politics – Page 188 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Varanus Island investigations continue

International safety attention was focused on a tiny island of the northwest Australian cost in mid-June 2008 when a pipeline exploded. Investigation reports have been presented to government and companies have regained operations after the major gas explosion that disrupted supplies across Western Australia.

In early May 2009, the WA Department of Mines & Petroleum announced a further investigation will be undertaken. WA Mines and Petroleum Minister Norman Moore has said that the department would carry out the final stage of investigations into the explosion.

Kym Bills and David Agostini have been classified officially as inspectors and will undertake the investigation.

Moore said that the October 2008 report by NOPSA needed additional information which has recently become available.

“…that investigation was limited by its reporting time frame and the absence of critical evidence, such as the results from destructive and non-destructive testing of the pipeline.”

A ministerial media release identifies the investigation’s scope:

the pertinent sequence of events on Varanus Island during the incident
the likely cause(s) of the incident
any actions and omissions by the operator of the Varanus Island facility, or its contractors, leading up to and during the incident that may have contributed to those events.

The final report will be presented to the department in June 2009.

Background on Varanus Island is available in SafetyAtWorkBlog by searching “Varanus” as a keyword.

Kevin Jones

Australia’s OHS harmonisation likely to fall

Media reports on 11 May 2009 do not provide optimism for the introduction of harmonised OHS laws in Australia. The Australian reports that the ACTU is lobbying Federal ministers over the reports into the model OHS law that are scheduled to be discussed at the Workplace Relations Ministers’ Council on 18 May.

The unions believe that following the recommendations of the review panel will provide workers with lesser standard of safety protection than they currently have.

The government has been slow is responding to the recommendations of the review panel, an odd action given the tight reform timeline they set. However, the government has shown that timelines are flexible even when the future of humanity is threatened by climate change.

The ACTU will be campaigning in the media this week against the weakening of OHS laws, particularly the extremist laws of New South Wales. Whether this is an ambit claim or not will be found out next week but whatever it is it shows regrettable shortsightedness on the part of the ACTU.

The Australian Financial Review (page 5, 11 May 2009, article not available online) seems to take some glee in the fact that the safety laws are “shaky”. The paper may be caught between watching the Government’s agenda failing again or advocating legislative change to reduce the operational costs of its readers. The AFR reports that three States are digging in against the possible OHS law reforms. New South Wales (largely seen as dominated by the trade unions), Queensland (new IR Minster Cameron Dick wants the State’s reverse onus of proof to be applied) and Western Australia have indicated a hesitance to accept.

The Federal Government needs a two-thirds majority for the national OHS legislation to occur and, with a week to go, SafetyAtWorkBlog expects the government to apply some horsetrading for the new laws to pass.

Having said that noone yet knows what the new laws are that will be proposed. The Government has received the review panel reports but has yet to respond to the recommendations.

Any law reform focused on national harmonisation is unlikely to succeed unless there is unanimous support for the reforms. The fear all along with the OHS laws is that agreement will be short-term until state governments decide that their industries or industrial relations situation have special needs and responds parochially and weakens the national strategy.

The challenge for the Federal Minister for Workplace Relations, Julia Gillard, is to achieve unanimity AND lock in State support for several years so that harmony and stability can be achieved. OHS law reform on this scale occurs rarely and all parties should be looking at the long term on this issue rather than their own state-based petty power struggles. We have to wait till early next week to see which States have the mature politicians.

Kevin Jones

Australian Prime Minister talks to the great unwashed

The edge of panic is starting to appear in Australian concerns over swine flu. Some health officials, who should know better, are slipping slightly off message. The Queensland government’s chief medical officer has recommended that food should be stockpiled. This was quickly jumped on by the Federal Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, has tried to provide a more palatable context to the stockpiling:

“We want people to be aware of the risk of this disease, we want people to be taking sensible planning steps but we don’t want panic,” she said. “It’s very important that we don’t have a rush on products that people just during the course of their ordinary shopping might think about whether they have some of these extra supplies.”

The Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has offered some of the blandest, but relevant, advice:

“For all Australians to engage in the simple practice of washing their hands with soap on a regular basis.”

Kevin Rudd is not the poster boy for personal hygiene unless eating one’s earwax is a suitable hygiene practice.

SafetyAtWorkBlog will continue to watch for evidence of the effectiveness of handwashing in influenza control.

Roxon’s advice is sound however in one very important way – sensible planning steps. Cut through the hyperbole. Listen to reputable health advice, and keep your colleagues and employees informed. If that happens, we’ll get through this threat.

