South Australia still has not passed the Work Health and Safety legislation that would bring it into line with most of the other States of Australia. A major obstacle to the Bill’s progress in the South Australian Parliament is the “dithering” of Independent MP John Darley. On 28 June 2012, Darley spoke to the WHS … Continue reading “John Darley’s delay on Work Health and Safety laws is unproductive”
The Melbourne public hearing in support of the Parliamentary Inquiry into Workplace Bullying has concluded after over an hour of personal impact statements that were confronting, saddening but, overall, defiant. The hearing began more sedately and predictable. The employers’ association, ACCI, says that workplace bullying is a broad social issue that needs broad social control measure. In rough … Continue reading “Workplace bullying inquiry followed the script, mostly”
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”
Following the SafetyAtWorkBlog article about the 2012 Queen’s Birthday Honours, a reader has brought a well-deserved OHS recipient to our attention that we, and many others, missed. Ian Ewart received the medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for his services to his local community in Traralgon however I knew Ian through his involvement with … Continue reading “OHS Honour missed but well-deserved”
Put your hand over your ears and start saying La La La La La La La. That is willful blindness (or, technically,deafness, but let’s not quibble). Margaret Heffernan, author of a new paperback edition of “Wilful Blindness – Why we ignore the obvious at our peril“, discovered wilful blindness while researching the trial of the Enron executives. … Continue reading “Through Wilful Blindness I begin to see”
The latest Andrew Hopkins book steers clear of analysing corporate leadership, and this is a good thing. Australian National University sociologist, Andrew Hopkins, has established an international reputation for his enlightening analyses of the failures of organisational culture in major disasters but his latest book, Disastrous Decisions: The Human and Organisational Causes of the Gulf of Mexico Blowout, purposely … Continue reading “Latest Andrew Hopkins book focusses on engineering decisions”
Last week Professor Rod McClure of the Monash Injury Research Institute urged Australian safety professionals to look at the ecology of safety and injury prevention. By using the term “ecology” outside of the colloquial, he was advocating that we search for a universal theory of injury prevention. In short, he urged us to broaden our … Continue reading “Evidence of the need to change how and why we work”