On November 9 2015, WorkSafe Victoria charged the Essendon Football Club with breaches of the occupational health and safety (OHS) law over its controversial supplements program. This blog has watched how the Australian Football League (AFL), in particular, has acknowledged its OHS obligations and duties. This interest has been shared by Dr Eric Windholz who …
In some of his research into the operations of WorkSafe Victoria, OHSIntros provided this graph of workers compensation claims for psychosocial issues. Not only does it show the extent of the issue in recent years, it provides a clear historic starting point for the hazard – a hazard that has created an industry of its …
The final report into quadbike safety has finally been released by the University of New South Wales in a series of five papers and in the wake of Queensland coronial findings into nine quadbike-related deaths. (A New South Wales inquiry is currently underway) It has been a rocky road to get to this report as …
The Cancer Council of Western Australia has released a report (not yet available online)that states: “The number of occupationally caused cancers compensated each year equates to less than eight per cent of the expected number.” (Executive Summary) This is an extraordinary statistic but consistent with the history of occupational health and safety (OHS) statistics where … Continue reading “Cancer data needs to start a discussion on effective controls”
Many OHS professionals state that leadership is a crucial element to establishing a safety culture and then support this with examples of positive leadership. But some people fail at leadership and failure is often more instructional than success. Recently the CEO of Orica, Ian Smith, had to resign after his abusive manner resulted in the …
On 18 March 2015, the Melbourne office of Herbert Smith Freehills conducted a breakfast seminar that doubled as a launch for the latest edition of the CCH Wolters Kluwer book Australian Master Work Health and Safety Guide (reviewed recently). The seminar had three of the book’s authors talking about emerging occupational health and safety (OHS) …
A spat has recently emerged on one of the safety discussion forums in Linkedin. The catalyst was a statement that “60% of every Australian worker turns up for work unfit due to De-hydration“ The source of this data, not disclosed at the time of the original post, was a company that sells “…a great tasting, … Continue reading “Sniping in social media raises issues about hydration”