In October 2009 a workshop was held on worker safety by the Worker Education and Training Program (WETP), a part of the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Many of the topics raised in the workshop – REACH, Globally Harmonized System (GHS) of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals, and nanotechnology would be issues or … Continue reading “EHS workshop report and Australian nanoparticles reports”
Let’s pull together several workplace hazards and suggest one control measure that may address all of them at once. Of course, the control may generate other work hazards or management challenges. In Summer, work occurs throughout daylight hours. The long days, and possibly daylight savings, maximise the window of productivity for workers, particularly those who … Continue reading “Summer heat, fatigue and UV – a speculative solution”
The best OHS advice, or rather innovative thinking, is frequently coming from those experts from outside the traditional OHS background. A case in point could be a presentation made by prominent Australian demographer, Bernard Salt, at one of the many Safe Work Australia Week events in South Australia. Salt provided enough information about population … Continue reading “The demographic challenges facing OHS management”
Australia and New Zealand have a small strategic organisation called the Heads of Workers’ Compensation Authorities (HWCA, pronounced “howca” by those in the know). It is a regular meeting (some say “love-in”, others say “coven”) of the CEOs of the various workers’ compensation bodies in Australia and New Zealand. Over the next five years, as the Australian Government … Continue reading “HWCA could be influential in Australia’s workers’ compensation reforms”
Australians associate working in hot conditions as outside work although the occupational hazard of heat is just as relevant in bakeries and foundries. OHS regulators and safety lobbyists often try to include too much in their heat-related strategies – heat stress, skin cancer, hydration, dust, and a range of other hazard combinations related to specific … Continue reading “Working in heat – still contentious”
When reading the draft documents for Australia’s harmonised OHS laws, it is very useful to run various scenarios or hazards through one’s mind and see how these could be affected or managed. The most challenging hazards are the psychosocial hazards (or bio-psychosocial as they were referred to at the recent Comcare conference in Canberra) of stress, mental … Continue reading “Contractor management in Australia’s new OHS laws”
On 30 September 2009 the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in the United States said in a media statement: A proposed rule to align the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) with provisions of the United Nations Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS) will be published in the … Continue reading “GHS is coming to the United States”