Even neuroscience needs sociology

Summer in Australia means a lot of time traveling in a car, often to the extent of completing an abridged audiobook and/or several podcasts.  One episode of BBC’s The World This Week caught my ear, not because it is titled “Australia Burning” but for the opinion piece by Martin Bashir (17 minute mark). Bashir discusses mid-life crises, risk aversion and neuroplasticity. I look at the relevance to occupational health and safety.

Bashir spoke about the importance of challenging oneself, especially at “an age of comfort” (my term) an achievement. This may not seem related to OHS, the raison d’être of this blog, but the age of comfort can be defined as an age of safety or risk aversion, or as Bashir says “a mechanism for self-protection”, and this period in our lives may bleed into the way we see the world, the type of OHS advice we may provide our clients and, perhaps, the way that our OHS legislation is constructed.

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Look deeper and read wider when trying to understand

This Forbes article on the France Telecom suicides, written by Jack Kelly, is doing the rounds on LinkedIn with various lessons identified by various commentators. Sadly Kelly dilutes the significance of the suicides and the jailing of executives by implying that the action in France is a special case, as if the executives were trapped by employment laws into taking the actions that led to the extreme anxiety felt by France Telecom’s workers.

Kelly’s concluding paragraph is unnecessarily equivocal:

“The trial shows that managers waging a campaign of harassment against employees could establish a precedent in France and other countries. It may serve as a strong warning to corporate executives and management that their actions have severe consequences. Pushing employees too hard may result in serious consequences for both the workers and the purveyors of the punishing behaviors.”

Kelly use of “may” weakens the significance of the executive’ actions, the successful prosecution and the jail sentences. Why write that this may happen when the article is about a real case of cause and effect between executive strategy and suicide? Surely “may” should have been “can”.

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Most-read OHS articles in 2019

This past week most media have been reflecting on the last twelve months or the decade. There are two ways of applying this practice to the SafetyAtWorkBlog – statistics and most-read. Let’s look at statistics first.

This year the SafetyAtWorkBlog posted 225 articles, not including this one, with an average word count of 1,030 words – the equivalent of a 230,000 word book on occupational health and safety (OHS). For those Annual subscribers that equates to just over $1.00 per article which I think is a pretty good return.

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Mental health and “workplace disability”

Deutsche Welle‘s regular program “World in Progress” reported on Work in its December 18 2019 edition. It includes discussions of exploitation and trafficking of Nigerian women and South Korean workers being pressured to reluctantly attend work functions. Of particular relevance to the theme of this blog is the last report in the program when workplace psychological health is discussed.

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“Moral Harassment” = Workplace Bullying. France Telecom lessons

The France Telecom suicide saga has reached a conclusion with a French Court sending several of company’s former executives to jail as a result of “collective moral harassment”. This will have very little impact on the management of occupational health and safety (OHS) in Australia because of the timing and inadequate translation and context.

“Moral Harassment” is a term that is absent from the Australian OHS lexicon. One equivalent term is “mobbing” but this is also an uncommon term in Australia. Australia’s equivalent is “workplace bullying” as mentioned in research by Katherine Lippel of the University of Ottawa in 2011 (pages 1-2).

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Instead of throwing stones, build a stronger house

Stock photo of hot worker who, yes, should also be wearing long sleeves and a hat.

On 19 December 2019, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) issued a confusing and, ostensibly, three-paragraph media release about working in heat, a hazard that has been regularly analysed by SafetyAtWorkBlog. It states:

“OHS laws which are designed to keep workers safe at work need to be updated to deal with the reality of climate change, which will mean hotter days and more bushfires, resulting in conditions which are hazardous to workers, especially those who work outside.”

Paragraph 1 – update the occupational health and safety (OHS) laws. Paragraph 3 – new regulations needed:

“… we call on the Morrison Government to act urgently to implement new regulations to protect workers from these hazards.”

So which is it – enforce the old or create new?

Continue reading “Instead of throwing stones, build a stronger house”

Awards require a new purpose

WorkSafe Awards night 2019

WorkSafe Victoria has just contacted attendees at the 2019 WorkSafe Awards for an evaluation of the event. Although my response below relates to the recent event, it relates to many of the various (and expanding) awards for occupational health and safety (OHS). Here is some of my response to the WorkSafe survey and some suggestions on future Awards strategies:

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