politics – Page 170 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Happiness is a warm million

The Australian newspapers in late-February shared the “outrage” of politicians and then the community over training that was provided to public servants by the American “happiness guru” Professor Martin Seligman.

The cost to the taxpayer seems exorbitant but the psychologist was from the US and was training delegates for many days. It is not unusual for US experts to charge over $US600 per hour plus travel and accomm0dation.

The Community & Public Sector Union‘s Assistant National Secretary Paul Gepp noted in a media statement that news of the expensive conference, which paid an American psychologist’s team more than $440,000, came with news of more layoffs of public servants, as 100 lost their jobs in the Crime Commission.

“Public servants are working hard to keep essential services going, keep our communities safe and make the stimulus package work,” said Mr Gepp. “Million-dollar, feel-good conferences don’t help get these jobs done. If the Government is looking to cut, we suggest it starts with junkets like this.”

The OHS context of this furore comes from the reasons for the training and whether the same benefits could have been obtained at a reduced price.

Media reports say that in parliament on 26 February 2009

“[Deputy Prime Minister, Ms Julia] Gillard attacked Liberal frontbencher Andrew Southcott for attempting to “parody” Professor Seligman, who she described as a “noted educationalist”.
“He is the leader in the development of (a) resiliency program that has been shown to make a difference to mental health issues amongst young people, including issues like anorexia and depression. That is actually serious and ought not to be cat-called about.”

SafetyAtWorkBlog has written previously about the workloads of the public sector under the Rudd government and how the government has chosen not to set reasonable production targets. The Seligman seminars are an example of trying to treat the symptoms and not the cause. Seligman’s programs are not the issue here as the results claimed may be absolutely justified.

Part of the problem for the government is timing, and in this, it shares a lot with behavioural-based safety programs. Whenever a company introduces a wellbeing program, or a happiness seminar, or resilience training, or a team-building extreme sports excursion, it indicates to me that either the company is one that has already tried the traditional approaches to controlling workplace hazards, hasn’t the faintest ides what to do to improve the safety in their workplace , or has too much money in its human resources budget and needs to spend it by the end of the financial year.

Regrettably, the money spent on public service mental health has been poorly targeted and papers over the cracks whilst ignoring the structural instability of how it manages its people.

Kevin Jones

CEO loses job over safety failures

Health funding and management is a constant political issue. The attention increases hugely during election campaigns like the one that is currently occurring in the Australian state of Queensland.

This week the leader of the opposition parties, Lawrence Springborg, called for the release of a government report into the sexual attack on a nurse and security in Torres Strait islands. SafetyAtWorkBlog has written repeatedly on OHS issues associated with the attack in February 2008. Springborg has pledged increased safety resources for remote area nurses.

Queensland Health reports on 25 February 2009 that the CEO of the Torres Strait District’s health service CEO has been stood aside as a result of the government’s investigation. The statement reads

“Director-General Michael Reid said the Crime and Misconduct Commission had reviewed the report by the Ethical Standards Unit and was satisfied with the investigation.
“Some allegations that members of the Torres Strait and Northern Peninsula Health Service District executive did not act appropriately were upheld by this investigation,” he said. “We accept this investigation has found serious faults in the way Queensland Health staff responded to this critical incident and we are taking immediate action.”
The CEO of the Torres Strait-Northern Peninsula District has been stood down, effective immediately, while her role with Queensland Health is under further consideration.”

Many of the issues raised relate to possible corruption and improper behaviour by the Queensland Health and others. These are the political points that Springborg is likely to chase.

In terms of occupational health and safety, the focus of this blog, Queensland Health says

“There is substantial evidence that there has been a systemic failure by the Torres Strait and Northern Peninsula Health Service District to acknowledge and address workplace health and safety issues within the District over a long period of time.”

“There is sufficient evidence to conclude, on the balance of probabilities, that members of the Torres Strait and Northern Peninsula Health Service District (TSNPHSD)
Executive responded inappropriately and insensitively when notified of the alleged rape of a Remote Island Nurse on Mabuiag Island on or around 5 February 2008.”

“Further, there is sufficient evidence exists to find, on the balance of probabilities, that the repatriation of the remote area nurse from the outer islands as not managed or coordinated at a level cognisant with the seriousness of the events which had occurred.”

It is no wonder the CEO of the health service has lost her job. It is a little surprising that more, and more prominent, heads have not rolled. It is suspected that this may be one of the aims of the opposition politicians during the current election campaign.

To return to our core issue of OHS and accountability, this result clearly indicates that senior executives, particularly in the public sector in this instance, must take a preventative approach to the health, safety and security of their staff, wherever the employee is located.

