Peter Arthur, a Partner with Australian law firm, Allens Arthur Robinson, spoke on Boardroom Radio on 1 April 2010 about new duties that national OHS laws will place on Directors.
Although there are six elements in the new general duty, Arthur says that they all can come under the category of “information flow”. Continue reading “Information flow is critical for sound Board decisions on OHS”
Following the post on the 2010 British election campaign a reader pointed out that David Cameron’s reviewer of OHS, Lord Young, spoke at the 2010 conference of the Institute of Occupational Safety & Health (IOSH) in late March 2010 and ruffled some feathers.
Lord David Young described the public perception of OHS as
“at best, as an object of ridicule and, at worst, a bureaucratic nightmare”.
However according to IOSH, Lord Young identified OHS professionals as the problem instead of considering the truth of many of the media reports. Continue reading “Lord Young smashes bridges instead of building them at IOSH conference”
On 6 April 2010, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called a general election for 6 May 2010. Dust off your copy of A Very British Coup or Yes, Minister and get ready to try to make sense of workplace policies, if they ever get a mention.
Workplace safety rarely gets a mention in election campaigns unless there is the misfortune for a major work-related catastrophe during the campaign. In these early days, OHS was never going to be mentioned but over the next month or so, it will be fascinating to see which political party mentions the issue first and with most emphasis.
David Cameron of the Conservative Party spoke passionately about OHS within the last six months. The Labour Party has the capacity to show that work fatality rates have fallen within their three terms of office (more below). The Liberal Democrats have no policy position yet on workplace safety. Basically it’s Vision vs Stability vs Uncertainty. Continue reading “OHS as litmus on British election campaign”
“….I would ….suggest that government (as employer and dutyholder, and as policy maker) can, and should, be an exemplar of OHS best practice. By taking the lead in the systematic management of occupational health and safety, government can influence the behaviour of individuals and firms upon whom duties are imposed by the OHS legislation.”
In 2004, Chris Maxwell QC wrote the above words in his review of the OHS legislation in Victoria. According to a report in the Australian Financial Review (only available by subscription or hard copy) on 6 April 2010, the Minister for WorkCover, Tim Holding, seems to share some of Maxwell’s view. Holding is reported to have said in a speech that
“The truth is that the performance of workplace safety in the Victorian public service continues to be lamentable Continue reading “Minister says public service safety performance is lamentable”
A link to an article of sound ergonomic advice was emailed to SafetyAtWorkBlog in early April 2010 suggesting readers may be interested. The article is entitled “The Ultimate Guide to Ergonomics: 50 Tips & Tricks for Serious Students” and contains some good suggestions but it seems to be based on some assumptions that are not necessarily present in the real world of students. Continue reading “Good ergonomics advice but prevention should have been emphasised”
In 2002, Eric Quaadgras provided some cartoons for the SafetyAtWork magazine. One illustrated the issue of workplace bullying which I thought you may like.
“Certain occupational exposures appear to increase the risk of developing postmenopausal breast cancer”, is a conclusion reached by Canadian researchers and released in April 2010 edition of the Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine.
The researchers acknowledged that “some findings might be due to chance or to undetected bias some findings might be due to chance or to undetected bias”, but there is enough evidence to generate concern in occupational sectors and, often, the media shows increased interest in breast cancer research.
Several Australian scientists have advised caution on interpreting the research findings. Continue reading “Canadian research shows occupational link to breast cancer”
