital that companies are fully aware of their obligations and publishing safety information can only assist in this process.”

Angelico would argue that small business owners, like himself, should also be provided with a more accurate cost of non-compliance with OHS legislation. That would also be in the public interest. Continue reading “WorkSafe should explain its role in increasing a small business’ OHS penalty by $50k”

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”

Religious wisdom on workplace safety

It is rare to visit the Bible when thinking about occupational health and safety but this week Australia’s Uniting Church, its Creative Ministries Network and the United Voices trade union released a report on the working condition of shopping centre cleaners. In the report “Cutting Corners” there are many references to the Bible’s and the Church’s thoughts and actions on labour issues.

For instance, according to the report:

“…God is ‘against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan’ (Malachi 3:5).”

and

“…the Prophet Muhammad underlined the importance of the just wage by saying, ‘give the employee his wages before his sweat has had time to dry’.”

The Uniting Church has strong arguments to justify its involvement in social equity matters.

“Cutting Corners” was a broad report based on hundreds of telephone interviews with cleaners. The major safety-related findings of the survey were:

“The key violations borne by shopping centre cleaners constitute a litany of injustices, from low rates of pay, pay that is not commensurate with their Continue reading “Religious wisdom on workplace safety”

OHS objectors get support from South Australia parliamentarian

The last seven days has seen many of the conservative speakers express concerns or objections to the Australian government’s close-to-completed process for harmonising workplace safety laws. Although one may not agree with the objections, in most cases there is some ideological sense. On 15 September 2011, South Australia’s shadow Minister for Industrial Relations (IR), Rob Lucas, launched a broadside attack on the OHS laws but with dubious claims.

Lucas’ media release states that

“There is growing opposition to Labor’s proposed bill from industry and business organisations such as Business SA, Master Builders Association, Housing Industry Association, Motor Trade Association, Self Insurers of SA and the Australian Hotels Association.

“The Liberal Opposition believes this bill is a massive full frontal assault on subcontractors and small business in SA which will lead to significant increases in house prices,” Shadow Industrial Relations Minister Rob Lucas said.

“For example, the HIA have estimated the new laws will increase costs by $12,000 for a single story construction and approximately $20,000 for a double story construction.”

The $A20,000 claim has been used by the HIA in the past in South Australia . A former (Labor) IR minister, Paul Caica, was confronted by the claim in 2008. The costs seemed to concern the provision of scaffolding on domestic construction sites for work above two metres but no clarification was made publicly.

In May 2011, SafetyAtWorkBlog investigated the $A20,000 claim. The claim was quoted at the time by Rob Lucas in a media statement. The blog article in May said:

“On looking for the evidence on the potential business costs, an HIA spokesperson has advised SafetyAtWorkBlog that no figures were provided by the HIA to the minister for this media statement. The spokesperson said that the cost figures may have been extracted from earlier submissions to government.” Continue reading “OHS objectors get support from South Australia parliamentarian”

Safety costs of harmonised laws revealed

The Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) on Australia’s Work Health and Safety laws has been released and will be available through the Safe Work Australia website shortly (probably today given the media attention). Much attention will be given to the cost estimates of the laws’ introduction but the 336-page RIS seen by SafetyAtWorkBlog emphasises in the Executive Summary that

“While monetary values of impacts are estimated and an appropriate sensitivity analysis is undertaken, these results should be treated with some caution given the uncertainties associated with estimating changes in work health and safety benefits. Greater weight should be given to the general direction that the estimates suggest is the likely outcome from these reforms.”

This important point is likely to be lost in some of the expected argy-bargy over economic impacts and cost v benefit.

The core figures provided in the RIS are:

“While there will be one‐off implementation costs, the quantitative analysis undertaken at the national level for adopting the model WHS Regulations indicates net benefits (i.e. after implementation costs) of around $250 million per annum to the Australian economy over each of the next 10 years. This estimate does not include expected productivity benefits. While noting the difficulties Continue reading “Safety costs of harmonised laws revealed”

Category: politics

OHS reviews need to leap forward to relevance

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Politicians are exploiting proposed OHS laws for their own benefit

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WorkSafe should explain its role in increasing a small business’ OHS penalty by $50k

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

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Religious wisdom on workplace safety

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OHS objectors get support from South Australia parliamentarian

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Safety costs of harmonised laws revealed

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