The first week of media coverage of Victoria’s Royal Commission into Mental Health is very thin on the roles and impacts of workplaces and work activities on people’s mental health, but it is part of the conversation. The Public Hearings on July 4-5 had Prevention and Early Intervention as their theme. Prevention as occupational health …
Productivity, like Safety, is one of those words that is used frequently without a clear and uniform definition. This causes confusion when advocating for occupational health and safety (OHS) interventions that improve productivity. Safety does not increase productivity but it can minimize lost productivity. Let me try to explain by focusing on labour productivity. Every … Continue reading “Be clear on what is meant by productivity”
Australia conducted a Royal Commission in to the Esso Gas Plant explosion at Longford. Two people died and most of Victoria was without gas for around two weeks. The Royal Commission lead to a best-selling book by Professor Andrew Hopkins. In 2010, four young men died while installing home insulation as part of a government …
There is a clear link between the modern take on occupational health and safety (which includes psychosocial health) and productivity. However, there are seriously mixed messages coming from the Productivity Commission (PC) in its current inquiry into Australia’s Workplace Relations Framework. In Senate Estimates on 3 June 2014 (draft Hansard), the Chair of the Productivity …
On 17 April 2014, Senator Eric Abetz, Australia’s Workplace Relations Minister, released the Building and Construction Industry (Fair and Lawful Building Sites) Code 2014 and supporting guidelines. This Code is, fundamentally, an industrial relations Code however there is an occupational health and safety (OHS) element that needs to be noted, particularly when considered against the background of the Royal …
Official statistics on workplace bullying in Australia are notoriously unreliable. The Productivity Commission estimated the cost of workplace bullying with a huge margin of variation, between A$6 billion and A$36 billion annually. WorkSafe Victoria has indicated in the past that the number of interventions on workplace bullying is way below the number of workplace bullying … Continue reading “Fair Work Commission girds its loins for workplace bullying complaints”
Recently, the issue of Safe Work Method Statements was discussed at a construction safety conference in Canberra. SafetyAtWorkBlog reported that: “Several delegates stated their belief that the Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner (OFSC) is largely to blame for the over-emphasis on SWMS in the construction sector and for the bloating of SWMS into a … Continue reading “Federal Safety Commissioner begins review of SWMS info”