Kevin Jones

Safe Work Australia Awards 2008

Safe Work Australia is a fairly new configuration for Australia’s OHS department but it’s awards have been going for some years. On 28 April 2009 the awards were held in Canberra. The timings don’t seem quite right but that is the scheduling of these sorts of things in Australia.

The award winners from the State events are nominated for national awards, usually, conducted six months later. SafetytWorkBlog has written elsewhere about the need to review this system.

The winners this evening were congratulated by the Workplace Relations Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Julie Gillard and were

ETSA Utilities(SA) for best OHS managemetn system
The Dorsal Boutique Hotel(NSW) for best OHS solution
WP Projects(NSW) for best OHS practice in small business
Eraring Energy(NSW) for a leadership in injury management
Viki Coad (SA) for best individual OHS contribution

The obvious peculiarity in the award winners is the absence of winners from Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland, states with large populations and/or large mining sectors.

The Dorsal Boutique Hotel gained considerable kudos in New South Wales’s awards in October 2008 with its bed elevator that reduces the need for housekeepers to bend when making the beds. It is a good example of thinking further into the problem and asking why beds are designed the way they are and why can’t we change it. It has a limited use but considerable appeal to the millions of hotels around the world. More information can be found on the solution at the NSW WorkCover Awards site.

It is always more gratifying to see successful things rather than successful programs as the things are often transferable to many workplaces and are visual solutions to problems, sometimes problems we weren’t aware of. Leadership and management awards are more a recognition that a company has taken safety seriously which has been a legislative requirement on business for decades. There is little innovation to show in these areas. More the award is for the fact that known techniques have been applied in difficult work situations or industry sectors or company configurations.

This is not to say the effort of the award winners is less valuable than tangible solutions but often these changes come from a changed management structure or a traumatic event or new focus from the board. It is easier to understand the significance of these OHS “agents for change” when focusing on an individual achievement. The award for Viki Coad is a great example of the difference one person can make. It is these achievements that should be more widely applauded.

Indeed readers could benefit greatly from looking at the State winners in this individual category for that is where inspiration can be found.

Kevin Jones

(Kevin was invited to attend the awards event by Safe Work Australia)

The value of brevity in government submissions and business reports

In Australia, at the moment, there are several governmental inquiries that could involve safety management issues. Submissions to inquiries can often be bloated with information that a review panel already knows or can be off topic. Frequently, relevant but not essential information is included in the body of the submission where it could be just as easily included in an appendix.

Past experience in handling Cabinet submissions has indicated that a brief listing of the recommendations or requests is best, as this makes it much easier for the review panels to digest. People tend to forget that their submission is going to be one of, perhaps, hundreds, and that brevity is highly valued in the public service (except perhaps in their own publications and reports?).

This position on brevity is one that should also be applied to client reports concerning workplace safety. Many consultants forget that their clients are already very familiar with their own workplace and don’t need to be shown “how to suck eggs”.

Kevin Jones

How Workers’ Memorial Day should be treated

For the first time in many years, I will not be able to attend the local service for the Workers’ Memorial Day on 28 April 2009. I will be attending the Safe Work Australia Awards in Canberra which, coincidentally, is on the same day. I hope that the award ceremony includes a minute’s silence to remember those who have died at work.

Recently the San Francisco Labor Council passed a resolution in support of Workers’ Memorial Day. It provided several good reasons why trade unionists and, I would say, OHS professionals, should support this day. Below is part of the resolution

Whereas, April 28, 2009 is an international day of commemoration for injured workers and workers killed on the job; and

Whereas, the elimination of all doctors at Ca-OSHA has threatened the health and safety protection of California’s 17 million workers; and

Whereas, the introduction of new technology such as biotech and nanotechnology without proper oversight can and has become a threat to workers and our communities; and

Whereas, the deregulation of workers compensation has harmed injured workers and their families in California and throughout the country; and

Whereas, many of these workers have been forced onto SSI, Disability Insurance and other state and local agencies to cover their healthcare costs which is cost-shifting; and

Whereas, senior workers in many industries have been forced into retirement due to their disabilities on the job and discrimination against them due to their disabilities and age including at the US Post Office and other industries; and

Whereas, all working people and their families whether working or injured are entitled to full healthcare,

Therefore be it resolved the San Francisco Labor Council endorses and supports a Workers Memorial Day event on April 28, 2009 in San Francisco at ILWU Local 34 and encourages it’s affiliates to publicize and participate in this California Coalition for Workers Memorial Day (CCWMD)

It is a lesson for other unions and organisations that such a day does not deal with localised industrial relations disputes and can be a platform for improvement in the quality of life of workers by calling for

increased enforcement and policy resources;
caution over emerging hazards;
reassessment of deregulation;
insurance and healthcare improvements; and
appealing early retirements due to illness and injury.

