Tag: safety

There is a whiff of media manipulation on recent allegations of bullying at WorkSafe Victoria

WorkSafe Victoria has been heavily criticised in the media over recent days about “revelations” of workplace bullying within the authority, a government authority that has the role of regulating workplace safety, a role that includes reducing the risk of bullying.

It would be easy to only look at the newspaper articles of this week but the issue has been bubbling away for some time.  WorkSafe has always struggled with addressing workplace bullying in its own staff, the community and other government agencies.  But this is not unique.  A 2010 report on bullying in the Victorian public sector showed a high incidence of workplace bullying across the public service going back to 2005.  What makes the WorkSafe situation different is that the hazard of workplace bullying is being alleged in the organisation who should know best how to control it.

The Age has reported previously on bullying in the public service previously in 2005.  The Age reported then that

“The Government’s own research, based on a survey of 14,000 public sector workers, found that more than one in five had been bullied or harassed by colleagues or managers in the past year. A further 40 per cent had witnessed others being abused.”

Karen Batt, a long-serving State Secretary of the Community & Public Sector Union (CPSU), has been outspoken on workplace bullying every time the matter has been raised in survey reports and the media for many years.  The recent Age articles quote her extensively and The Age’s publisher, Fairfax, has even posted recent audio of Batt’s opinions.

But it is important to ask why the issue of workplace bullying at WorkSafe has reappeared, now,  in late September 2011. Continue reading “There is a whiff of media manipulation on recent allegations of bullying at WorkSafe Victoria”

Religious wisdom on workplace safety

It is rare to visit the Bible when thinking about occupational health and safety but this week Australia’s Uniting Church, its Creative Ministries Network and the United Voices trade union released a report on the working condition of shopping centre cleaners.  In the report “Cutting Corners” there are many references to the Bible’s and the Church’s thoughts and actions on labour issues.

For instance, according to the report:

“…God is ‘against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan’ (Malachi 3:5).”

and

“…the Prophet Muhammad underlined the importance of the just wage by saying, ‘give the employee his wages before his sweat has had time to dry’.”

The Uniting Church has strong arguments to justify its involvement in social equity matters.

“Cutting Corners” was a broad report based on hundreds of telephone interviews with cleaners.  The major safety-related findings of the survey were:

“The key violations borne by shopping centre cleaners constitute a litany of injustices, from low rates of pay, pay that is not commensurate with their Continue reading “Religious wisdom on workplace safety”

OHS objectors get support from South Australia parliamentarian

The last seven days has seen many of the conservative speakers express concerns or objections to the Australian government’s close-to-completed process for harmonising workplace safety laws.  Although one may not agree with the objections, in most cases there is some ideological sense.  On 15 September 2011, South Australia’s shadow Minister for Industrial Relations (IR), Rob Lucas, launched a broadside attack on the OHS laws but with dubious claims.

Lucas’ media release states that

“There is growing opposition to Labor’s proposed bill from industry and business organisations such as Business SA, Master Builders Association, Housing Industry Association, Motor Trade Association, Self Insurers of SA and the Australian Hotels Association.

“The Liberal Opposition believes this bill is a massive full frontal assault on subcontractors and small business in SA which will lead to significant increases in house prices,” Shadow Industrial Relations Minister Rob Lucas said.

“For example, the HIA have estimated the new laws will increase costs by $12,000 for a single story construction and approximately $20,000 for a double story construction.”

The $A20,000 claim has been used by the HIA in the past in South Australia .  A former (Labor) IR minister, Paul Caica, was confronted by the claim in 2008.  The costs seemed to concern the provision of scaffolding on domestic construction sites for work above two metres but no clarification was made publicly.

