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New research on doctor visits hints at new areas of OHS research

The Institute for Safety, Compensation and Recovery Research (ISCRR) is drawing considerable attention to a recent research report into the actions of patients after medical practitioners ( a general practitioner or GP in Australian parlance) have identified a work-related illness. The research is unique and instructive and indicates areas that require more analysis.

According to the media release on the research:

“ISCRR’s Chief Research Officer, Dr Alex Collie, who conceived the research, said that over 22 per cent of workers didn’t make compensation claims even though their GP had determined that the illness was work-related.” (link added)

Dr Collie continues:

“There are a number of reasons we are seeing work-related conditions not being claimed.. Continue reading “New research on doctor visits hints at new areas of OHS research”

The need for safety stories

Many companies and organisations take in OHS graduates, often as part of a program of internships, but sometimes because they are “cheap” new starters. Whatever the process, graduates are hungry to learn but often they believe their profession started when they did. Increasingly there is an ignorance of history and this puts the graduates at a distinct disadvantage.

Graduates often are strong on theory and poor on the practical. This is understandable in some ways but graduates can be handicapped by not knowing what their older and more experienced work colleagues know. On the job training and instruction is often passed down but the stories are not and the history of safety seems passed over. Continue reading “The need for safety stories”

WHS harmonisation status

Things seem to have been quiet on the harmonisation of OHS laws in Australia so it is worth to check the latest status of these laws. Australian law firm, Freehills, recently provided clients with an update (not yet available online) in which they described the process as now operating in two stages, almost splitting Australian jurisdictions.

According to the client update:

“As of 1 January 2012, the Model WHS Laws have commenced operation in:

Queensland,

New South Wales,

the Australian Capital Territory, and

the Northern Territory…..
Continue reading “WHS harmonisation status”

Principled pragmatism – Human Rights included in OHS Due Diligence

On 16 August 2012, Australia’s Workplace Relations Minister, Bill Shorten, said in Parliament, in relation to new asbestos management initiatives, that”

“On 14 March this year, in my first ministerial statement on workplace health and safety in this place, I said that every Australian who goes to work should return home safely. I know both sides of the House endorse this universal human right and today I reaffirm our commitment to this principle…” (page 13, Hansard. emphasis added)

It is very common to hear safety professionals and company executives echo the statement that workers should return home in an uninjured state. But few would be aware or, perhaps, agree that this is a human rights statement.

Following an earlier blog post, one reader has pointed us to the United Nations Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights that were released in 2011. According to the author, John Ruggie, these principles:

“… highlight what steps States should take to foster business respect for human rights; provide a blueprint for companies to know and show that they respect human rights, and reduce the risk of causing or contributing to human rights harm; and constitute a set of benchmarks for stakeholders to assess business respect for human rights. Continue reading “Principled pragmatism – Human Rights included in OHS Due Diligence”

Extraordinary duty of care prosecution over a near miss

Near miss events, or “close calls”, are important opportunities to review safety and work processes. In fact they can be the best opportunities as the participants and witnesses are still alive and can provide detailed information on the mistakes, breakages or oversights. But rarely are companies prosecuted for near misses.

In Western Australia, a company has been found guilty of breaching its duty of care after two of its workers were lost for almost a whole day, and was fined over $A50,000, the highest fine of this type. The near miss is almost comical and at least one newspaper has described it as a “comedy of errors“, except that it could easily have resulted in tragedy. WorkSafeWA’s (long) media release, provides the details:

“MAXNetwork was contracted to the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations to consult with disadvantaged job seekers, in this case through their office in Kalgoorlie.

A number of employment consultants work at the Kalgoorlie office, and they regularly travel to remote areas – some accessible only by dirt roads and narrow tracks – to work with job seekers.

In December 2009, two of the company’s Kalgoorlie area employment consultants were instructed to do an “outreach visit” to the remote community of Tjuntjuntjara, around 600km north-east of Kalgoorlie in the Great Victoria Desert.

The two consultants departed Kalgoorlie in a Toyota Prado leased by MAXNetwork at around 6.00am on a journey estimated to take nine to ten hours on a road with no signs that was a narrow track in some places.

The women were not provided with a map, GPS or any other navigational aid, and consequently they became lost. They had received no training or instruction on travelling in remote areas, and so did not know what to do in the event of becoming lost.

The satellite telephone provided to the consultants did not work, and management was aware of this prior to the trip. In addition, there was no schedule for regular contact with workers in remote locations so no-one realised the women were overdue. Continue reading “Extraordinary duty of care prosecution over a near miss”

Is safe work a basic, or fundamental, human right?

Early this century, according to a draft conference paper* in the SafetyAtWorkBlog archives, the late Eric Wigglesworth OAM posed the following question:

“In addition to our basic human rights of freedom of speech and freedom of religion, should there also be freedom from injury as a basic human right?”

The expectation of a safe and healthy work environment and a workplace without risk is often expressed as a human right, but is OHS a “human right” and what does it mean?

According to one website

“on June 29, 2008, the XVIII World Congress on Safety and Health at Work signed the Seoul Declaration on Safety and Health at Work.”

According to the International Labour Organisation

“…the Declaration also emphasizes that the right to a safe and healthy working environment should be recognized as a fundamental human right.”

The Seoul Declaration mentions human rights only in passing but the reference exists. It is one thing to make a statement and to do so on a global platform but to make this applicable at specific industrial or national levels seems different.

Where do workers and managers learn about respect?

The origins of workplace bullying behaviour seem many. One of the issues to, hopefully, emerge from Australia’s inquiry into workplace bullying is how to prevent and minimise bullying, but to do so, one will need to identify the causes. And these causes need to be more than an amorphous, unhelpful concept like “workplace culture”.

David Yamadamake this comment in his blog, “Minding the Workplace“, about a recent article in a New York Times blog (gosh, social media feeds social media. What’s a newspaper, Daddy?):

“Doctors and lawyers in training may have no idea how to conduct themselves as practitioners, other than being influenced by a lot of unfortunate “role models” on television. If we want to prevent workplace bullying, the training schools for these professions are the first and perhaps best places to start.”

This point links thematically to several recent SafetyAtWorkBlog articles about defining a safety profession, moving from a practice to a profession, workplace culture and workplace bullying. Continue reading “Where do workers and managers learn about respect?”

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New research on doctor visits hints at new areas of OHS research

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The need for safety stories

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WHS harmonisation status

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Principled pragmatism – Human Rights included in OHS Due Diligence

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Extraordinary duty of care prosecution over a near miss

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Is safe work a basic, or fundamental, human right?

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Where do workers and managers learn about respect?

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