Category: workplace

Government must restructure to address the evolution of OHS

The UK government’s Health & Safety Executive is continuously countering poor decisions of local government that are being “blamed” on health and safety.  Recently the Wimbledon tennis open joined the club of misrepresenting risk decisions as health and safety.

England has a unique tabloid journalism that has generated substantial confusion on the role and application of occupational health and safety laws.  Most of the decisions being referred to as health and safety are really public liability concerns and this is where the risk management discipline enters the issue.  Occupational Health and Safety has enlisted the risk management principles to provide a structure for business to assess risk, costs and benefits of working safely.  However this has only worked when there was a clear delineation of workplace.

Over many years, OHS legislation has been allowed to broaden its remit from the shopfloor and factory fence to include those entering a workplace and visitors.  It then grew to include the impacts that any work activity may be having on others.

In Australia, the new definition of a workplace is anywhere where work is undertaken.  The OHS tentacles have penetrated all physical areas of society, although he police force has been struggling with this balance for years.  There is nothing occupational about OHS anymore.  In fact Australia will be dropping “occupational” from its Work Health and Safety legislation from 1 January 2012.  There have been sound reasons for this expansion but we now have to live with the consequences. Continue reading “Government must restructure to address the evolution of OHS”

Media is ignorant of unsafe acts in the photos they use

That “a picture tells a thousand words”  appears true in regards to safety as it is in most areas.  This is increasingly so in the new online media but what if the picture is wrong?  Does a wrong picture tell a thousand wrong words?

Recently this blog has written many words about quadbikes and the increasing requirement for mandatory helmets.  Many of the agricultural newspapers are now including photos of riders with helmets where previously battered hats were usual.  This trend of pictures reflecting reality or, at least, the current safety practices seems rare.

The image above was used by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to accompany an article on the in solar panels and rebates. Continue reading “Media is ignorant of unsafe acts in the photos they use”

Australia to ratify ILO OHS Convention, says Senator

The Australian Financial Review (AFR) reported on 14 June 2011 (not freely available online) that Senator Jacinta Collins has publicly stated that an International Labour Organisation (ILO) occupational health and safety convention will be signed by the current Government in conjunction with other conventions on maritime labour, asbestos and part-time work.  The announcement that “Australia will ratify four ILO Conventions this year” was made at the recent International Labour Conference.

Most of the AFR article focussed on the labour relations impacts of the conventions but RMIT’s Professor of Law, Breen Creighton noted that

“Ratifying a convention has no effect in Australian law unless the Australian parliaments legislate to give effect to the international obligations.”

Senator Collins’ speech identifies the OHS protocol as the “Optional Protocol of 2002 to the Occupational Health and Safety Convention”.

A brief discussion on this protocol occurred on this blog in late April 2011 when the ratification was mentioned during the World Day for Safety and Health at Work.

Kevin Jones

Do Work Health and Safety regulations comply?

The draft model Work Health and Safety regulations were published for public comment in December last year, but rather than sailing through with general public support (i.e. negligible objection) they were met with incredible public objection, with over 1000 submissions.  This astonishing fact begs the question; has something gone wrong in the WHS legislation making process? Or did the Australian public suddenly have nothing better to do than write all those pages?

You may, or may not, be aware that when legislators want to create legislation there are very solid principles and clear guidelines that legislators must comply with.  These “rules-for-rule-makers” are provided to us courtesy of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) and the Office of Best Practice Regulation (OBPR).  And for mine, they are excellent.

The reasons we in Australia have those rules are many but in a nutshell it’s because some governments have over the years proved to be pretty good at creating flawed legislation with unintended or anti-competitive consequences. And some have been pretty good at blustering their rules through to the public and papering over the deficiencies. Continue reading “Do Work Health and Safety regulations comply?”

Workplace bullying survey of dubious value

A doomsaying workplace bullying survey is doing the rounds of the Australian media on 8 June 2011. The media release accompanying the survey (neither are yet available online), produced for a “web-based employment screening solution” WorkPro, says

“One quarter of employees (23%) say that they have been a victim of bullying or discrimination in the workplace in the last two years,…”

An equally valid interpretation from the same survey figures could be

“Three quarters of employees (76%) say that they have not been a victim of bullying or discrimination in the workplace in the last two years.”

The survey is terrific news. Workplace bullying may not be as big a problem in the workplace as recent media reports have led us to believe. But the survey takes the negative perspective and it is the negative that is being reiterated in the media. Continue reading “Workplace bullying survey of dubious value”

SafeWorkSA responds to Gottliebsen OHS article

On 23 May 2011, prominent Australian business writer, Robert Gottliebsen published an article in BusinessSpectator entitled “Saying no to Canberra’s IR dopes“.  The article was uncharacteristically contained major errors on the application of new harmonised OHS laws.

The article generated considerable discussion on some Australian OHS discussion forums but the article’s website has attracted only one comment.  SafetyAtWorkBlog is in possession of a copy of the full reply sent to BusinessSpectator by SafeWorkSA, the OHS regulator in South Australia, a state that featured in Gottliebsen’s article.  SafeworkSA’s reply is reproduced below as it is yet to appear on the BusinessSpectator website, a week after it was sent.

“From:  Bryan Russell, Director of Strategic Interventions, SafeWork SA & SA Representative on the Strategic Issues Group – OHS with Safe Work Australia.

Robert Gottliebsen’s commentary of 23 May on South Australia’s actions regarding the Model Work Health and Safety Bill contains several serious errors that need to be addressed.

For the record, let me emphasise the following.

The Work Health and Safety Bill 2011 was reintroduced to the South Australian Parliament on 19 May 2011.

The Bill was tabled in the same form before the Legislative Assembly (Lower House), where the current Minister for Industrial Relations, Patrick Conlon, sits.

The SA Government is on the record as stating that the Bill was withdrawn from the Legislative Council (Upper House) on 3 May 2011 due to the recent change of Ministers.

Contrary to Mr. Gottliebsen’s assertions, we have observed no “community outrage” generated by radio talkback hosts. Continue reading “SafeWorkSA responds to Gottliebsen OHS article”

New South Wales gets a win-win on OHS laws

The Australian Government must be either issuing a sigh of relief or clapping their hands together following the passing of the model OHS laws by the New South Wales (NSW) government last week.

NSW was a belligerent signatory to the agreement for nationally harmonised OHS laws but the laws passed with sufficient tweaking to make the laws compatible with the national model laws.  Several days later, on 30 May 2011, everyone is claiming a win.  Unions retain some authority to prosecute over OHS breaches, although only “for the third and least serious category of offence”, according to the Australian Financial Review.

Unions NSW secretary Mark Lennon is reported as saying that the NSW upper house of Parliament has protected an important safeguard for workers.

On 27 May 2011 Lennon was bemoaning “that the Industrial Court has lost most of its occupational health and safety jurisdiction” and yet the Industrial Relations Commission will now retain an active OHS role even though it is dealing with lesser OHS offences, similar to the unions’ role above.

Overall the amendments in the NSW Parliament seem to be a face-saving exercise for the left-wing politicians and trade union movement.  They were provided with little wins but have given way on the major objections.  It is reasonable to describe this as a pragmatic solution given that the March 2011 NSW election effectively removed the union movement’s power base in that State. Continue reading “New South Wales gets a win-win on OHS laws”

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