In May 2011, SafetyAtWorkBlog investigated the $A20,000 claim.  The claim  was quoted at the time by Rob Lucas in a media statement.  The blog article in May said:

“On looking for the evidence on the potential business costs, an HIA spokesperson has advised SafetyAtWorkBlog that no figures were provided by the HIA to the minister for this media statement.  The spokesperson said that the cost figures may have been extracted from earlier submissions to government.” Continue reading “OHS objectors get support from South Australia parliamentarian”

Safety costs of harmonised laws revealed

The Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) on Australia’s Work Health and Safety laws has been released and will be available through the Safe Work Australia website shortly (probably today given the media attention).  Much attention will be given to the cost estimates of the laws’ introduction but the 336-page RIS seen by SafetyAtWorkBlog  emphasises in the Executive Summary that

“While monetary values of impacts are estimated and an appropriate sensitivity analysis is undertaken, these results should be treated with some caution given the uncertainties associated with estimating changes in work health and safety benefits. Greater weight should be given to the general direction that the estimates suggest is the likely outcome from these reforms.”

This important point is likely to be lost in some of the expected argy-bargy over economic impacts and cost v benefit.

The core figures provided in the RIS are:

“While there will be one‐off implementation costs, the quantitative analysis undertaken at the national level for adopting the model WHS Regulations indicates net benefits (i.e. after implementation costs) of around $250 million per annum to the Australian economy over each of the next 10 years. This estimate does not include expected productivity benefits. While noting the difficulties Continue reading “Safety costs of harmonised laws revealed”

Regulatory Impact Statement to be released on 14 September 2011

According to a media release from Senator Chris Evans, the Australian Minister for Workplace Relations,  the Regulatory Impact Statement for the new OHS regulations will be released today, 14 September 2011.  The release is not yet publicly available on-line so the full text is included below:

New health and safety regulations to boost national productivity

“Historic health and safety reforms will deliver up to $2 billion a year in productivity gains Minister for Workplace Relations, Senator Chris Evans said today.

The Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) for the harmonisation of health and safety regulations released today confirms the economic benefit of a national OHS system and demonstrates that the reforms are on track to be implemented by 1 January 2012.

“The Statement vindicates COAG’s decision in 2008, and the Gillard Government’s determination to pursue OHS harmonisation as a key economic reform,” Senator Evans said. Continue reading “Regulatory Impact Statement to be released on 14 September 2011”

Alarmism and confusion over Australia’s OHS harmonisation process

The Australian Financial Review (AFR) on 13 September 2011 is muddying the waters on objections to Australian harmonised OHS laws.  The Victorian Government would support a delay to the introduction of the laws until, according to previous media reports, the release of the Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) on the new laws.  The AFR is reporting (not available online without a subscription) that the government

“…will not endorse the regulations until the federal government releases a cost-benefit analysis.”

It is understood that an RIS is not the same as a cost-benefit analysis even though costs and benefits are part of an RIS.

Australia’s Office of Best Practice Regulation (OPBR) states that an RIS has seven (7) key elements:

Individual accountability – the Great Leap Backward (and into a legislative maze)

Col Finnie, formerly WorkSafe Victoria’s Principal Legislation Officer, looks at what the notion of individual accountability might look like if it was incorporated in the Work Health and Safety Bill, all done with his tongue firmly jammed in his cheek

It’s a good thing new perspectives about getting Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) right are tossed around.  We love that sort of thing in OHS-World.  But this sort of stuff, that used to be called “blue sky thinking”, needs the next step: head out of the clouds, feet on the ground and working out whether that ostensibly good idea will actually work, how it will work, and what will be the consequences.  That reality-check can have that ostensibly interesting notion turn into no more than a puff of an idea; I think individual accountability is like that.

It seems that individual accountability is being touted as a contemporary “issue” for OHS.  The context of the tout would appear to be that OHS will be better if everyone takes more direct responsibility for OHS in the workplace, i.e. everyone was more accountable for “how things are done” around a workplace.  And yep, accountability and responsibility are different things, but not by much; clearly ya can’t be held accountable for stuff in the absence of any responsibility for that stuff at all. Continue reading “Individual accountability – the Great Leap Backward (and into a legislative maze)”

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