Trying to make the horse drink

The discussions about occupational health and safety (OHS) and its relevance to COVID19 has finally touched the mainstream media with an article in The Age newspaper on May 7, 2020. The article is largely a reiteration of statements made by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and the Minister for Industrial Relations over the last few days but it is the first time that Safe Work Australia (SWA) has joined in.

The Chair of Safe Work Australia, Diane Smith-Gander has stated that additional regulations may have unintended consequences. She is quoted saying:

“We’ve got to let that system operate,… If we try to over-regulate and over-legislate, we will have unintended consequences for sure.”

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COVID19 checklist used by NOPSEMA

It has been assumed that Australian businesses that have continued to operate during the COVID19 pandemic have been maintaining their occupational health and safety (OHS) audits and assessment; and that the safety regulators have been inspecting workplaces. On May 6 2020, the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) released the findings of

“…a series of remote COVID-19 specific inspections, confirming operators of offshore facilities are equipped with adequate arrangements for protecting workers from infectious diseases such as COVID-19.”

The findings are interesting but perhaps of more interest is the questions that were asked and how the answers were verified.

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Political update on OHS and COVID19

Although most of the Australian media has focussed primarily on the economic statements of the Prime Minister and Treasurer on May 5 2020, there are several statements related to occupational health and safety (OHS) and COVID19 made today that are of note in developing an OHS voice for the future.

The Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) Sally McManus spoke on breakfast TV saying:

“First of all that workplace laws were never invented for a pandemic so we’ve got to update them so that we can make sure there’s social distancing everywhere.”

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OHS and Anne Wyatt

Dr Anne Wyatt is an established occupational health and safety (OHS) professional with a particular interest in workplace psychological hazards. Some time ago she wrote Preventing Workplace Bullying with Dr Carlo Caponecchia.

Anne is the latest person to humanise OHS by providing an insight into her personal and professional thoughts to SafetyAtWorkBlog.

How did you get into Health & Safety?

It all happened very suddenly – in a matter of hours. In 1979 I was working as a nurse in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Tragically, one day we had a lovely young man die a horrible death as a result of a preventable workplace accident. I was very angry that we had seen yet another death from a workplace accident and I vented my feelings to a nearby anaesthetist. He looked me in the eye and told me that I did not belong in ICU, that he considered my real passion lay in prevention. He was right.

Continue reading “OHS and Anne Wyatt”

COVID19 and OHS gets political

Workplace health and safety risks related to COVID19 emerge in Australia and the United Kingdom.

Trade Union Suggestions

On May 5 2020, the Australian Council of Trade Unions released a statement on occupational health and safety (OHS) calling for certain Industrial Relations and OHS changes, including:

  • Paid pandemic leave
  • New regulations on safety and health standards, and
  • Compulsory notifications to Health Departments and OHS Regulators.

SafetyAtWorkBlog has been led to believe that the paid pandemic leave is intended to apply from the time a worker is tested for COVID19 through their isolation while waiting for the test results and the operation of sick leave should the test results be positive.

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What is needed to get us out of this crisis

As parts of the world begin to emerge from the disruption and lockdowns of COVID19 some academics and experts are advising that the future must be built on the past but should not seek to replicate it. Over a dozen prominent, global academics (listed below) have written a discussion paper to be published in the Economic & Labour Relations Review (ELRR) in June 2020 entitled “The COVID-19 pandemic: lessons on building more equal and sustainable societies” which includes discussion on workplace relations and factors affecting mental health at work. These big picture discussions are essential in the development of strategies and policies for the post-COVD19 world and occupational health and safety (OHS) has a legitimate, and some would say unique, voice.

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Shop safety protocols do not go far enough

A group of retail associations in Australia has released a very curious COVID-19 Retail Recovery Protocol.

All shops and malls are workplaces and must comply with occupational health and safety (OHS) laws. A small embarrassment in these protocols is that although it acknowledges that further guidance may be available from workplace health and safety authorities, it provides no links to that COVID19 guidance and gets Safe Work Australia’s (SWA) name wrong! It does not inspire confidence and all that was needed was a single hyperlink to the SWA guidance developed specifically for the Retail Industry.

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