productivity – Page 32 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Proposed drug testing – a political tool

On 6 February 2014 the Victorian Premier. Denis Napthine, announced the intention to

“…require construction companies to implement comprehensive drug and alcohol screening measures to ensure the safety of workers to be eligible to tender for Victorian Government construction contracts.”

This is to be part of the occupational health and safety (OHS) obligations of companies under the Implementation Guidelines to the Victorian Code of Practice for the Building and Construction Industry. Understandably the construction union, particularly, is angry and feels as if it is being singled out. Both organisations have chosen their words very carefully. Premier Napthine is quoted as saying:

“Reports of illicit drug use and distribution on Victorian construction sites are widespread.”

The CFMEU‘s Victorian Secretary John Setka has stated that

“There is no epidemic of drug taking on construction sites…. Our Health and Safety representatives who look out for workers’ health and safety are not reporting a problem.”

It is unlikely there is an epidemic of drug use but the Premier is talking of drugs AND alcohol.

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Safety leadership and the red tape drag

Red Tape scribble During a recent seminar I produced the doodle on the right, which depicts what I think the speaker was talking about. Safety is a goal that can be best achieved through improving a company’s leadership qualities. However all companies seem to be restricted by red tape, however one defines that. Can this journey be improved?

Decrease the baggage

It may be possible to reduce or minimise the red tape baggage. Most Western governments are attempting this through inquiries and reviews but this is assuming that it is government bureaucracy that has created this baggage. In Australia over the last fifty years Governments have allowed business great flexibility in how it achieves OHS compliance and safe workplaces (definitely not the same thing) by reducing the prescriptive basis of OHS laws. It may have been reasonable to expect that the loss of prescriptive safety would decrease paperwork but over the same time there has been increasing calls for less red tape from government. Continue reading “Safety leadership and the red tape drag”

Lovely chair that helps greatly but is only part of the solution

A diagram of safe posture at modern workstations has become iconic but it has also become a symbol of ergonomic misunderstanding. There are assumptions behind the angular figure about the way modern workers work, the equipment used and the tasks undertaken.

Too often images, such as the one included here, are taken out of context. The image is used as a shortcut to what is considered the “correct” way to sit. The context, the risk assessments, the tasks undertaken, the location of the workstation – basically all of the OHS information included in the workplace safety guides is ignored. People think “the picture has a tick of approval, so why read when the picture says enough”?

This week Steelcase, a one hundred year old company that originally constructed waste paper baskets, launched its Gesture chair. The marketing of this chair is based on the discovery (?) of nine new postures in the workplace:

Continue reading “Lovely chair that helps greatly but is only part of the solution”

Australian research on OHS harmonisation’s progress, success and errors

The harmonisation of Australia’s occupational health and safety (OHS) laws has stagnated since the West Australian government’s tepid response to the strategy and Victoria’s belligerent and ill-founded rejection. But some continue to examine the harmonisation process. Eric Windholz is one of those researchers.

Windholz is a former executive of Victoria’s WorkSafe and is now with the Monash Centre or Regulatory Studies and is writing his thesis on OHS harmonisation (to be available soon through the Monash Library). Windholz acknowledges the political context of harmonisation, a context he describes as “contentious”.

The political maneuvering of various stakeholders in the harmonisation process deserves additional study. The harmonisation, or even national uniformity, of safety has occurred over a similar period in Australia with other industry sectors, most noticeably in rail. It is a strategy that was started by the conservative government of John Howard, embraced by the Australian Labor Party through its various prime ministerial incarnations and is now stagnant or even ignored. Continue reading “Australian research on OHS harmonisation’s progress, success and errors”

New political challenges for OHS in Australia

This weekend the Australian people voted for the conservative Liberal Party to be the next Federal government. Workplace safety has been largely absent from the pre-election campaign but when it has been mentioned it has almost always been couched in terms of productivity. In the next few years, workplace safety issues must be couched in terms of productivity to have any hope of gaining the ear of the new government and, particularly, the ear of Senator Eric Abetz, the most likely candidate for the ministry of workplace relations.

Workplace Bullying

Recent changes to workplace bullying laws which provide a prominent role of the Fair Work Commission are unlikely to be rolled back but Abetz has promised Continue reading “New political challenges for OHS in Australia”

Labour productivity is “soaring” in a period of IR/OHS variability

Mental health, happiness, well being, safety, red tape …. each of these have been linked to productivity recently in Australian discourses but, as has been mentioned previously, productivity has a flexible definition depending on one’s politics and political agenda. There is multi-factor productivity and labour productivity. Each measure provides different results. So where does OHS sit?

An article in The Weekend Australian on 27 July 2013 illustrates the flexible definitions and includes a rare acknowledgement on labour productivity.

“On the measure of labour productivity, which captures the output of each worker, productivity growth is in fact soaring, hitting 3.4 per cent in 2011-12. [emphasis added]

But on the broader measure, which includes the use business makes of capital equipment, growth is still a negligible 0.1 per cent and has declined on average 0.7 per cent a year ever since Labor was elected.”

The labour productivity figure is important to remember when one hears about excessive workloads, excessive hours of work and other potential causes for psychosocial hazards. Continue reading “Labour productivity is “soaring” in a period of IR/OHS variability”

Federal Safety Commissioner begins review of SWMS info

Recently, the issue of Safe Work Method Statements was discussed at a construction safety conference in Canberra. SafetyAtWorkBlog reported that:

“Several delegates stated their belief that the Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner (OFSC) is largely to blame for the over-emphasis on SWMS in the construction sector and for the bloating of SWMS into a document that does little to improve safety and is more related to meeting the audit criteria of the OFSC”

Last week, the Office of the Federal Safety Commission (OFSC) removed the webpage that led to its Fact Sheet – Guidance for producing Safe Work Method Statements. The webpage now says that

“The Guidance for producing Safe Work Method Statements (SWMS) Fact Sheet is currently under review.”

What’s going on? Continue reading “Federal Safety Commissioner begins review of SWMS info”

Category: productivity

Proposed drug testing – a political tool

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Safety leadership and the red tape drag

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Lovely chair that helps greatly but is only part of the solution

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Australian research on OHS harmonisation’s progress, success and errors

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New political challenges for OHS in Australia

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Labour productivity is “soaring” in a period of IR/OHS variability

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Federal Safety Commissioner begins review of SWMS info

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