Category: SafeWork

Shop safety protocols do not go far enough

A group of retail associations in Australia has released a very curious COVID-19 Retail Recovery Protocol.

All shops and malls are workplaces and must comply with occupational health and safety (OHS) laws. A small embarrassment in these protocols is that although it acknowledges that further guidance may be available from workplace health and safety authorities, it provides no links to that COVID19 guidance and gets Safe Work Australia’s (SWA) name wrong! It does not inspire confidence and all that was needed was a single hyperlink to the SWA guidance developed specifically for the Retail Industry.

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“a COVID safe workplace” – Mark 2

Less than 12 hours after not mentioning Safe Work Australia’s COVID19 occupational health and safety (OHS) guidance, the Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business, Michaelia Cash, issues a media release, in conjunction with the Minister for Industrial Relations, Christian Porter, saying that

“The Safe Work Australia (SWA) website has been transformed into a centralised information hub, which can be easily searched using a handy content filter to find work health and safety guidance relevant to 23 specific industries.”

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Great loss, but no vision and limited interest

This year’s International Workers Memorial Day/World Day for Safety and Health at Work is over. Many of the memorial events were conducted online and many gave healthcare workers prominence, especially in the United Kingdom. SafetyAtWorkBlog watched the online service conducted by the Victorian Trades Hall.

Many worker memorials are little more than a reiteration of the importance of occupational health and safety (OHS) laws. If the ceremonies are conducted by trade unions, as most are, they are usually advocating for the role of Health and Safety Representatives (HSRs). This year’s Victorian ceremony was typical. However, there were some curiosities and such ceremonies can, and should, be more than just a commemoration.

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Business COVID19 survey could have been clearer and more useful

On April 14, 2020, the Australian Industry Group revealed, in a media release, some details of how its members were responding to the COVID19 pandemic. The survey was described as economic research and, as occupational health and safety (OHS) is mentioned, SafetyAtWorkBlog asked from more details on the OHS-related findings.

The survey found:

“There has been a steep rise in workload as a result of new OH&S policies and procedures around hygiene (34%) and working from home (25%).”

“Employees are also anxious, with 31% of businesses saying there is increased anxiety levels within their workforce.”

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Possible replacements for Safe Work Method Statements

Could improving the situational awareness of workers replace Safe Work Method Statements?

Many Australian occupational health and safety (OHS) professionals rally against the dominance of Safe Work Method Statements (SWMS). The application of SWMS beyond the legislated high-risk construction work parameters increases the amount of safety clutter and misrepresents OHS as being able to be satisfied by a, predominantly, tick-and-flick exercise. But critics of SWMS are rarely pushed on what, if anything, should replace SWMS? SafetyAtWorkBlog asked some experts and looked closer at the issue.

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Quirky safety cards

Conferences usually provide delegates with goodie bags of promotional material from sponsors and speakers. Most of it is dross but the bags often include quirky items such as drink bottles, stress balls, baseball hats, sunscreen, which can also be silly, but occasionally there are some that are useful and notable.

SafeWorkNSW produced a deck of playing cards where safety statements or aphorisms replaced the pictures of two-headed royalty and card symbols. This is the type of item that may be left in a glovebox of a car for times of imposed idleness, but I have only seen playing cards used once on a worksite (exempting the playing of Uno by tax office employees in the early 1980s at the morning break after the tea ladies brought chocolate and cream buns). A construction site I was working at was “rained off” one day and the cards came out.

The use of such safety playing cards is intended to be a useful subliminal way of reminding workers of the importance of safety. Given that the longevity and success fo safety posters is very limited, the card strategy may be worth considering by other organisations.

If you have an example of a useful OHS promotional item, please send through an image and/or a description via this email link.

Kevin Jones

Safe Work Australia’s COVID19 guidance

In mid-March, pandemic advice from occupational health and safety (OHS) regulators was assessed with the generic guidance from WorkSafe Victoria being praised. Many changes to workplaces have occurred since then and Safe Work Australia (SWA) has caught up with the demand for industry-specific guidance on managing work in this pandemic. SWA’s advice is very good and is discussed below.

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