One of the the most ignored areas of occupational health and safety (OHS) is the light commercial and fleet/company vehicles. This is changing in Australia, partly, because the former head of the Transport Workers Union, Tony Sheldon is now a Senator. In Senate Estimates on October 23, 2019 (page 117 onwards), Senator Sheldon challenged the … Continue reading “OHS of work vehicles starts to get national attention”
Last year the Scientific Meeting of the Australia and New Zealand Society of Occupational Medicine (ANZSOM) had a fiery discussion on the occupational health and safety (OHS) risks of cutting engineered stone. The status has changed a lot over 12 months with various Codes of Practice, new exposure limits, a National Dust Disease Taskforce and …
Occupational health and safety (OHS) popped up in the Australian Parliament this week in odd, oblique ways. OHS was tied to asbestos imports, the Ensuring Integrity Bill, a construction company owner in Western Australia, and sexual harassment. Question and Answers On September 19 2019 several questions were put about the importation of asbestos containing products. …
On October 21 2019, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews posted on Facebook in support of his government’s move to introduce Industrial Manslaughter (IM) laws. He chose the death of Jacob Kermeen and its effect on the family in support of the need for these laws. It is surely a coincidence that a fatality from a trench …
October is Australia’s workplace safety month. It operates under different names in different States, but they all started on October 1 2019. These months are almost exclusively about marketing and SafetyAtWorkBlog’s Inbox has received a lot of generic statements about the importance of occupational health and safety (OHS) but with little information about how to …
Face-to-Face communication trumps electronic communication every time. This is true for telling stories to trauma counselling to telling someone you love them. Sixty delegates attended the one-day occupational health and safety (OHS) symposium in Tasmania yesterday. These symposia seem to be the modern equivalent of the traditional conference, especially in Australia, and offer the opportunity …
On September 24 2019, the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia (COSBOA) called for the withdrawal of the Boland review into Australia’s work health and safety (WHS) laws. In a media release COSBOA’s CEO, Peter Strong, states: “The report solely focusses on workers, giving zero consideration to the mental health of employers and the self-employed….”