At the time of writing, it looks like the Democrats in the United States are smashing the Republicans and President Trump in the mid-term elections. One of the earliest winners was Democrat Jon Ossoff. His campaign strategy, focused on calling out presidential and political corruption, seems to have worked. This strategy of blunt honesty could be exported to Australia and applied in arguments about reducing work-related injuries and deaths.
Many Australian employers, managers and executives take inspiration from counterparts in the United States. When it comes to occupational mental health, they are looking in the wrong direction and could benefit from looking more locally. But there is merit in evaluating the US perspectives.
Below are responses provided by several Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents on my own PC to the question in this article’s title. There is considerable overlap in many, but I start off with the most confronting response, provided by the World Socialist Web Site‘s Socialism AI:
Continue reading “Why don’t US employers focus on preventing psychosocial hazards?”Recent Nordic research has dropped a number that should unsettle Australia’s safety regulators: fatal workplace incidents make up only 1% of work‑related deaths. If similar proportions apply here, our entire inspection and prevention model is pointed at the wrong end of the problem.
This week the Australian Government released its latest Intergenerational Report (IGR). It does not discuss occupational health and safety (OHS) directly, but it does cover some of the socioeconomic factors within which OHS must be managed.
The report’s projections on ageing, labour supply, climate, care demand, migration and fiscal pressure shift safety from a narrow focus on acute hazards to a long‑term, systemic challenge centred on chronic exposure, job design, psychosocial harm and workforce vulnerability. The IGR is important for our consideration of work-related harm.
The occupational health and safety (OHS) dimensions of working from home (WFH) are routinely misrepresented in public debate, often drowned out by managerial preference, corporate culture, and political posturing. Remarkably consistent evidence shows that WFH does not reduce productivity. In many cases it improves it, largely because autonomy, reduced commuting, and better control over work rhythms lower psychological risks such as stress, burnout, and fatigue. From an OHS standpoint, that makes WFH a legitimate and effective control measure that is certainly not a threat to organisational performance.
Yet employers frequently resist WFH, invoking vague claims about collaboration, culture, or “team cohesion”. (This article was written before the postponement of the Victorian laws)
Australian business media, especially the Australian Financial Review (AFR), continues to oppose the Victorian (Labor) government’s intention to make working from home (WFH) a formal right and entitlement. Every week, the mainstream media report on the latest research that criticises the move on the basis of productivity impacts, restrictions on career progress and other business negatives; occasionally, very occasionally, some positives are reported – better mental health, reduced living and commuter costs, flexibility for family duties and obligations.
Whenever Mariana Mazzucato publishes a new book, she appears in the press everywhere as part of book tours and promotions. Her latest book, The Common Good Economy, is likely to be as influential on government and international policymakers as her other books have been. Australia’s Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, pays close attention to her perspectives. These perspectives relate to the management of occupational health and safety (OHS) because they present a different or tweaked sense of corporate morality, under which workers should be safe and healthy.
This article is not a review of the Common Good Economy book, although it is very good. Instead, I compare Mazzucato’s approach on work to Professor Michael Quinlan‘s take on precarity.
