Workplace safety usually gets little attention from mainstream press. Until recently, with the growth of online specialist content, trade publications covered OHS events, but the lead time made the news events of historical interest more than something that generated enthusiasm or outrage. Last weekend the Australian Labor Party in Victoria held its annual conference in Melbourne. The … Continue reading “Safety, Whistleblowers and Media Disinterest”
The Australian government has established an Australian Social Inclusion Board. This is what the government says is the purpose and challenges of the Board: This social exclusion is a significant barrier to sustained prosperity and restricts Australia’s future economic growth. Promoting social inclusion requires a new way of governing. Australia must rethink how policy and … Continue reading “Safety – on the fringe again”
One of the biggest handicaps modern professional organisations have is that many of them are “old boys’ clubs”. Often this is not the fault of the executive committees or boards as this is the way in which professional organisations and associations, in particular, have evolved. However, it is difficult to understand why committees allow the … Continue reading “Safety as an “old boy’s club””
One of Melbourne’s busiest intersections was blockaded again by angry taxi drivers. This follows the stabbing of a young cab driver on April 29,2008. The calls were again for shields in cabs to isolate the drivers from, often, irate drunk and violent passengers. In response to previous protests, cameras were installed in taxis as a … Continue reading “Taxi Driver Safety Causes Blockade”
Overnight English MP John Prescott “came out” as a bulimia sufferer. Or so the story goes in the British press. But the real story for the occupational health and safety profession is that Prescott’s doctors suggest the contributory factor – stress. The Telegraph is a little more precise and says that it is unclear why … Continue reading “Politicians, Stress and Bulimia”
Many OHS professionals however come from academic, or office or technical backgrounds, who have mostly experienced industrial relations as barriers to the sensible safety control measures they recommend. Frequently union and employee stances don’t make OHS sense but they make perfectly sound IR sense. It is this dichotomy that is behind those safety professionals and employers who accuse unions of “using” OHS to further industrial relations ends.
This last week, the New Strait Times reported on an initiative by the Malaysian government to increase companies’ responsibility for workplace safety by making “professionals” “responsible for accidents in the workplace”.
It may be a terminological argument about whether safety professionals or risk managers or company directors are to be held personally responsible for safety infringements and incidents