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Peter Howard and Work-Related Suicide

Work-related suicide is the psychosocial equivalent of a physical workplace fatality. They represent failures of occupational health and safety (OHS) management and the presence of unsafe systems of work.

Several years ago in Adelaide, Australia, a worker burned to death in his car outside the company’s premises. Work-related suicide after decades of bullying was the expected outcome, but the findings of a recent Coroner’s inquest were inconclusive. The death of 59-year-old Peter Howard deserves more attention and consideration.

Warning: this article discusses suicide

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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 Human Resources changes required for mentally safe workplaces.

In a recent LinkedIn discussion Professor Johanna Macneil asked me how the Human Resources (HR) discipline should change to meet the “new” occupational health and safety (OHS) duties about psychosocial hazards. Below is my response:

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Weaponising Industrial Manslaughter

Prosecution for Industrial Manslaughter in Australia’s occupational health and safety (OHS) is supposed to deter employers from neglecting the health and safety of their workers, but there is very little evidence of effective deterrence from this type of penalty, or improved safety and healthy working conditions. Industrial manslaughter seems to have more of a marketing and political impact. It allows governments to say they are doing something tough on OHS even though the changes have little deterrence and continue to be difficult to apply to the intended corporate targets.

The Queensland Parliament has provided a recent example of the political weaponisation of Industrial Manslaughter.

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The two approaches to psychosocial hazards

There are two common approaches to addressing and preventing psychosocial hazards at work. One is to consider these hazards as originating within and affecting only workers and work processes. This looks at the hazards generated by work that affect work and downplays or dismisses factors from outside work. The other is to acknowledge that work is part of life, that socioeconomic factors affect workers’ mental health, and that job stresses similarly affect workers’ social lives. In both instances, the use of “worker” includes all levels of a management structure. Both approaches need evaluation for effectiveness.

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The first psychosocial hazards book

It has taken some time for an Australian to produce an affordable book on managing psychosocial hazards in the workplace. I have reservations about The Science of Happy Employees, self-published by Dr Brenda Jamnik. It is not the book I would write if I ever got off my arse to write one, but it seems to be the first that acknowledges the occupational health and safety (OHS) context of psychosocial hazards.

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Digitalisation, Artificial Intelligence, OHS and Work

What do Safe Work Australia (SWA) executives do outside National Safe Work Month? Several times each year, they appear before Senate committees. Recently, SWA’s CEO Marie Boland, Sinead McHugh, and Katherine Taylor spoke at a Senate Inquiry into the Digital Transformation of Workplaces.

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