politics – Page 48 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Business drops opposition to Australia’s new OHS laws

A story on the front cover the Australian Financial Review on 8 September 2009 lists the “wins” of the union movement in its negotiations on new national OHS law. But it is the last couple 0f paragraphs on page 8 that are most surprising. The article says

“The coalition dropped its previous opposition to the SafeWork Australia bill, allowing it to pass in its original form, limiting the number of unions and employer representatives on the body to two each and giving Ms Gillard [the Workplace Relations Minister] a veto on the appointment of these representatives.”

This seems to be a considerable backtrack on the strong opposition and media statements coming from employer groups over the last 12 months. One wonders what trade-off the industry associations have managed to obtain.

The changes reported are not very radical for those familiar with the Victorian OHS laws – leave for OHS training and greater protections for union members. But the union movement has (yet) to get a reverse onus of proof or rights to prosecute.

The media release from the IR Minister crows about the Conservatives’ backdown and says little else other than marking the passing of the legislation. Ultimately the biggest benefit of this legislation is clarifying the status of Safe Work Australia.

UPDATE: ACCI media statement

The Australian Chamber of Commerce & Industry has released a conciliatory media statement making no reference to its previously strident opposition. The only semi-interesting content (other than the fact of the statement itself) is its reiteration of OHS being a shared responsibility and the need for Safe Work Australia to ensure its independence.

“The message that working safely requires everyone to take their responsibilities seriously now has a better chance of becoming a co-ordinated national message, with parallels to the mutual responsibility message that features in road safety awareness and safe driving campaigns.”

Kevin Jones

Fatigue, impairment and industrial relations

Many of the employees in the health sector in Australia have recently been negotiating new employment conditions. It is rare for the workplace hazards of fatigue and impairment to be given such prominence in industrial relations negotiations.

A major cause of fatigue is the lack of adequate resources for relieving staff. This issue has been identified for doctors, ambulance officers and firefighters over the last 12 months.

Many important OHS issues are identified in a recent ABC Radio interview with Dr David Fraenkel, the Treasurer of Salaried Doctors Queensland (SDQ). Dr Fraenkel mentions the following issues, amongst others:

Queensland Health‘s duty of care to the public
Queensland Health’s duty of care to its employees
“wrong site surgery” due to judgement impaired by fatigue

Dr Fraenkel also shows the institutional pressures on individual doctors to not discuss the implications of fatigue. He mentions that there is a code of conduct that impedes the discussion of issues by health care professionals.

He admits that should a young doctor leave their station to relieve their fatigue they would most likely be “called to account” for their action and their career may be jeopardised for what OHS professionals would admit is an individual taking responsibility for looking after their own safety and health.

Salaried Doctors Queensland has established a website in support of its campaign which includes some factsheets. The print media also picked up on the SDQ media statements.

Kevin Jones

Wriedt provides context of her depression

Former Tasmanian MP, Paul Wriedt, has provided an Australian Sunday newspaper with a long article that provides the context for her suicide attempt, depression and career implosion. The full article is well worth reading and shows the combination of factors that led to her suicide attempt.

Excessive workload is mentioned several times and, although it is only one of the confluence of factors, the workloads and working hours of politicians remain untreated elements of the health and wellbeing of important social p0licy decision-makers.

If, as many safety advocates profess, safety is led from the top, politicians are doing the safety profession a disservice by not structuring their work environments and schedules to ensure a healthy workplace.

One point is not mentioned in the article. Paula Wriedt is a spokesperson for beyondblue, the most prominent depression-related organisation in Australian. In fact Ms Wriedt is one of the organisation’s recent “ambassadors”.

Beyondblue has advised SafetyAtWorkBlog that the Sunday Herald-Sun article was Ms Wriedt’s own work and that beyondblue was not aware of the article before publication.

The beyondblue spokesperson said that the organisation is expanding its pool of ambassadors which should be of particular interest to those working in the workplace health sector. Ambassadors operate on a volunteer basis and may be eligible for the reimbursement of costs in specific circumstances.

