On October 7 2016, Victoria’s trade union movement held a Young Worker Conference. The major public statement from that conference was the launch of a survey report called Young Workers Health and Safety Snapshot. The report has received some mainstream press which is not unusual for this type of trade union member survey. Almost twenty …
Occupational health and safety (OHS) is usually taught around various safety theories that can include pyramids, icebergs, dominoes, cheese and damaging energy. All of these theories were useful at some point in time to identify a new perspective, to counter an ideology or to explain why people cock-up. But which OHS theory has stood the …
Australian companies continue to introduce workplace wellness programs when the evidence for their effectiveness is still weak. A major reason for this weakness is that many workers do not see health and wellness as part of the workplace’s role. It is also a problem that the American motivation for workplace wellness is not relevant to … Continue reading “If worker engagement is lacking, reassess the product”
Recently the Institute for Safety, Compensation and Recovery Research (ISCRR) conducted a one day conference that had keynote speakers at the start, two streams of safety research and discussion for most of the day and a panel to conclude. This event cost delegates nothing but a day away from the workplace....
The last three of Radio National’s WorkLife podcasts have been uploaded. Episode 4, focusses on occupational health and safety (OHS) and is based around interviews with myself, Kevin Jones, and Professor Niki Ellis.
The annual workplace safety report Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety always gets a good deal of mainstream media attention. It deserves some of this attention as it has provided sound information on work-related injuries and injury costs for many years but it is now looking dated as it is not keeping up with current … Continue reading “OHS cost research needs to stretch itself”
Talking about workplace safety and machine manufacturing is unfashionable, perhaps because Australia’s manufacturing capacity is in strong decline. And occupational health and safety (OHS) seems preoccupied at the moment with psychosocial hazards and wellness. But one Australian researcher, Elizabeth Bluff, has undertaken an empirical study of safety attitudes, motivations and practice in the manufacturing and … Continue reading “Time to reassess our approaches to machinery safety”