Another salary survey shows increased demand for OHS professionals

Australian recruiting company, Hays, has released its annual salary surveyin which it says that there is increasing demand for OHS professionals in Australia however the salary levels seem comparatively low, particularly at the entry-level. The survey says that the introduction of harmonised OHS laws in most Australian States has:

“…led to increased accountability and thus demand for high risk safety experts.”

It could be said that many safety experts have been “high risk” but the quote above places safety in a risk context.  Safety professionals must be able to understand and deal with business risks in the broader context.  In some sectors risk management integrates OHS but in others, where risk management is almost exclusively concerned with insurances and safety is the purview of a Health and Safety Representative, OHS is shunned as a foreign concept or a poorly under threat. Continue reading “Another salary survey shows increased demand for OHS professionals”

SafeWorkSA executive receives Queen’s Birthday honour

Every year I look through the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in Australia, looking for somebody who has been awarded an honour for services to occupational health and safety.  Almost every year, there is nothing but in 2012 one person was awarded a Public Service Medal “for outstanding public service in the area of occupational health and safely.”

This year, Michele Patterson, Executive Director of SafeWork SA was awarded the Public Service Medal.  There is an outline of the justification for the award online  (at page 389).

Congratulations.

Kevin Jones

Brodie’s Law not being applied. Perhaps a broader context is needed.

Workplace bullying is a hazard that must be recognized, addressed and punished, but above all prevented. “Brodie’s Law” was always going to be a part of this challenge but never the solution.

Today’s Age newspaper bemoans the fact that “Brodie’s Law” has not been applied since its introduction 12 months ago.  This is not surprising and the article provides some clues to why.

The application of this law seems now to be mainly intended for the Victorian Police force and, as with any police force, there are a great many items on their agenda of which workplace bullying is only one.

Policing and harm prevention

It can also be asked why the Victorian Police force is policing a workplace issue?  Workplace safety is principally the responsibility of the employer or, in the new language, person conducting a business or undertaking.  The bullies and employer involved in the bullying of Brodie Panlock were prosecuted under occupational health and safety law, not the Crimes Act. Continue reading “Brodie’s Law not being applied. Perhaps a broader context is needed.”

Where can I get my own Cynthia Carroll?

The June 2012 edition of the Harvard Business Review includes a fascinating article (extract online ) on safety by the controversial CEO of Anglo American, Cynthia Carroll.  The whole article is well worth reading but there was one element that I found particularly interesting, Carroll’s mention of zero harm.

Carroll visited operations in South Africa where Anglo American employed 86,000 people from various cultural background s and literacy. She writes:

“When I visited the operations, my conversations with local managers were frustrating. Safety was improving, they assured me, but it would never be perfect. My goal of zero harm was simply not achievable. The head of our platinum operations at the time insisted repeatedly, “Cynthia, you just have to understand…” As I talked to people and examined the facilities, I wondered how much authority someone who is underground for hours on end, with a shift supervisor right behind him, really has. I questioned whether a line worker had the power to put up his hand and say, “I’m not going to do this, because it is unsafe.””

Following a fatality on the day of her visit and in conjunction with the safety concerns she had, Carroll closed the Rustenburg platinum mine for a structural safety makeover. Continue reading “Where can I get my own Cynthia Carroll?”

OHS reform is a relatively small regulatory concern for Australian small businesses

Many business groups in Australia have been bemoaning the potential increase in OHS compliance paperwork, often on the basis if the impact on small business, applying the logic that the small business sector has the least capacity to cope. Yet a survey of small business attitudes to “red tape” released this week questions the level of concern over OHS.

The June 2012 Sensis Business Index clearly shows that almost one-quarter of Australian small businesses want taxation regulation to be reformed most of all. Only 2% believed that OHS was the regulation needing most reform.

CEO of the Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia, Peter Strong, stated that

“The findings…. provide a framework for many important areas of regulatory reform that will benefit small business…”

As a tool for lobbying government on taxation reform, the survey results are supportive but in relation to OHS reform, OHS is equal to pay rates and planning regulations at 2%. Continue reading “OHS reform is a relatively small regulatory concern for Australian small businesses”

Safety posters about the reality of safety

Recently a colleague was asking why there was no reality in many of the workplace safety posters.  Many countries are continuing with confronting campaigns or workplace injuries and fatalities but it is easy to suffer from graphic “fatigue” and a new approach is required.  Part of this cycle has resulted in WorkSafe Victoria’s successful Homecomings campaign but even that campaign has a diminished impact, over time.

So I had a go at a couple of posters that I thought reflect the reality of workplace injuries and fatalities but also pack a punch.  These posters were produced separately to any safety campaign and solely in response to my colleague’s comment.

I would welcome constructive criticism on these posters and their relevance to workplace safety.

I have also Mummy equivalents available and should add that these images have come from a photo library.

Kevin Jones

Serious quad bike incident in New South Wales

SafetyAtWorkBlog has been informed that an Irish backpacker was working on a farm near Gravesend in New South Wales in late May 2012 and received serious back injuries when the quad bike, from which he was spot spraying weeds, rolled on an embankment. The man was taken to hospital after contacting the farmer for assistance.

A spokesperson from WorkCover NSW has confirmed that

“….a 26 year old male worker was injured on a property at Gravesend near Moree …. on Thursday, 31 May.  Initial enquiries indicate that the worker was spot spraying weeds on the property and has suffered back injuries from a quad bike incident when he attempted to ride out of a gully.”

At this time, Workcover was unable to say whether

  • the worker had received any motorcycle or quad bike training.
  • the quad bike had any attachments or modifications.
  • the worker was wearing a helmet or other PPE at the time.

It is understood that the worker had been on the farm for only a few days.

We have been unable to find any media or online references to this incident.

On 24 May 2012, a week before the incident above, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s AM program ran an interview about the quad bike related fatality of an 11-year-old boy in 2011.

A longer audio interview on quad bike safety was conducted by ABC Rural in September 2011.  The participants were Tony Williams of WorkCover NSW and John Lambert of the Forensic Engineering Society of Australia but the most significant quality of the interview was the solid understanding of agricultural safety shown by the interviewer.

Kevin Jones