SafeWork – Page 5 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Engineered stone is unsafe at any level

“a prohibition on the use of all engineered stone, irrespective of crystalline silica content, to protect the health and safety of workers.”

So that should be it. No more engineered stone products for use in Australia. Apparently, that decision is difficult to make even though the top occupational health and safety (OHS) advisory body in Australia recommends prohibition. OHS has always had an uncomfortable mix of morality, law and politics. Engineered stone and its inherent silicosis risks are a good illustration of the tensions between these three elements.

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Engineered stone and The Block

One supplier of synthetic stone products to Australia, Cosentino, is in the mainstream media after an appearance on a popular television home renovations show on the Nine Network, The Block. Several occupational health and safety (OHS) professionals and organisations have raised concerns about how the product was discussed and presented on a recent episode. The best coverage of this matter has been by an ABC television program, MediaWatch.

MediaWatch revealed the importance of listening to how dangerous products are described and how the guidance of OHS Regulators can be interpteed or manipulated.

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The OHS of Working from Home remains problematic

When Australia harmonised its occupational health and safety (OHS) laws, the management focus broadened to include work, and not just workplaces. Some “knowledge” or white-collar work can be done anywhere, and employers have often struggled to understand how to extend their OHS management systems and duties to apply to this revised or expanded system of work. Current OHS guidance on working from home is too “big picture” when employers are addressing localised decisions.

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Industrial Manslaughter comes to South Australia…. finally

South Australia is the latest Australian jurisdiction to introduce Industrial Manslaughter penalties. The magnitude of the potential penalties is reasonable, given that they come from an employer’s reckless conduct that leads to a fatality. However, many of the deterrent and preventive impacts expected by politicians and advocates have not been proven.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has an excellent article on the South Australian action.

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Mental health at work – “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”

Psychological health in the workplace seems to be a recent phenomenon because various Australian jurisdictions are strengthening prevention and management strategies through legislative amendments. This is supported by the World Health Organization’s definition of burnout as an occupational phenomenon. But psychological or psychosocial health and safety at work was a concern last century. In fact, The Australian Psychological Society conducted the First National Conference on Occupational Stress in June 1994, and the book, edited by the late Dr Peter Cotton, based on the papers and presentations from the conference, remains remarkably topical and absent of the well-being language and spin that we have been exposed to since.

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Work mental health and construction industry negotiations

Australian trade unions are in a difficult position on the matter of workplace mental health. New regulations require employers and, to a lesser extent, workers to act on a positive duty to prevent psychosocial harm. However, how does one achieve the necessary changes without being financially penalised?

Recently, the Victorian Secretary of the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), John Setka, granted The Australian newspaper’s Workplace Editor, Ewin Hannan, an exclusive interview (paywalled) in which occupational health and safety (OHS) was discussed.

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Any OHS strategy needs to generate spillovers

Reading Safe Work Australia’s latest ten-year strategy forced me to think creatively.

SWA’s discussion of Persistent Challenges suggests controls that are almost all at the Administrative Control level – education, awareness, knowledge, training, understanding, support, communication and more. This is after admitting that:

“Injury and fatality rates have fallen significantly over the last decade. However, progress has slowed.”
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How can we increase the use of the Hierarchy of Controls (HoC) in determining safety-related policy? How can we get organisations to progress up the control hierarchy to show others that it is possible to prevent all of the incidents that everyone agrees are preventable? (Refer to WorkSafe Victoria’s Colin Radford for a recent example of this belief:

“Every workplace incident, every injury, every illness, every death is entirely unequivocally preventable.”)

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Category: SafeWork

Engineered stone is unsafe at any level

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Engineered stone and The Block

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The OHS of Working from Home remains problematic

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Industrial Manslaughter comes to South Australia…. finally

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Mental health at work – “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”

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Work mental health and construction industry negotiations

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Any OHS strategy needs to generate spillovers

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