OHS – Page 96 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

The risk of being over-policied

The latest OHS podcast from Boardroom Radio reinforces the need to enforce company policies. The impliacation is that it is very easy to equate legislative compliance with the existence of a policy instead of the implementation of a policy.

The need to keep polices and procedures simple was mentioned but there is the risk that brevity does not necessarily equal clarity. This links to earlier SafetyAtWorkBlog articles that discuss communication. It is one thing to have rules, it is another to make sure workers know them and yet another to have faith that they are being implemented. The emphasis on application and enforcement cannot be stressed enough. Continue reading “The risk of being over-policied”

The politics of the insulation debacle become clearer

The debacle of the Australian Government’s insulation job creation scheme faded when the scheme was cancelled suddenly by the Government earlier in 2010. Attention was always going to return at various stages as investigations into the deaths of young insulation installers begin but Parliament resumed earlier and the Opposition attacked. The attack has led to the release of correspondence between the Minister responsible for the debacle, Peter Garrett, and the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. (A good example of the role of an effective Opposition in ensuring open government)

The news papers on 28 May 2010 have focused on the fact that the Prime Minister was aware of the serious occupational health and safety deficiencies of the system months before serious action was taken on the scheme. However, the correspondence also indicates that Garrett was not inactive on the safety risks in 2009 as many critics allege. Continue reading “The politics of the insulation debacle become clearer”

Is illiteracy a big safety risk?

In a couple of years all Australian States will probably have OHS laws which require active consultation on workplace safety matters. But how effective will the consultation be if a noticeable part of one’s workforce struggles with literacy?

For many years OHS included a gentle and steady push for OHS information to be provided in Languages Other Than English (LOTE). Many OHS regulators had Codes of Practice providing guidance on how to communicate safety issues to workers who cannot speak or write English.

The Australian Industry Group (AIGroup) has been running a project on improving workplace literacy for some time. AIGroup sees literacy as a major impediment to productivity and safety. The ACTU sees the risks posed to one’s safety predominantly. On 26 May 2010, AIGroup’s CEO Heather Ridout wrote in The Australian newspaper (not available online) about the project and the workplace risks. A report from the literacy project has found that “low levels of literacy and numeracy were an issue for”:

Labourers and process worker	45%
Apprentices	25%
Technicians	23%
Administrative staff	17%
IT staff	13%

Continue reading “Is illiteracy a big safety risk?”

EU and Australia improve academic links – again

RMIT University has been active in OHS education for some time and it is hoped that the OHS lecturers might wander down the corridors and knock on the door of Professor Bruce Wilson.

On 28 May 2010, RMIT university launches its European Union Centre (EUC). According a media notice about the launch, the EUC intends to

“..promote a better understanding of the European Union and EU-Australia relations….”

and, according to Professor Wilson

“…offers a footstep into Asia for Europe, to help address deep-seated challenges. The Centre will use RMIT’s strong linkages with Asia to enhance European understanding and engagement with the region, tackling vital issues such as the future of cities, people mobility, border security and climate change.” Continue reading “EU and Australia improve academic links – again”

“We will trust but we will verify” – upcoming lessons from the Gulf of Mexico

The mass media is full of reports on legal action being taken on behalf of shareholders in BP over the continuing oil spill from the former Deepwater oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

An Australian video report was broadcast on 25 May 2010 and a composite article has appeared in The Australian on 26 May 2010 as well as elsewhere. Many outlets are mentioning the law suit (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority and Robert Freedman v Anthony B Hayward et al, Court of Chancery for the state of Delaware, No. 5511) but no details of the suit are publicly available at the moment.

Although safety is mentioned as one of the bases for the suit, it is likely that environmental impact will get prominence over occupational safety and that impact on stock value will be of the most concern. The shareholder outrage mentioned in some of the articles seems to focus mostly on the financial impact on BP share value rather than any moral outrage on environmental impact or dead and injured workers.

BP CEO Anthony Hayward has acknowledged the substantial “reputational risk” but his comments are almost always reported surrounded by financial bad news. Continue reading ““We will trust but we will verify” – upcoming lessons from the Gulf of Mexico”

Is OHS part of Labour Law?

The question in the title of this article came about from the release of a fabulous new book by LexisNexis- Butterworths – Australian Labour Law – Text, Cases & Commentary, 5th edition.

Through my introductory look at the book, it seems that occupational health and safety gets around half a page in a book of over 1200 pages. As an OHS reader I was disappointed, as I believe that OHS is an important subset of labour law. My belief is echoed by some Australian publishers who include, usually, a chapter on OHS in their labour law titles. LexisNexis has never been a publisher of OHS information with the market leader being CCH but with Federation Press holding the more quality and original sector.

One possible reason for the lack of OHS is that the authors, Marilyn J Pittard and Richard B Naughton are lecturers in labour law at Monash University and OHS does not feature in their program. Another could be that the book is a monolithic volume already and, perhaps, OHS could not be given adequate attention without adding a couple of pounds to the book and generating a manual handling risk.

It is hoped that LexisNexis realises there is a market opening for authoritative and fresh writing on OHS in Australia, particularly in this period of change due to harmonisation. The morphing of OHS in the areas of due diligence and risk management are particularly interesting to watch. Continue reading “Is OHS part of Labour Law?”

Integrating safety in Lean/Six Sigma

At the recent Safety In Action Conference in Melbourne, Sia Evans was scheduled to speak about integrating safety into Lean/Six Sigma. The management processes were known to me but I had not associated them with OHS management so her blending of the two was intriguing.

I arranged an interview with Sia a couple of weeks prior to her presentation having met her briefly some time before. As we were having coffee on a balcony in sunny Melbourne we discussed a broad range of issues including the cultural impacts that Sia’s approach had achieved for her employer, Computershare.

She also showed how occupational health and safety can be improved in a workplace by not talking about occupational health and safety. Sia’s training programs instilled the importance of safety in employees without some of the baggage that OHS training feels obliged to include.

The interview has been edited into a podcast that can be accessed below.

Please let us know of any issues or thoughts the interview may have raised and I will ask Sia to respond.

Kevin Jones

Tag: OHS

The risk of being over-policied

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The politics of the insulation debacle become clearer

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Is illiteracy a big safety risk?

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EU and Australia improve academic links – again

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“We will trust but we will verify” – upcoming lessons from the Gulf of Mexico

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Is OHS part of Labour Law?

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Integrating safety in Lean/Six Sigma

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