Category: politics

What does the Ark Tribe case have to do with workplace safety?

Australian trade unions, particularly those in the construction sector, have strongly supported Ark Tribe in his battle with the Australian Building & Construction Commission (ABCC).  Outside of the world of Australian construction trade union politics, the Ark Tribe issue has been difficult to understand without over-simplifying the issue.

In 2008, Ark Tribe attended a union safety meeting conducted by union organiser Justin Feehan.  The meeting was unauthorised and led to Tribe being called on for an interview with the ABCC.  He refused to attend and legal action has been taken which is likely to be resolved in the Australian courts today.  Tribe faces six month’s jail.

Regularly the saga has been described as one concerning workplace safety.  An unauthorised safety meeting may have been the initial event but the issue passed being an OHS matter very quickly to become one of industrial relations and a cause celebre against the ABCC. Continue reading “What does the Ark Tribe case have to do with workplace safety?”

Lord Young = old approach to OHS

Reviews of OHS legislation by governments are usually keenly anticipated as they mostly occur once a system is broken.  But there seems to be considerable trepidation with the plan announced on 14 June 2010, by the Prime Minister, David Cameron.

Cameron has appointed Lord Young to undertake an extensive review of OHS.  According to the Prime minister’s media statement:

“The rise of the compensation culture over the last ten years is a real concern, as is the way health and safety rules are sometimes applied.

We need a sensible new approach that makes clear these laws are intended to protect people, not overwhelm businesses with red tape.”

Lord Young has a lot of work to do in building bridges after his disastrous appearance at the 2010 conference of the Institute of Occupational Safety & Health (IOSH) in April 2010.  It’s not quite like putting Lord John Browne in charge of a petrol station but…. Continue reading “Lord Young = old approach to OHS”

A safe (social) system of work

For years Australian OHS legislation has focused on establishing a “safe system of work”.  This focus is inclusive and is an understandable approach to safety regulation but it has also generated a fair share of confusion.  If a business does not have a documented safety management system, does it have a system of work?  Yes it does but the lack of documentation makes it very difficult to describe, particularly if there is a performance benchmark such as “compliance”.  Humans like to have a clean line of cause and effect or a linear, causative management process.  So vague concepts like “system of work” can be challenging.

Prescriptive rules used to be the way that safety compliance could be met but that world is long gone.  Its distance can be seen by looking at the Australian Government’s new model Work Health and Safety Act which compounds the vagueness by including “as far as reasonably practicable” wherever possible.  All of this vagueness makes the lot of the business operator more complex and more costly as the business operator seeks clarity from others such as lawyers, OHS consultants, auditors and Standards organizations.  Is it any wonder that safety is seen as an exorbitant cost?  In essence, OHS regulators have outsourced the responsibility, and the cost, to employers. Continue reading “A safe (social) system of work”

Does corporate leadership equate to political leadership?

Can a country be run in a similar way to running a business?  Does corporate leadership equate to political leadership?  It would be possible to find examples in support of both these questions and as much evidence to counter them but the contextual difference is important to note when considering leadership in general.

A crucial difference in the two sectors is that the corporate executive or CEO must operate to the satisfaction of the shareholders, regardless of the humanistic and social veneer applied.  A politician or a Prime Minister must serve for the benefit of the people, regardless of the political views held as this social obligation originates with the public office.  Politicians have wriggle room not afforded to CEOs because not all the citizens subscribe to the same values.  In the corporate world there is a clearly visible commitment to capitalism, a clarity not possible in the political world.

At the moment in England, it seems that the newly elected coalition government is starting to prepare for a social capitalism – capitalism with a human edge.  The path to economic restabilisation will be difficult and, according to the newspapers on 8 June 2010, the government is set to call on the services of the former CEO of BP, Lord John Browne.

Browne has graced the pages of the SafetyAtWorkBlog twice previously and not in flattering terms.  One writer said Browne:

“…. was admired by his peers but not as much as he was by himself….” [who] “…As CEO … surrounded himself with sycophants and yes-men enshrouded in a cloud of corporate hubris.”

Continue reading “Does corporate leadership equate to political leadership?”

The “Triffid defence” applied to asbestos

At the end of The Day of The Triffids, John Wyndham, had mankind living on the Isle of Wight, making sure that Triffids did not infest the island.  Tasmania has a similar mindset as can be seen by its diligence on keeping the land free of foxes but that is keeping out a hazard.  The greater challenge is renewing the land and removing a hazard that was allowed to grow and establish itself like triffids or, more realistically, asbestos.

SafetyAtWorkBlog has written elsewhere about the Australian Workers Union push to make Tasmania free of asbestos by 2020.  The signs are increasingly positive as the Tasmanian government issued a media release on 6 June 2010 that provides substantial impetus and legitimacy to the campaign.

The Minister for Workplace Relations, David O’Byrne, said today that the government will work with industry to develop legislative frameworks that provide a pathway for the prioritised removal of asbestos from Tasmania. Continue reading “The “Triffid defence” applied to asbestos”

Inaccurate claims made of BP spill inquiry membership

On 1 June 2010, the Safety Institute of Australia (SIA) informed its 3,000 members that Professor Andrew Hopkins has been

“nominated for a spot on the US commission’s inquiry into the disaster’s causes”.

Andrew Hopkins has advised SafetyAtWorkBlog that the nomination is not true and that the article is inaccurate.  His name was included in ill-informed speculation on membership of the United States’ commission of inquiry into the Gulf of Mexico oil spill but was never formally nominated. Continue reading “Inaccurate claims made of BP spill inquiry membership”

What can OHS professionals learn from government program failures?

Marcus Priest of the Australia Financial Review wrote a good article on 2 June 2010 (only available through subscription or hard copy) that illustrates the managerial deficiencies of the Australian Government by looking at the lessons from two governmental investigation reports concerning a large-scale construction program for existing schools and the home insulation scheme.  Priest identifies several issues that should be noted by those who are designing large projects and who need to deal with the government directly

Priest’s opening paragraph is:

“The decisions by the Rudd government to try pull (sic) the country out of a recession by spending billions on schools and free home roofing insulation have come to be regarded as worthy ideas that morphed into a disaster of public administration.”

Marcus says that these reports show an overworked public service, unreasonable government expectations, a disconnection between policy and its real-world application and poor assumptions. Continue reading “What can OHS professionals learn from government program failures?”

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