Category: safety

State Coroner speaks at Workers’ Memorial

Victoria, Australia, had a State Coroner who trailblazed on the issue of workplace safety for well over a decade.  Graeme Johnstone saw the coroner’s role as improving the quality of life of the community by examining its failures.  Victoria’s current coroner, Jennifer Coate, seems to be continuing Johnstone’s work and addressed the crowd at Melbourne’s workers memorial on 28 April 2011.

Coroner Coate’s speech is unlikely to be publicly released but SafetyAtWorkBlog has been informed that the speech contained the following points

  • it is important to remember and honour those workers who have died at work so that potential deaths can be prevented;
  • since 2000 the Coroners’ Court has made over 100 recommendations or comments on industrial deaths and recent laws require the state government to respond to these recommendations;
  • the crowd at the Trades Hall memorial cairn were asked to assist in the uptake of the prevention recommendations from the Coroners’ Court;
  • we should not forget the impact that workplace deaths can have on those who knew and loved the victims, and those who worked with them.

That a coroner was willing to attend and speak at such an event is a major compliment to the trade union organisers and a good insight in Judge Coate’s personality and philosophy.

Kevin Jones

Memorial forest for people killed and injured at work

Rosemary McKenzie-Ferguson, a frequent commentator at SafetyAtWorkBlog and prominent advocate on behalf of injured workers, led the Workers’ Memorial Day walk in Adelaide, South Australia today.  She was instrumental in the establishment of a memorial garden in the state capital and explains the reasons for the garden and the significance of the garden in the video below.

WorkCoverSA CEO faces hard tasks as new report damns WorkCover’s performance

Late April 2011 is becoming a period of turmoil in the South Australia’s WorkCover Corporation, on top of the government’s political turmoil from the sudden resignation of the Industrial Relations Minister, Bernard Finnigan, and a minister being charged with child pornography offences.  According to inDaily on 21 April 2011, WorkCover’s Deputy CEO, Jeff Matthews, and Chief Financial Officer, Ian Rhodes, left the organisation suddenly.  CEO Rob Thomson (ex-Workcover New South Wales) says that the positions were axed as part of a restructure.

On 27 April 2011, the most recent review into WorkCover’s operations was released.  The March 2011 report finds that the state’s workers compensation scheme

“…shows little evidence of improved return to work performance, in spite of very heavy referrals to and cost of vocational rehabilitation compared to comparable scheme.” Continue reading “WorkCoverSA CEO faces hard tasks as new report damns WorkCover’s performance”

ILO provides thoughtful information for Workers’ Memorial Day

Workers’ Memorial Day, or the World Day for Safety and Health At Work, gains considerable attention at local levels.  In particular, Australia and Canada have a large number of commemorative events.  However, the activities of the International Labor Organization (ILO) should not be ignored and the activities for 2011 are of particular note.

The Deputy General of the ILO, Juan Somavia, reminds us that in 2001 the ILO published its Guidelines on Occupational Safety and Health Management Systems, a document that has had a major influence on those countries that do not have the resources necessary to develop their own OHS regulatory support services.

Ten years after the release of that document the ILO has released a reflective report entitled “OSH Management System: A tool for continual improvement”. This report reads as a little simple for those who focus on occupational health and safety management systems (OHSMS) but every so often even the most specialised of professionals needs to be reminded of the basic building blocks of that profession.  This is particularly so in countries like Australia, where the OHS profession is distracted by legal harmonisation, or England, where budget cuts and economic challenges are focussing business attention away from safety management.

The report reminds in plain English that

“The OSHMS approach ensures that:

I wish for an OHS time machine

Certain memories

I cannot escape certain OHS memories.   They are the ones that inform many of the decisions I make in matters of health and safety.   Rightly or wrongly they feed my aspirations, my efforts, frustrations and my anger at what I see too often in many workplaces.   What I do and what I know feeds on these memories.

I recently inspected a workplace that uses huge amounts of chemicals.  The place was covered with health and safety signs and strongly smelled of a range of chemicals.   But overall it was clean, neat and half way respectful of workers’ health.   I could see workers here and there watching me walk around with the union delegate and H&S representative, and they knew that there would be a lunchtime mass meeting for me to say my piece.   But I couldn’t get Mr White out of my mind.  This was one of my persistent memories.   My personal OHS canaries warning me not to forget things.

I met him at the end of an extended OHS inspection I conducted at his workplace.   The manager on the day was decent and very helpful, he facilitated a great deal.  This factory used large amounts of a particular chemical, and has been for more than 30 years, his entire working life was spent in this factory working with this chemical.

He introduced himself unusually as ‘Mr White’, stuttered, smiled hesitantly and said, ‘Mick’, almost as if his first name was unimportant, just an afterthought.  He clutched a stack of papers tightly to his chest and waited for a gap in the conversation so he could say his bit.   Continue reading “I wish for an OHS time machine”

Online media slams Workcover SA report

Online newspaper, Indaily, has released a report by DeakinPrime which summarises a November 2010 summit conference on workers compensation.  DeakinPrime facilitated the summit

InDaily focuses on the following criticisms, amongst others, from the report:

  • a silo approach by Workcover
  • the lack of feedback
  • injured workers were not the prime consideration of Workcover
  • politicisation was leading to instability
  • a disassociated claims management process.

These criticisms are present in the full report  but the presence of criticisms should not surprise as the nature of these summits are usually twofold – the creation of innovative solutions and an avenue for complaint.  Continue reading “Online media slams Workcover SA report”

All speakers on OHS conference video should have been identified

The Safety Institute of Australia (SIA) has released a post Safety In Action conference video of vox-pops.  It’s mentioned in this blog as the editor, Kevin Jones, is included for several comments towards the end.

The intention of the video is to promote the next conference by reflecting on the previous.  This is a useful marketing tool that is not hard to create and, at face value, is informative, as far as it goes.

A major inconsistency or omission is that only a couple of speakers are identified.  This should not usually be an issue but several of the speakers should have been identified as committee members of the Safety Institute, these include:

  • The Vice President of the ACT Committee of Management
  • A committee member from Victoria
  • the current President of INSHPO and a former SIA National President.

There is no reason for some speakers to be identified and others not.  Identification of all speakers allows the viewer to filter between delegates who attend for professional development and those delegates who have a vested interest in promoting the conference.

The conference, as a whole, was better than expected and the vox-pops reflect that but the promotional video would have gained more authority by having all the speakers identified.

Kevin Jones

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