[Hm, voluntary ambassadors lobbying on behalf of a health issue on a voluntary basis. Perhaps the safety profession could offer a similar “outreach program”]

Ms Wriedt was not obliged to mention beyondblue in the article and it is clear that she sees public discussion on depression issues to be one of her own career goals, but it would have been appropriate to mention her relationship, particularly as she is a beyondblue ambassador.

Kevin Jones

In Australia OHS management is red tape

The Australian newspaper of 1 September 2009 epitomised the ideological problems with OHS in a business management context. Page 5 has two articles next to each other:

“Renewed pledge to cut business regulation” and

“Building chief ‘spat on an abused‘”.

The first article reports on a speech by the Competition Minister, Craig Emerson, where it is reported that the Minister

“has pledged his commitment to removing unnecessary regulation that hampered business”.

The Minister was speaking to a business audience and has been described as less friendly to regulation than his predecessor. OHS compliance is often bundled as an element of unnecessary business paperwork by employer and industry groups however, in this speech, the Minister spoke more of open markets.

The second article focuses on an attack on the head of the much-hated Australian Building & Construction Commission, John Lloyd, but also reports on the national union protest scheduled for 1 September 2009, concerning the weakening of OHS laws through the harmonisation process.

The article reports on a union survey:

“Unions commissioned a poll that showed 78 per cent of those surveyed agreed employers should do more to protect the health and safety of their workers, even if it led to increased costs or red tape.”

That unions would even accept that OHS compliance could be considered red tape is a great concern, and the phrase is taken directly from the ACTU media release.

Union Survey figures

SafetyAtWorkBlog is endeavouring to obtain the original survey results (over 1000 respondents (workers) taken in the last week of August 2009) but for the moment it is worth quoting ACTU Secretary Jeff Lawrence’s interpretation of the statistics.

“… this poll shows the Australian public don’t want workplace safety rights undermined.”

“The poll shows there is significant support in the Australian community for stronger rights and protections for workers and an ongoing role for unions in checking workplaces where employees are worried they are in danger.

“The poll finds 81 per cent of those surveyed agreed workers should have the right to call in help from a union to check on health and safety issues regardless of their employer’s approval.

“Seven out of ten Australians (69%) believe that injured workers should be able to take their employer to court under workplace health and safety laws.”

Business and government in Australia are harmonising OHS laws to reduce the red tape business compliance costs. Unions believe that OHS red tape and increased business cost is acceptable.

What does this leave the safety professional who says that they can minimise the red tape associated with OHS compliance AND that safety is not a cost but an investment? Out in the cold with the Victorian WorkCover Minister, it is suggested.

Kevin Jones

Challenges for US labor unions and lessons for all businesses

Doug Henwood releases regular podcasts of his radio broadcasting and occasionally there is content that provides an interesting perspective on occupational health and safety, as does the 3CR program, Stick Together. On August 1 2009 Henwood interviewed journalist, Steve Early, author of “Embedded With Organized Labor”. The podcast is available online. The Early interview clicks in at the 38 minute mark.

(A video interview with Steve Early is also available)

Early talks about how difficult the United States union movement has found it to maintain the enthusiastic momentum from 15 years ago. He says that several industrial relations programs have slowed due to a lack of support from the grass roots or perhaps the exclusion of this sector in the initial planning of the programs.

As with many policy issues in the early period of the Obama government, a lot of interest is being placed on labour relations. The government has begun discussions with labour leaders but these leaders face the challenge of gaining the government’s attention during the miasma of policy changes and President Obama has clearly stated to labour leaders, according to Early, that health care is his primary policy area at the moment. The last month has shown the level of the challenge on health care policy.

Steve Early echoes the thoughts of Tom Bramble, an Australian academic analyst of unions, when he advocates an increased role for the rank-and-file union members. It is in this sector that the passionate values of industrial relations and trade unionism are felt the strongest, often because it has avoided the political baggage that comes with the upper levels of the union movement.

Early reiterates that the best asset for change is an organisation’s membership. He agrees that there is often a class-divide between the rank-and-file members and union management. In many large organisations, senior executives are being encouraged to gain a better understanding of their organisations by jumping across the structure to (re)experience the lot of the membership.

Early says that the union movement in the 1930s resolved this by a major reconstruction of unions. Corporations and conservative organizations are loathe to deconstruct in order to rebuild because, primarily, the executives get too comfortable. Executives who genuinely understand their organisation, particularly those organisations that are member-based, can rebuild and remain true.