Kevin Jones

Response to National OHS Law Review

In the Australian Financial Review on 17 February 2009 (page 8 but not accessible online) Steven Scott reports that the Western Australian Treasurer Troy Buswell is in a stoush with the Federal government over OHS laws. They are not. Buswell is quoted as saying

“My view is that it’s much more appropriate to make sure you get it right… We will not be supporting the establishment of Safe Work Australia until we are in a position to commit ourselves to the full harmonisation process.”

Buswell wants more time and more information. He is also concerned about the (related) industrial relations changes. Only last week, Buswell was at a Senate Committee supporting West Australian businesses. The Treasurer’s stance is at least consistent and prepared for flexibility.

Michael Tooma, a labour lawyer with Deacons in Sydney, is reported as saying that

“These right of entry provisions could be used for ulterior purposes, either for a recruitment drive or as a way of causing industrial agitation….. It gives unions the right to use OHS as a Trojan Horse for the purpose of entry onto sites.”

In his initial analysis of the final report Tooma wrote

“The Panel took the view that union right of entry contributes in a positive manner to OHS compliance at a workplace level. It recommended that the model Act provide right of entry for OHS purposes to union officials and/or union employees formally authorised for that purpose under the model Act.”

and that

“These recommendations have the potential to industrialise the safety agenda.”

The review panel is acting on the fact that workplace safety is already industrialised and that those who continue to split to two areas are denying reality. OHS cannot be managed successfully without also working with the human capital and industrial relations context.

The right-of-entry provisions in any legislation is a hotly contested ideological battle and there is plenty of evidence through the many submissions to many OHS and IR reviews of this.

Right-of-entry is not a threat of punishment and is readily avoided through workplaces having active and functional methods of consultation and safety management.

Similarly, concerns are being raised over the introduction of Provisional Improvement Notices (PINs) in some jurisdiction. PINs are an acknowlegement of a breakdown in communication and a dysfunctional safety management system in the workplace. In some workplaces PINs are never applied because everyone talks about safety in an open and accountable fashion.

Many of the concerns being raised over this final review panel report can be addressed by safety professionals and advocates publishing examples of how alarming legislative provisions have proven to be non-starters. The power may be on the legal register but are infrequently applied.

When the new right-of-entry provisions were being introduced in Victoria, many lawyers and employer representatives said the world would collapse. It hasn’t and the sensible control and oversight of the process is now recommended across Australia.

It is perhaps time for WorkSafe Victoria to re-emphasise the success of the right-of-entry management process it has operated under for several years. John Merritt, CEO of WorkSafe Victoria has spoken very positively of the process. An information sheet on the issues for employers is also available.

Kevin Jones

Australia’s final report of OHS Model Law Review released

The final report of the review into Model OHS Law in Australia has been released. As usual Deacons law firm is the first to provide an analysis of the major recommendations of the report.

Over the next week there will be a flurry of activity from, particularly, the labour law firms but the rush is unnecessary. The timetable for when change becomes a reality is well over 12 months away and the global financial crisis has thrown political timetables to the winds.

The timetable for Australia’s emissions trading scheme are becoming vague, state elections are perhaps being brought forward, where they can, and, most importantly, the business sector will be protesting long and hard on any regulation that may increase their costs. If ever there was a time for safety professionals and associations to be campaigning on the truth that safety decreases operating costs in the long term, that time is now.

Judge leaders by how they react in a crisis not in the easy times.

Australia’s OHS Law Review

Last week, the release of the final report of Australia’s review into National Model OHS Law was touted by many as immediately after the meeting of the Workplace Relations Ministers Council (WRMC). This occurred with the first report in 2008. WRMC met in a teleconference yesterday. When the report is released officially (rumours are that the report is already doing the rounds of the unions and the employer associations), SafetyAtWorkBlog will provide a link to the report and some initial commentary.

However, as reported yesterday, the Australian Financial Review obtained a copy of the report and highlighted several issues of interest. The AFR report held no great surprise for safety professionals but the union movement is going to be ideologically tested.

Early in the review process, the New South Wales union movement was very vocal about the risk of losing their right to initiate prosecutions over OHS breaches. The right was rarely applied and could be a very costly exercise. Since that time there has been silence from that quarter, perhaps because they realised that its contentious right was out-of-step with the rest of the country and the review process is all about legislative harmonisation.

According to media reports this week, the Review Panel’s final report recommends the omission of the right to prosecute but allows an option to instigate prosecutions through the OHS regulators. In effect it keeps the power where it is most cost-effective and through which a similar outcome could be achieved. It gives the unions a seat at the table, just not the same seat but still with a comfy cushion.

Prior to the WRMC meeting, Sharan Burrows issued a media statement on several matters, the source of the ACTU quotes in today’s AFR article, in which she said

Media reports also suggest that the Ministers will tonight discuss the final report of the National Review of OHS Laws.

