Josh Bornstein is a media-savvy lawyer with Maurice Blackburn who has gained some prominence on the matter of workplace bullying. A week ago Bornstein spoke at a Legalwise seminar in Melbourne Australia and he has yet to stop running on his topic of discussion – “Disproving the seven myths about workplace bullying”. Today he released … Continue reading “Law reform does not prevent harm, only compensates for it”
Last week Professor Rod McClure of the Monash Injury Research Institute urged Australian safety professionals to look at the ecology of safety and injury prevention. By using the term “ecology” outside of the colloquial, he was advocating that we search for a universal theory of injury prevention. In short, he urged us to broaden our … Continue reading “Evidence of the need to change how and why we work”
Yossi Berger writes: We’re all familiar with the notions of focus and attention, and selective attention. We’ve all experienced how difficult it can be to attend to target information when background noise is distracting. The issue can be referred to as the signal-to-noise ratio. I often find its effects in discussions with managers and workers … Continue reading “Just workplace hardship”
The 28 December 2011 edition of the Australian Financial Review (AFR) (not available online) quotes Australian labour lawyer, Michael Tooma, talking about the harmonisation of workplace safety laws: “It’s descended into a farce, a shambles – only four jurisdictions are ready for the laws.” This seems supported by the words of the recently-appointed Workplace Relations … Continue reading “Lawyer says OHS harmonisation has become a shambles”
I want to personally thank all of the loyal readers of SafetyAtWorkBlog for your support in the last twelve months. The blog stats is kicking along nicely but its prominence in OHS discussions, particularly in Australia, is growing stronger. This year the blog has been blessed by perceptive and controversial articles by Col Finnie and … Continue reading “Merry Christmas from SafetyAtWorkBlog”
Most managers complain about “silos” even though they often operate comfortably in one. Having an organisational structure that operates without narrow parameters of professional turf is very difficult and sustainable change takes time. Similarly many professions operate in silos and the safety profession is a good example. Rarely does it “play well with others”. A recent workplace relations survey report from … Continue reading “Business silos extend to, and are supported by, the soft professions”
Australia has released a draft Code of Practice on “preventing and responding to workplace bullying“. As it is the latest publication on this issue by an OHS authority, it deserves some analysis. The draft code has applied the established definition of workplace bullying as: “repeated, unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker or a group of workers, that … Continue reading “Bullying Code of Practice illustrates the huge challenges of OHS in Australia”