Kevin Jones

Productivity is also the Government’s aim with OHS law reform

A few posts back the productivity priorities of Australian employer groups toward OHS harmonisation were noted, particularly that of the Australian Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

On 25 August 2009, Australia’s Workplace Relations Minister, Julia Gillard, addressed the 15th World Congress International Industrial Relations Association. The Minister mentioned OHS and said:

“So, our new workplace relations system is now up and running. We are close to reaching agreement with State Governments to end the fragmentation of the past and have the entire private sector by the one national workplace relations system.

Additionally, for the first time ever, after a 25-year wait, Australian businesses and workers are close to having a uniform national occupational health and safety laws. A massive step forward in achieving a seamless national economy that Australia needs to release lasting and much-needed productivity improvements.

But the legal changes are the beginning, not the end, of the reform process.

Australians should now move beyond a focus on law changes to a new focus on cultural change in the workplace. We need to build partnerships between management and workers and their unions that operate for the benefit of all.

Change of this sort is slower to take root than rapid structural reform.

It is more dependent on intangibles, including the goodwill and motivation of those who take part. But in the long run it will have an important impact on our economic prospects.

So over the coming months and years we will be looking at ways of embedding change through workplace relations, innovation and leadership practices in workplaces.” [my emphasis]

Minister Gillard talks of OHS law reform in the same productivity terms as the employer groups. This may be down to the audience at the conference and the congress’ theme as well as industrial relations being the main focus of the government’s reform agenda but it is an inclusion that, for fairness, it was worth highlighting.

Rather than taking the OHS paragraph by itself, it is telling to see the section in the speech that includes the only direct mention of OHS law reform. Minister Gillard continues to emphasise the process of establishing harmony across industrial relations as much as in OHS law.

She also is clearly up on the latest business lingo, even though some of the phrases have a cloudy definition –

“cultural change”
“intangibles”
“innovation”
“leadership”
“collaboration”

The Minister rightly states that law reform is at the end of one process but often at the start of a far more difficult reform process. There is no guarantee that the new OHS will have a smooth entry and, as with any law, the best test for its suitability is in the Courts, sadly.

Kevin Jones

Why isn’t safety and health a continuum in a worker’s life?

Several years ago I attended a safety seminar hosted by Seacare. Maritime safety is not part of my “brief” but safety is, and I was seeking alternate perspectives on my specialist area. Seacare conducted a session where the treatment and management of an injured worker was work-shopped from incident to return-to-work.

It was the first time I had seen a panel of experts deal with the life of a worker across the injury management continuum. The session showed the necessity to communicate across several disciplines and to always keep the focus on the injured worker. I had never seen a better example of risk management in relation to an employee’s welfare.

If only the real world was as organised.

WorkLife Book Covers 003 Work/life balance in Australia is skewed towards those workers who have young families or a role as a carer. This is due to work/life balance evolving from the feminist and social concepts of the 1970s and in response to the increased number of women in paid employment. Barbara Pocock sees these matters in the 1970s as themselves a reaction to the “male-dominated employing class” that, in one exampled, believed that 3 month’s long-service leave was more important than maternity leave. (p212, The Work/Life Collision)

Work/Life Balance Origin

(Wikipedia has a peculiar article on work/life balance that has some interesting points and reference links but then undoes its good work by relying on a couple of major sources and many of them are commercial consultants. That the Australian work in this area is not referenced, indicates a major deficiency. Please note that the concept of balancing work life and non-work life existed well before “work/life balance” was first used. SafetyAtWorkBlog would point the concept’s origin to around the same time as Australia’s introduction of the eight hour day in the mid-1800s or even earlier with Robert Owen in the UK calling for a 10-hour day.)

In the 2000s the emphasis remains not on work/life balance but work/family. As a result, work/life balance will remain an issue handled in the management silo of human resources and being seen as relevant to a lifestage of an individual rather than the individual themselves. There is also an inherent gender bias that could be minimised if the silo was removed.

