OHS and wage theft

Australia is several years into a scandal of underpayment of workers referred to, by some, as wage theft. Occupational health and safety (OHS) would not normally figure in a wages and industrial relations (IR) scandal but the scandal has a legitimate OHS context. The previous, and ongoing, scandals are not going to be summarised in …

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OHS podcast that analyses academic papers

Two workplace health and safety researchers, David Provan and Drew Rae have teamed up for a weekly podcast called “The Safety of Work”. I haven’t got through all of them yet, but the format seems to be that each episode looks at an interesting occupational health and safety (OHS) research to see how the evidence …

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“Moral Harassment” = Workplace Bullying. France Telecom lessons

The France Telecom suicide saga has reached a conclusion with a French Court sending several of company’s former executives to jail as a result of “collective moral harassment”. This will have very little impact on the management of occupational health and safety (OHS) in Australia because of the timing and inadequate translation and context. “Moral …

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Suicide Prevention, Genders and Workplace Interventions

2019 was always going to be a Year of Mental Health for Australians as there are various official inquiries and investigations occurring. Last week alone, the Royal Commission into Mental Health Systems focused on suicide prevention. This overlapped with the National Suicide Prevention Conference (NSPC) and on Friday one of Australia’s National Mental Health Commissioners, …

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Productivity Commission sets stage for inquiry into mental health

The Australian Government has released the terms of reference into its Productivity Commission inquiry into mental health.  The inquiry has broad aims that clearly include occupational health and safety (OHS) and may set some evidence challenges for some of those in the workplace wellbeing sector: “It will look at how governments across Australia, employers, professional …

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Dignity and solemnity at Workers’ Memorial Day

The Victorian commemoration of International Workers Memorial Day has held on28 April 2015 and was a major improvement on previous memorials.  The politics was muted by the speakers.  There was no tray truck of angry unionists yelling through tannoys and heading off half way through the event to a protest rally that they see as … Continue reading “Dignity and solemnity at Workers’ Memorial Day”

Lessons for everyone in the legal action against France Telecom executives over suicides

In 2009-10, SafetyAtWorkBlog followed the unfolding and tragic story of the spate of suicides at France Telecome that were directly related to the change of work practices and organisational policies instigated after privatisation.  SafetyAtWorkBlog stated that the suicides could be considered to be a case study of poor personnel management and, in more recent parlance, … Continue reading “Lessons for everyone in the legal action against France Telecom executives over suicides”