When guidance is unhelpful

Some organisations struggle to understand the prevention of harm.  In September 2018 the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) released its “People Managers’ Guide to Mental Health“. The guide is intended to address

“…the whole lifecycle of employment, from recruitment, through keeping people well and managing a disability or ill health at work, to supporting people to return to work after a period of absence.” (page 3)

It includes the prevention of psychological harm but in words and phrases that are very unhelpful. 

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Mixed bag conference format succeeds

The Safety Institute of Australia (soon to be trading as the Australian Institute of Health and Safety) conducted its Perth Safety Symposium on September 28 2018.  It was the event’s second year and, overall, was a success.  But how does one measure the success of a one-day conference?

Firstly, one has to have an interesting and, if possible, fascinating pool of speakers. The keynote speakers included:

Simon Millman MLA represented the West Australia Premier Continue reading “Mixed bag conference format succeeds”

OHS needs to accept the influence of neoliberalism and rebuild

Many have been claiming that the era of neoliberal economics and the associated politics is over or, at least, coughing up blood.  However, occupational health and safety (OHS) is rarely discussed in terms of the neoliberal impacts, and vice versa, yet many of the business frustrations with red tape, regulatory enforcement strategies, reporting mechanisms and requirements and others have changed how OHS has been managed and interpreted.

One of the most readable analyses of neoliberalism in Australia comes from

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Pressure, Disorganisation and Regulatory Failure

A reader recently asked why I haven’t written about the recent retirement of Professor Michael Quinlan.  Michael has featured in many SafetyAtWorkBlog articles over many years and has been a major supporter for industrial, labour relations and occupational health and safety research in Australia and elsewhere for a long time.

He has many legacies but this article will focus on one tool he developed with his associate Phillip Bohle – the Pressure, Disorganisation and Regulatory Failure (PDR) model.  PDR is explained at length in this excellent 2011 research paper written with Elsa Underhill and is summarised in the table below:

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Co-operation may address safety in the work of the future

The investigation of work-related incidents needs to be considered from a broad multidisciplinary perspective.  But occupational health and safety (OHS) itself, applies a much narrower and, some may say, insular perspective.  It hasn’t “played well with others”.  At the recent Comcare conference in Melbourne, Australia, writer Tim Dunlop (pictured right) challenged this type of perception.  He said:

“My point is that it is hard to break out of certain habits of thinking.  Governments pay lip service to the idea that technology will change everything, but then they start talking about jobs and growth as if we were still living in the sixties, where the economy was based on manufacturing, where manufacturing was carried out of factories, employing millions of workers, where the workers were men and where the women stayed at home and looked after the kids.  Those days are gone, and in the future they will be ever more gone.  But the norms of that era I think still informing how we think about the future of work.”

OHS, and some of the safety regulators, may acknowledge the changing future of work

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Emojisuns – ultraviolet risk detection

“A new strategy to produce low-cost sensors that allow ultrasensitive detection of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) by the naked-eye is described in Nature Communications this week. The sensors, which are paper-based and wearable, could enable users to manage the impact of UVR on their daily lives.”

The workplace relevance of such a device should be obvious –  far more obvious than the wording of the

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Bill Shorten reflects on the Esso Longford disaster

Tonight, SafetyAtWorkBlog will be attending the launch of a new book that includes personal stories about the 1998 Esso Longford explosion – Workers’ Inferno.  The book is being released on the 2oth anniversary of the explosion that killed two workers, injured many others, disrupted gas supplies to the State of Victoria, resulted in a then-record fine for occupational health and safety (OHS) breaches and generated a Royal Commission.  It is also, perhaps, the best example of a company trying to blame the worker for a major incident.

The Federal Opposition leader, Bill Shorten, was an official of the Australian Workers Union at the time and today he published an opinion piece Continue reading “Bill Shorten reflects on the Esso Longford disaster”