Lisa Annese‘s article is interesting but, as with many articles on sexual harassment at work, only goes so far. It is discussive rather than practical, even though it seems to promote action. Sometimes the actions are not clear enough to inspire change. Below are my thoughts on the six steps to complement Lisa’s recommendations.
Continue reading “Sexual Harassment advice needs to think deeper and face the challenges”Category: violence
More OHS activists needed
The Australian Government is set to introduce new workplace sexual harassment laws and obligations through Parliament. In The Saturday Paper on November 5 2022 (paywalled), businesswoman Lucy Hughes Turnbull wrote a short article that reminds us of the purpose of the new laws.
“The whole idea of the Me Too movement and the Respect@Work report was to make workers safer. So it was surprising that the politicians who resisted some of the Jenkins recommendations are often the ones most willing to drape themselves in worker safety gear. Protection from abuse and harassment is another key aspect of safety, like guardrails and fire exit signs. Now the legal system recognises it as such.
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This latest work safety bill is the best gift the parliament could give to mark the fifth anniversary of the global Me Too movement. Together with more paid parental leave and greater access to more affordable childcare, it has been a great few weeks for women and indeed all Australians.”
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Minister could have spoken stronger on OHS at a business event
Recently Australia’s Minister for Resources, Madeleine King, spoke at an event hosted by the Western Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The speech aimed to reassure the State’s mining sector to not feel threatened by the new Australian Labor Party government. However, her words about sexual harassment were a little odd.
According to the publicly released speech, King said this on the issue of the labour shortage in mining and resources:
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Webinar of insight and update
Recently 700 people registered for a webinar conducted by Herbert Smith Freehills on work health and safety reforms, primarily on psychosocial risks at work. These risks were presented in various inquiries into sexual harassment, fly-in fly-out work practices but also generated new regulations, guidances and codes.
Steve Bell spoke about the responses from occupational health and safety (OHS) regulators to these issues and said:
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Worksafe Victoria’s new gendered violence campaign
WorkSafe Victoria has actively campaigned against occupational violence for the last few years. The pandemic, understandably, brought the focus onto violence against emergency services workers and healthcare staff. Recently the campaign has focussed on gendered violence at work. The intention is to be inclusive, to address the variety of violent acts and the variety of people gendered violence affects, but it is not as inclusive as it could be.
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Victorian sexual harassment recommendations protect workers – sort of
In light of many workplace sexual harassment scandals in Australia, the Victorian Government established a task force to look at the issues and make recommendations. That task force has released its findings, the government has responded, and the media has focused on mainly one issue – non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) – missing out on other important information. And questions like, why did Victoria have the task force at all?
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‘Enough was Enough’ over a decade ago and the mining industry failed to act then
The recent report on sexual harassment at West Australian mine sites deserves national attention for several reasons. The stories are horrific, partly because many of us thought such stories were in the distant past. The fact that many are recent should shock everyone into action.
The report “Enough is Enough”is highly important, but its newsworthiness seems disputable. Some media have covered the report’s release but the newsworthiness, in my opinion, comes less from this one report but from the number of reports and research on sexual harassment, bullying, abuse, disrespect and more in the mining sector over the last twenty years that have done little to prevent the psychosocial hazards of working in the mining and resources sector and especially through the Fly-in, Fly-Out (FIFO) labour supply process.
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