Uncategorized – Page 267 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Australian Government shifts workplace bullying into the industrial relations system

Politicians are sufficiently media-savvy to release policies and information to gain the maximum exposure in the media cycle. For some reason, Australia’s Workplace Relations Minister, Bill Shorten, missed the opportunity to have his changes on workplace bullying in the newspapers for 12 February 2013. The news cycle is also being dominated by the resignation of Pope Benedict. However Shorten’s response to the Parliamentary Inquiry into Workplace Bullying deserves detailed analysis.

Shorten is bringing the investigation of workplace bullying cases under the Fair Work Commission. There are likely to be complex consequences of this decision, a decision that is clearly the Minister’s as the Parliamentary Inquiry made no clear recommendation on the location of the “new national service”.

“The Committee did not receive evidence on where such a service [“a single, national service to provide advice to employers and workers alike on how to prevent, and respond to workplace bullying” 5.51, page 136] should be located. It might be best situated within an existing government agency or department such as Safe Work Australia, the Fair Work Ombudsman or the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. It may also be considered appropriate for the service to be an independent body that is funded by the Commonwealth. Consequently, the Committee does not have a clear recommendation as to where the new national service may sit.” (Section 5.58, page 138)

Clearly Shorten’s announcement could easily have been “Minister rejects independent body on workplace bullying”. The Minister should be asked about his reasons for not establishing an independent body into this important issue. Continue reading “Australian Government shifts workplace bullying into the industrial relations system”

Increasing Production Performance Through Safety

Ten years ago, Randy DeVaul wrote several articles for the Safety At Work magazine, a precursor to this blog. His US perspectives were enlightening and he has agreed to contribute occasionally to the SafetyAtWorkBlog. Below is an article he originally wrote in 2004.

As safety professionals, we have all worked at “selling” safety to upper management through budget and fiscal expenditures, worker compensation costs, and other financial approaches. Meanwhile, our “sell” to production managers has been based on compliance issues with OSHA/MSHA standards. We have set ourselves up for an uphill battle between production and safety.

Though we missed the boat earlier to integrate safety and production together, the timing now could not be better. Helping our managers see the integrated picture between safety and production should be our focus with less emphasis on compliance. Think about it – getting people to do something “because OSHA (or MSHA) says so” is not very motivating. Helping to see how safe performance also impacts production numbers, employee morale, absenteeism, and productivity schedules in addition to personal quality of life has a much greater effect. Continue reading “Increasing Production Performance Through Safety”

How can one learn from OHS mistakes if those mistakes are hidden?

Occupational health and safety (OHS) regulatory agencies have existed for decades, originally with an enforcement role but increasingly aimed to prevention and education. It is fair to say the “2nd generation” of OHS regulators in Australia appeared in the 1980s. It is also fair to expect to be able to readily access the corporate memory and prosecutorial activity of the regulators, particularly since the growth in the Internet. Very recently WorkSafe Victoria reviewed its online database of OHS prosecutions excising prosecution summaries prior to 2012. This decision is a major weakening of the “state of knowledge” about workplace safety in this State, a decision that some have described as outrageous. How can one learn from mistakes if those mistakes are not made available?

Continue reading “How can one learn from OHS mistakes if those mistakes are hidden?”

Nothing is more important than (safe) jobs

Richard Marles is a Federal Member of Australia’s Parliament and a former executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. He has produced an opinion piece that is doing the rounds of the Victorian media and is headed “Nothing is more important than jobs“. The 80 jobs to be created in the Corio electoral are important but nowhere in the article does Marles talk about creating safe jobs. This is a weakness in his argument and reflects the subconsciousness, and short memory, of many Australian governments. Continue reading “Nothing is more important than (safe) jobs”

How safe is unsafe?

Across the street from an office in Melbourne, a pub is installing a roof area for entertaining. The work has gone smoothly as far as one can see but the position of the platform ladder in the corner of the roof was curious. If someone was working from the ladder and wobbled, it would be possible to not only fall a couple of metres to the roof but perhaps over the roof’s edge to the pavement two storeys below.

The worker in the front of this picture was moving to erect another platform ladder towards the front of the roof.

The second picture shows the worker on that platform ladder. Similar risks of wobbling and falling over the roof’s edge.

How safe is unsafe? There is the potential for the worker to fall from the ladder to the street some distance below but he didn’t. So was his positioning of the ladder and work undertaken safe?

Kevin Jones

Social media manipulation of OHS statistics

Recently SafetyatWorkBlog criticised the focus on fatality statistics as a measure of success. Workplace fatalities are a convenient measure but can seriously misrepresent the status of workplace safety by ignoring psychosocial hazards and occupational illnesses. An infographic came through the SafetyAtWorkBlog inbox this weekend which illustrates the unhelpful obsession with fatalities but, perhaps more importantly, the risks of social media.

This infographic from US firm Compliance and Safety (purposely unlinked) is slickly produced for social media and blogs but is fundamentally invalid. The title at the top is a ridiculous comparison. “Is OSHA a wasteful regulatory nightmare or common sense that saves lives?” The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) may be wasteful but how can this be compared to the amorphous and self-serving concept of “common-sense”? The implication is that common sense equates to a free-market regulation of workplace safety. The failure of the free-market approach to occupational safety, and to the environment, many decades ago is exactly the reason why regulations were introduced. There were too many businesses exploiting workers and the environment by creating harm without accountability. Continue reading “Social media manipulation of OHS statistics”

The smell of ‘corruption’

Such are the warning signs

It stopped at 2.32 pm of an ordinary day. One string of events ended abruptly at the pinch point of a groaning conveyor belt when his arm was ripped off. Do you think of Swiss cheese models of risk alignment? Of complexity or failure to learn? Of the Moura coal mine disaster, the Longford oil and gas plant disaster, the Baker report and the BP Texas City refinery fatalities, of 29 miners killed in the desolate and terrorising Pike River coal mine, NZ, 2010? Do you think of precariousness lurking at work, of leadership, of productivity?

For me this was the 5^th arm I was personally aware of disappearing violently at work, generating years of withdrawal and solitude unrecorded in any OHS statistics. In that time I had also observed hundreds of missing or useless machine guards. Such a well known and easy hazard to fix. What exactly is the problem, what does it indicate about OHS generally, and what may go some way towards practical improvements? Continue reading “The smell of ‘corruption’”

Category: Uncategorized

Australian Government shifts workplace bullying into the industrial relations system

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Increasing Production Performance Through Safety

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How can one learn from OHS mistakes if those mistakes are hidden?

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Nothing is more important than (safe) jobs

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How safe is unsafe?

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The smell of ‘corruption’

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