I urge OHS professionals to seek out your local commemorations and participate. The more people attend, the more government will realise the seriousness of the issue. More importantly, the services remind us why we entered this profession in the first place and, just maybe, how we have made a difference.

Kevin Jones

Migrant worker safety

Recently one of the Australian boutique labour law firms ran a seminar on employment issues related to migrant workers. Australia has a history of using workers from the Pacific Islands, principally, in agriculture. Chinese have been working in Australia since the goldfields of the 1800s. New Zealanders are so frequent that the countries almost share an economy in some ways. Some labour is imported, other labour is invited or sought.

The global economic problems has exacerbated the difficulties many countries face with legal and illegal migrant workers. Australia is not immune. There may be less and less water in the country, certainly in the south, but it is still considered a land of opportunity by neighbours.

Workplace safety issues are perhaps the easiest to deal with in this labour sector as the employment status is not relevant to the obligation to provide a safe and healthy work environment.

The safety training, instruction and supervision matters are similarly unaffected by employment status. However it has always been a difficult part of an OHS manager and HR manager’s job to make sure that workers understand their obligations and duties. In Victoria, one of the first OHS Codes of Practice in the 1980s concerned providing OHS information in languages other than English. It was probably the most ignored Code of Practice of all.

Recently, WorkSafe Victoria has issued Compliance Codes. Following the recommendations and techniques in these codes implies compliance and can be wonderful for the small business sector. One of the new codes is on communicating in languages other than English This is a great start but there needs a much greater effort, almost a movement, for Australia to avoid the problems facing countries like England.

In late-March 2009, the UK law firm Irwin Mitchell reported the following statistics

The report [by the Centre for Corporate Accountability], which makes the figures public for the first time and was compiled following Freedom of Information requests to the Health and Safety Executive, shows that a dozen migrant workers died in the construction industry in the year 2007/08 – at least double the figure expected and a six-fold increase in the number who died just five years earlier.

The 12 deaths comprised 17% of the total number of fatalities in the sector last year – more than double the HSE’s estimate of migrants making up around 8% of the total construction sector workforce.

Migrant deaths in other sectors is also on the increase, with the number of fatalities of non-UK workers up from nine in 2005/6 to 18 in 2007/8 and the proportion also doubling from 4.1% to 7.9% in the same period, against figures showing that 5.4% of the total workforce comprises migrants.

No official information is currently available on the level of injuries to migrant workers, as the HSE does not record nationality in injury cases, though estimates put the figure as high as 11% – again, double the expected level.

Many workplaces have already dealt with safety issues with migrant labour. Crews in rail maintenance, for instance, are often on ethical lines so that colleagues educate each other. Often workplaces call on an established worker from a specific ethnic area to take the lead in supervising others and passing on OHS information. These adhoc processes still need to be verified as effective but have worked in many workplaces for decades.

A recent rumour posted to the Australian website Crikey.com illustrates the type of attitude to migrant workers and the mixing of concerns about safety and industrial issues.

A Chinese owned mining project is advertising for a Bilingual (English Mandarin) Registered Nurse on their website [since removed]. The role is stated to be designed for liaison with Chinese workers and is required to have industrial safety knowledge, reporting directly to a company director? How many Chinese workers is this project bringing into Australia given the recent restrictions on 457s [migrant work visas], what about the requirement for foreign workers to have some competency in English, anecdotal evidence that building and construction labour rates are already decreasing and how would the unions view this approach to health and safety of foreign workers?

One OHS expert at the law firm’s seminar accepted that the language requirements were woefully inadequate and not suited for the workplace situation. It would be refreshing to see an OHS professional association begin lobbying the government on improving the language criteria for visa eligibility.

The unions would be equally concerned about the safety of any workers onsite, hopefully regardless of the workers’ union membership status.

Australia is in a lucky situation where many workplaces could continue to operate without migrant labour but the world and its economy is changing, and Australia will be dragged into the real world of the modern international workforce. It is lucky because it has the opportunity to prepare. It is such a shame that the preparation remains so thin.

Kevin Jones

Category: politics

Varanus Island investigations continue

Like this:

Australia’s OHS harmonisation likely to fall

Like this:

Australian Prime Minister talks to the great unwashed

Like this:

Safe Work Australia Awards 2008

Like this:

The value of brevity in government submissions and business reports

Like this:

How Workers’ Memorial Day should be treated

Like this:

Migrant worker safety

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: