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Lessons for Australia from UK assault on OHS red tape

The chase for government and corporate effectiveness and productivity increases through cutting “red tape” has, historically, had dubious longterm benefits. The attack on the red tape of occupational health and safety (OHS) has been brutal in the United Kingdom and has occurred with an unforgiving, and misguided, tabloid media. Some in the UK media have been pointing out the government’s strategic folly, the latest is Russell Lynch in the Evening Standard.

On 20 September 2012, Lynch brutally described the UK situation:

“Safer businesses are more productive, not least because of the management time taken up when some poor sod has to be scraped off the floor. And let’s not forget inspections focus on occupational health as well, meaning employees have more chance of working without developing illnesses.”

The sad part of this statement is that productivity advantage of safer businesses has been known by governments for some time but that the wave of red tape attacks was politically stronger.

Some Australian States are on an extreme austerity drive even though the Australian economy is nowhere near as troubled as that of the United Kingdom. These strategies usually call for across-the-board percentage reductions in costs. This generality is a major problem as productivity and cost-effectiveness of specific organisations is not considered. Untargeted cuts penalise the successful and the inefficient – the current experience of the Health and Safety Executive. Continue reading “Lessons for Australia from UK assault on OHS red tape”

Strengthening safety decision-making

Any professional sees elements of their profession in other walks of life. Police notice infringements when they are off duty. Teachers often continue to instruct or educate when outside of school. Journalist’s conversations with friends often contain pointed questions.

Safety professionals, commonly, extend safety principles to their own behaviours and lives. This can sometimes lead to a heightened intolerance of unsafe behaviour in others but also desires that life operated on safety principles. Today I wondered about the application of the concept of “Reasonably Practicable” in prioritising corporate and personal safety objectives.

I simplified (bastardised, some may say) the Safe Work Australia guideline on reasonably practicable into questions that we should ask in our non-OHS lives but, most importantly, the priority of the reasonable practicable process is retained. The questions, in order of priority are:

How important is it?
How harmful could it be?
What do we know about it?
How can we control it?
How much will it cost?

Self-help aficionados may see these as life lessons or criteria that can be applied to many decisions. I agree to some extent but the priority of the questions is of most importance in the decision-making process because it places the issue of cost last. Continue reading “Strengthening safety decision-making”

Australia’s mining sector progresses safety but without effective accountability

In 2010 the New South Wales Mines Safety Advisory Council (MSAC) released its important Digging Deeper report, proving this industry sector is at the forefront of safety management innovation in Australia. This month MSAC provided an insight into “world-leading” safety with its report “Actions for World-leading Work Health and Safety to 2017“.

The report discusses five strategic areas for attention but of more interest is the elements that MSAC believes represents “world-leading WHS”:

Continue reading “Australia’s mining sector progresses safety but without effective accountability”

Law reform does not prevent harm, only compensates for it

Josh Bornstein is a media-savvy lawyer with Maurice Blackburn who has gained some prominence on the matter of workplace bullying. A week ago Bornstein spoke at a Legalwise seminar in Melbourne Australia and he has yet to stop running on his topic of discussion – “Disproving the seven myths about workplace bullying”. Today he released a video of his presentation on the Maurice Blackburn YouTube channel. The speech from the seminar is HERE.

Lawyers advise that words and statements are very important. Documents and presentations are deconstructed for nuance and alternate interpretations. Context is also vitally important to determine why something was said when it was said and why it was said. These tools are equally useful for Bornstein’s presentation.

Continue reading “Law reform does not prevent harm, only compensates for it”

South Australian WHS laws get closer

Australian OHS discussion forums have been buzzing with the passing of the model Work Health and Safety (WHS) bill through the South Australian Parliament. SafetyAtWorkBlog has been advised that the WHS Bill has yet to go to Committee stage which then requires a third reading. Some engaged in South Australian politics still believe the WHS Bill will fail to become law.

However the focus should not only be on the WHS Bill as there were other OHS matters discussed in Parliament on 6 September, such as workplace bullying.

Second Reading

The Second Reading Speech (page 2069) by Russell Wortley on 6 September 2012 includes some comments of note. Below are a couple of extracts:

“There has been a lot of fearmongering about the effects of these laws. I want to assure honourable members that these fears are misguided and, sadly, often based on misinformation from lobby groups with a particular self-interest in seeing this legislation defeated.”

“…if we do not modernise our laws now, the scope of legal workplace safety protections will continue to be limited by the employer/employee relationship and existing ambiguities will remain. Honourable members need to understand that if the bill is not passed, a South Australia worker will have lower standards of safety than other workers in other states and territories across Australia.”

Of particular note is that Wortley tables (pages 2077-2079) the Housing Industry Association‘s table of increased costs from the new WHS laws. Continue reading “South Australian WHS laws get closer”

Managing on luck is not managing safety

In December 2011, SafetyAtWorkBlog reported on a serious misreading of workplace safety by the President of the Australian Hotels Association in South Australia (AHA/SA), Peter Hurley. The debate on new work health and safety laws in South Australia continues and on 7 September on radio station FIVEAA, according to an interview transcript (not available on-line), Peter Hurley continued to display his misunderstanding of OHS laws and principles even though SafeWorkSA responded at the time. The broader significance of his comments is that they could provide an example of the way that OHS myths are created through anecdote and misunderstanding.

Hurley reportedly said:

“..last year one of our hotels was subjected to some very aggressive inspectorate activity and among a myriad of other nit-picking things that we were instructed that we had to comply with was an instruction that we had to deck out our bottle shop staff in high vis apparel so if someone wandered in and wanted to have a discussion about the nuances of one vintage of Grange against another, they were going to have stand there and talk to a bloke who looked like he was working on a building site … Continue reading “Managing on luck is not managing safety”

Reliance on PPE impedes safety progress

There is an increasing call for the mandatory wearing of high-visibility clothing for motorcycle riders around the world. The reason is to make motorcyclist more visible to car drivers and other road users. This sounds logical and sensible and is, in some way, based on the prominence of high-visibility clothing in the industrial sectors of manufacturing, construction and others. But is this a matter of policy based on evidence or a broad application of logic or a “common sense”?

As the requirement for high visibility clothing has been in workplaces longer than on motorcyclists it is worth looking for evidence of the effectiveness of high visibility clothing in workplaces. A brief survey of some of the research literature has been unsuccessful in locating much research into this issue. (We always welcome input from readers on this). Wikipedia traces high-visibility clothing back to Scottish railways in the early 1960s, where

“Train drivers operating in these areas were asked their opinion as to the effectiveness of the jackets.”

It would seem the choice of high visibility clothing has stemmed from assessing a workplace, determining the dominant colour of that workplace or environment and then examining the colour wheel (above) to choose a colour of the greatest contrast, thereby providing a high visibility. Continue reading “Reliance on PPE impedes safety progress”

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Lessons for Australia from UK assault on OHS red tape

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Strengthening safety decision-making

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Australia’s mining sector progresses safety but without effective accountability

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Law reform does not prevent harm, only compensates for it

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South Australian WHS laws get closer

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