“It is vital that the national, harmonised health and safety laws are based on the highest possible standards. This should include providing workers with the right, through their unions, to initiate prosecutions against employers when there are serious health and safety breaches.

“In the past, union prosecutions have been few in number but have secured important improvements for employees who work in potentially dangerous situations. We also need a truly tripartite, well resourced national workplace health and safety watchdog that is able to set, monitor and upgrade health and safety standards,” said Ms Burrow.

It seems that Ms Burrows may, pragmatically, welcome the cushion.

Also, the union movement would be well aware of the potential boost to the revenues of OHS training providers, a status many unions and union bodies enjoy. A national five-day training course for Health & Safety Representatives could be financially useful. Also the courses have always been a very good recruiting opportunity.

Kevin Jones

Sharan Burrows speaking at the 2008 Workers' Memorial in Melbourne

John Bresland’s latest safety video

SafetyAtWorkBlog has previously referred to safety videos produced by the US Chemical Safety Board (CSB). The latest safety message from Chairman John Bresland relates to combustible dust explosion risks, a hazard that exists around the world and one that has been mentioned in this blog.

A curious element in this very good video is that he is lobbying the “incoming leadership at OSHA” to act on the CSB’s combustible gas recommendations. John’s video was released on 4 February 2009. The confirmation of a new Labor Secretary is still to occur and the latest nominee, Hilda Solis, has become embroiled in a taxation “scandal” relating to her husband’s auto repair business.

Bresland’s messages are always of good general safety relevance, a major reason why they are embedded in SafetyAtWorkBlog, but the latest one has some peculiar tones given the current US political circumstances. In Australia, we rarely have Chairman or CEOs of government agencies making such statements. It is indeed curious.

Kevin Jones

Cass Sunstein, Risk, Cost-Benefit and OHS – Part 2

Part 2 of Risk & Reason book review from SafetyAtWork magazine 2003

Sunstein closes the chapter “Thinking About Risks” with a short reference to September 11 2001 with which he says that “acts of terrorism show an acute appreciation of the psychological phenomena..”

Throughout the book, there are snippets that can be related to safety management. For instance, he writes of “dreaded deaths” with 3 points:

People can adapt to suffering much better than they think they can.
Some pain and suffering may well be an inevitable part of a desirable period in which people…can plan and adapt themselves to the fact of death…(p.66)
The period of pain and suffering that precedes death ought… to be far less important… than the fact of death itself.”

These points relate to HIV and cancer principally, but can’t we obtain some constructive advantage from having our employees dread workplace or traumatic deaths? First aid training often raises safety awareness because the First Aiders dread having to apply their skills. We drive cautiously because we dread traumatic injuries to our family and ourselves. Dread can lead to caution which leads to safe work.

Sunstein chooses not to deal with the relationship between risk and culture and directs us to “Risk & Culture” by Douglas and Wildavsky (1992). It is fair to acknowledge intellectual limitations but the whole book operates through, predominantly, the concerns of the United States culture and values. The cultural values of the US are not universal and some admission of this variation would have been useful, particularly given that the Douglas and Wildavsky book was published well over 10 years ago.

The illustration of eight propositions for cost-benefit analysis and government decision-making is very useful. They support the integration of qualitative measurements and a broad application of “costs”. One proposition is that “agencies should be required to show that the benefits justify the costs. If they do not, they should be required to show that the action is nonetheless reasonable…” Accountability is now an essential element of all business areas.

Risk and Reason may prove to be invaluable to United States readers but information for others was difficult to extract. (The testimonials on the dust jacket are glowing but are all academic, although one is from outside the US). There is no obligation for writers to include readers outside of their own marketplace but on an issue like risk and in a context of environmental management, it is disappointing that the book does not acknowledge the global readership. As mentioned above even very well known risk experts are not even referenced. The book is parochial and does not acknowledge that international standards do affect the US legal system even if it is less than in other jurisdictions. Environmental issues cross territorial boundaries and are becoming more involved with global legal structures and obligations.

Cass Sunstein has a good writing style and it is not difficult to read. We can only hope that the publishers encourage Mr Sunstein to write a complementary book focussing on risk and reason outside the United States.

The best pathway to Cass Sunstein information and writings is through his listing at Wikipedia. However, I did enjoy reading this article.

Category: politics

Happiness is a warm million

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CEO loses job over safety failures

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Response to National OHS Law Review

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Australia’s final report of OHS Model Law Review released

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Australia’s OHS Law Review

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John Bresland’s latest safety video

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Cass Sunstein, Risk, Cost-Benefit and OHS – Part 2

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