The Seacare workshop illustrated for me that an injured worker is managed by different silos throughout their rehabilitation. Wherever possible the employer outsources this management to experts in OHS, trauma counselling, medicine, physiotherapy, return-to-work coordinators, and other specialists. The common element through all of these silos is the individual and that person’s health.

OHS & Work/Life Conflict

Occupational health and safety has a big advantage over work/life balance in that it focuses on the individual first. Employers must provide for the health and safety of the worker and, by and large, employers get the safety obligation right. This part of the process has long-established practices based principally on engineering solutions – stopping things falling on a worker, stopping the worker falling into machinery, stopping the inhalation of toxic dust – effectively “blue collar” solutions to “blue collar” hazards.

The mental health of the worker was not a big concern. This is partly because in most of Australia, legislation only ever related to health and safety, and rarely to welfare. Where welfare was a legislated consideration for the management of workers, the social context of the worker was acknowledged myuch earlier and work/life issues began to grow.

The regrettable element of this evolution was that “health” remained a narrow workplace definition instead of embracing the “welfare” or mental health of the worker. If health had been supported by a definition that included welfare in all Australian States’ OHS legislation, the mental health needs of workers and the social contexts of worker management would have been discussed much earlier and in parallel.

Work/Life Balance Awards – A Missed Opportunity

An example of the divergence and the need, in my opinion, to reintegrate work/life balance and occupational health comes from some correspondence I have had with the organisers of the National Work/Life Balance Awards in the Australian Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR). Until very recently, these awards were called the National Work and Family Awards.

DEEWR includes in its structure Safe Work Australia, the organisation responsible for monitoring OHS across the country. It seemed odd to me, from the big holistic picture, that DEEWR has not included Safe Work Australia in the judging panel for the 2009 Work/Life Balance Awards. DEEWR advised me that it believes the OHS experience of two of the judging panel, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, was sufficient. Perhaps but why not draw on the OHS expertise of one’s own staff as well?

It also seemed odd that one organisation would conduct two national awards programs – the National Work/Life Balance Awards and the Safe Work Australia Awards. DEEWR advised me that

“The [National Work/Life Balance Awards] recognise organisations that are outstanding in achieving positive outcomes through the implementation and communication of work-life balance policies, practices and initiatives which meet the needs of both the employer and its employees. The Safe Work Australia Awards focus on OHS more broadly and recognise businesses and individuals for their outstanding efforts in OHS and for making safety a high priority in their workplace.”

If the Safe Work Australia Awards focus on “OHS more broadly” why not have one set of awards that acknowledges both the work and social contexts of employees? This is harder to answer when

“Applicants for awards must consent to an assessment to determine whether they have complied with the Fair Work Act 2009, the Workplace Relations Act 1996 and any relevant state or territory legislation, award or other industrial instruments” [my emphasis]

This would surely include the OHS legislation of each State and the Commonwealth.

DEEWR does not involve any of the state OHS regulators in the awards process. The judging panel does not analyse the workers’ compensation premium awards rates of award contenders. State regulators could surely provide a useful perspective as it is mostly under their jurisdictions that businesses are prosecuted for OHS breaches. Worker’s compensation premiums are used by all regulators as a major (sometime the only) indicator of safety performance and for targeting of enforcement programs. The judges of the National Work/Life Balance Awards do not.

OHS professionals and return-to-work coordinators acknowledge that the non-work life and mental health of workers are important elements in regaining a fully-functional employee.

DEEWR made the decision to rebrand the awards to Work/Life instead of “work and family”. This does not reflect the complex interrelations of the social and individual contexts of the health and safety of individual workers.

DEEWR is coordinating the reforms of laws into both OHS and workers compensation. The Australian Government is working on legislative harmonisation across all legislative jurisdictions in workplace health and safety. These OHS laws are likely to extend employer obligations well beyond workers to the public and those potentially affected by work practices..

However DEEWR is missing a major opportunity to set the agenda for the future by acknowledging that the impacts on an individual of the work life and the home life should be managed across the social and employment disciplines.

Kevin Jones

The images included in this posting show some of the many terrific books dealing with, or mentioning, work/life management.

Tag: politics

Business drops opposition to Australia’s new OHS laws

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Fatigue, impairment and industrial relations

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Wriedt provides context of her depression

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