Tag: WorkSafe

Forklift incidents continue

One of the the most hazardous pieces of equipment in modern workplaces is the forklift.  Sadly it is also one of the most useful.  A recent prosecution in Western Australia provides an example of many of the serious risks in using forklifts:

  • untrained or undertrained drivers
  • unsafe decisions by employers
  • the safety role of seatbelts
  • labour hire management and staff supervision
  • driving with forks elevated
  • training certification.

Other related issues are the employment of

  • transient labour, and
  • young workers.

According to a WorkSafe WA media release, the basic facts of the incident are

“Flexi Staff supplied two casual labourers to the Beds Plus warehouse in Kewdale in February, 2008. The two men were British citizens on a working holiday in Australia. [links added]

It was not part of their labouring job to operate forklifts, and neither had any experience or qualifications or High Risk Work licences. Continue reading “Forklift incidents continue”

OHS compliance checklists

For several months some Australian OHS regulators have been providing “Compliance at a glance” checklists. These are not intended to establish compliance, particularly in the small business sector as listed on one regulator’s website , but are more brief indicators of areas for greater improvement.

Nevertheless the items listed in the “red zone” of the checklists establish a benchmark of NON-compliance. These items are listed below:

Farm deaths require radical approach

WorkSafe Victoria has reported  that of seven recent work-related fatalities, three have occurred in regional areas on farms.  The most recent death was misreported as involving a quad bike.

In a media release issued on 10 May 2011, WorkSafe’s Ian Forsythe said,

“Safety’s not just about what WorkSafe does. It’s about employers, workers and the wider community taking ownership of it not just for themselves, but the wider community.

It is imperative that regional Victorians, whether they are employers, self-employed or workers to stop and think about what is ultimately important to them and what they can do to prevent more tragedies affecting them and their communities.”

Over the last 20 years WorkSafe has tried a wide variety of safety campaigns in rural farming communities.  Some have Continue reading “Farm deaths require radical approach”

CEOs go undercover over workplace safety

The new initiative of Worksafe Victoria, placing CEOs undercover in their own workplaces, is a major change of direction and should produce a considerable amount of attention.

The online campaign, called The Skeleton Project, ostensibly applies the “Undercover Boss” concept to musculoskeletal injuries (MSIs) and workplace safety more generally. Elsewhere SafetyAtWorkBlog has mentioned that the “undercover Boss” concept is a realisation that CEOs and other senior executives have allowed themselves to become out of touch with the real world working environment of their companies or that the corporate management structure pushes executives into isolation however there are many positives in getting “out and about” as the CEOs in the new campaign do.

Continue reading “CEOs go undercover over workplace safety”

Brodie’s Law on bullying needs more consideration for workplace application

Recent attention on the presentation of the Crimes Amendment (Bullying) Bill 2011 to the Victorian Parliament has, understandably, focussed on the changes to the criminal code. However some of that attention should also have been given to the existing rules and control measures under workplace law, particularly considering that the proposed amendments, commonly referred to as Brodie’s law, are being described in the context of workplace bullying.

WorkSafe Victoria’s 2005 guidance on workplace violence and bullying specifies what elements of the Crimes Act 1958 could be relevant to workplace bullying:

  • Intentionally or Recklessly Causing Serious Injury
  • Intentionally or Recklessly Causing Injury
  • Threats to Kill
  • Threats to Inflict Serious Injury
  • Stalking

The inclusion of the last item may surprise some who have been reading only the newspaper coverage of Brodie’s Law as there was a clear implication that the application of stalking to workplace bullying was new.

Law firm Clayton Utz reminds us that workplace bullying remains undefined in the Crimes Act and that the Bill

“… extends the definition of the pre-existing offence of stalking by expanding the definition of that offence to pick up the type of behaviours that are typical of workplace bullying.”

If the Bill passes the Victorian Parliament, the OHS regulator will need to amend its advice on workplace bullying to reflect the expanded definition of stalking. But as can be seen by the bullet points above, changes to guidance may be minor as stalking is already seen as a potential element of workplace bullying. Continue reading “Brodie’s Law on bullying needs more consideration for workplace application”

Workplace bullying gets Australian media attention

Victoria’s OHS regulator, WorkSafe, was in the Sunday Age and Herald-Sun on 10 April 2011 over formal bullying complaints made by some workers in their telephone advisory services. The pressures of working in a call centre or telephone services are well-known as can be seen from the 2004 “Good Practice Guide for Occupational Health and Safety in Call Centres” that, it seems, WorkSafe was involved with developing.

Michael Birt of WorkSafe told the Sunday Age that

“The fact that from time to time people do raise concerns is positive; it confirms people are comfortable raising issues and know they’ll be investigated.”

He is right that reporting of any OHS incident is an important first step to controlling the hazard but that such a hazard exists in WorkSafe, a leading adviser on workplace bullying in Australia, illustrates just how difficult and fraught workplace bullying is to address.

Karen Batt of the Community & Public Service Union acknowledged that workplace bullying has a range of causes including “work overload, excessive demands, under-resourcing”.

Bullying has been a particularly hot topic in Australia’s media at the moment due to the introduction of Brodie’s Law and reports of abuse coming from the Australian Defence Forces. I wonder how the debate would be running if the Australian government’s OHS harmonisation process had already released its draft code of practice on bullying which is due in a couple of months.

Beware OHS statistics quoted in media releases

On 6 April 2011, at the Safety In Action conference in Melbourne, the Safety Institute of Australia and the Australian Institute of Management released the findings of their 2011 Business Survey.  The 2010 survey was discussed in an earlier blog article.

SafetyAtWorkBlog was allowed to see a version of the survey results prior to their public release next week but according to the media release of 6 April:

“More than 40 per cent (41%) of the occupational health and safety (OHS) personnel surveyed did not believe their organisation had a ‘well entrenched OHS culture.’ That view was shared by a quarter of human resources (HR) personnel and senior managers involved in the survey. In contrast, just 11 per cent of CEOs and Board members held that view.

Furthermore, almost half of OHS personnel (49%) who participated in the survey believed that efforts to minimise Continue reading “Beware OHS statistics quoted in media releases”

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