Clayton Utz lawyers have looked at Victoria’s new bullying-related law changes for their relevance to workplace safety management and have found the following. “Is this an issue for employers? Yes and no. Theoretically, even before these proposed amendments, certain types of workplace bullying already fell within the definition of stalking. In one sense, therefore, this … Continue reading “Australian lawyers comment on Brodie’s Law”
One reader has provided an example of recent research that supports the previous SafetyAtWorkBlog article on the importance of quality and safety in job creation. In the March 2011 online edition of the Occupational & Environmental Medicine journal, Australian researchers have analysed data concerning “the psychosocial quality of work”. According to an accompanying media release … Continue reading “Evidence on the need for safe job design”
In March 2011, in response to one of the several Stress Awareness Days, HRLeader magazine ran an edited version of a Personnel Today article called “5 steps to tackle employee stress”. The Personnel Today had “6 steps”, so are Australian readers being ripped off? Personnel Today included a step called “Refer the Health and Safety … Continue reading “Raising awareness about stress instead of controlling it”
Australia’s Comcare was the first of the OHS regulators to provide an information session on Australia’s attempts to harmonise its OHS laws across many different jurisdictions and industry sectors. The Melbourne seminar on 7 February 2011 could have been presented better but some useful information was available. Content – Inspectorate The most significant OHS information to come … Continue reading “Good Comcare content on effects of OHS harmonisation”
The Sunday Age of 30 January 2011 ran an article about the status of workplace safety in some of Victoria’s abattoirs. The article has some similarities to the landmark investigations by Eric Schlosser into work practices and compensation issues related to meatworks in the United States. The Sunday Age says that “(Last financial year [2009/2010], there were 355 workers’ … Continue reading “Only animals should die in abattoirs”
Workplace fatalities are terrible, lingering tragedies that generally don’t teach anything new about OHS failures. I couldn’t find anything new in the frightening detail in the article below (dated 14th December 2010) or in scores of Google searches of industrial/occupational fatalities; though disease fatality epidemiology can be informative. If all workplace fatalities in Australia were … Continue reading “How much significant information do workplace fatalities provide?”
On 17 December 2010, the parents of Luke Adams were abused outside a court in Melbourne, Australia. The mother of the killer of Luke Adams berated the parents after her son received further time in jail. SafetyAtWorkBlog touched on Luke Adams’ death in an article in 2009 in which we pointed out that several violent … Continue reading “Preparing for occupational violence in fast food outlets”