Last week, the Australian Parliament passed a tranche of industrial relations laws; laws that were, unsurprisingly, objected to by some business groups but included some occupational health and safety (OHS) contexts. Industrial Manslaughter was the obvious one, but pay equity and increased job certainty, if not security, for some industry sectors, has the potential to …
Victoria’s coronial services has been found guilty of breaching its occupational health and safety (OHS) obligations after one of its employees died by suicide, identifying work issues as a major factor in her death. WorkSafe Victoria has released the best source of information on this case. Most of the mainstream media is relying on a …
Plain speaking is one of the greatest challenges of any profession. Many professionals struggle to communicate their excellent work and knowledge which has created the moves for Research-To-Practice and specialised communicators (as opposed to public relations advisers). Human Resources (HR) and Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) need communications specialists, or perhaps just interpreters, if a …
Racism is a word increasingly thrown around these days, the most current incarnation being in the controversy surrounding whether or not to allow Australia’s indigenous peoples a formalised Voice to Parliament. Unfortunately, Australia has no patent on this illogical and offensive tendency. In Asia, it is often aimed at other Asian races of what is …
Recently on LinkedIn Audrey McGibbon wrote this about an online article discussing working hours in Europe: “Working excessively long hours is par for the course in many sectors. The reasons for it are complex. The culture created by the collective leadership shadow makes its presence felt in many ways.” I am not sure that the …
Occupational health and safety (OHS) is a remarkably insular profession. It tends to narrow its focus on legislative compliance even though Social Determinants of Health is a core unit of tertiary OHS education. OHS professionals are also notably weak in understanding the business realities that their employers and customers face. This inability to understand the …
Coincidentally, as Europe burns and a little blog in Australia writes about the occupational context of excessive heat, a new book called Heat – Life and Death on a scorched planet was in the bookstores. Jeff Goodell, like so many North American authors, writes for his local readers even though his publishers sell books globally. …
