Category: Uncategorized

Recently, occupational health and safety (OHS) has been given a “bad press” in the electronic media in Australia with many examples of how an activity or behaviour has been stopped or excluded on the “unreasonable” grounds of OHS.

Recently in my local supermarket I asked a worker in the vegetable section whether the store had loose-leafed baby spinach. He responded that they only have packaged spinach. On asking why I was told that it was because of OHS requirements. I contacted an OHS representative within the supermarket’s head office who told me this was not the case. He told me that the packaged option was more likely to be on the grounds of food safety and hygiene.

This example highlights a major challenge to OHS managers and organisations. WorkSafe and unions have been very successful over the last decade in raising the community awareness to issues of workplace safety, to the extent that OHS has a higher profile than the issues that the supermarket and others are applying.

Food safety and hygiene has been revolutionised with the introduction of HACCP, the legislative requirements for food preparation. Public liability has increased for school excursions, council garden maintenance, small business, retail outlets and everywhere else it seems. These two issues are being misunderstood as workplace safety matters because OHS has a higher general prominence. HACCP requirements are only relevant to the food industry and impinge on the public, usually, only when we ask for a doggy bag. Public liability is a cost to business and councils but doesn’t affect the public unless someone suggests that you take action after tripping on a cracked footpath.

In Victoria in 2007 there were four workplace fatalities in ten days. According to WorkSafe:

• On April 19, a truck driver died when his tip truck hits power lines on a farm near Nhill while making a delivery.
• On April 20, a man died after being crushed between the hydraulically operated door of a machine and a rail earlier on 13 April.
• On April 22, a man died after suffering an electric shock while changing light bulbs at Coburg North car yard on 18 April.
• On April 23, a man died on a property near Wodonga when a tree he was cutting down with a chain saw fell and hit him.

The whole aim of OHS management and legislative obligations is to avoid death and injury. As we move to the international day of mourning for those who die at work, in late April, we need to remember that safety should always be seen in the context of its relation to people. People should not be sacrificed for profit or corporate peace of mind.

Kevin Jones

I have always believed that safety practitioners in one country can learn much about safety management from the activities and events in other countries. Often it is possible to anticipate hazards by being able to look over our factory fences or national borders.

The increased risk of terrorist attack and the concerns over bird flu or H5N1 have changed our perception of workplace safety risks. During my studies we took an airplane crash as the extreme example of a high risk low probability event. That criteria has undergone some re-evaluation.

The line between public health, public safety and OHS has always been fuzzy but that fuzziness is receiving more and more attention. Some are trying to clarify the line, others are trying to erase it altogether. I don’t think that Western societies are structured to have a complete overlap of these disciplines although New Zealand has a more social workers’ compensation system than others, Scandinavia almost has no distinction, and some non-Western countries rely on the various levels of social security to pick up workplace injuries.

Safety practitioners should, perhaps, ignore whatever distinctions the categories, regulations and government demarcations may provide by looking at the hazard. This is the way that OHS has traditionally been practiced but can this approach cope with the new workplace hazards that are generated from social, non-work activities?

Some of my clients continue to have workers claim that a weekend injury has occurred at work so that workers compensation will cover the rehabilitation and repairs. One client is experiencing a noticeable increase in hip replacements and knee reconstructions in the workers who are close to retirement age. Of course that the workers are keen football players or undertake very physical labour outside of work is not permitted to be taken into account. If the principle work is physically demanding then how can the injury be proved to be not caused by work?

This type of work expense for non-work incidents is a constant sore spot for employers but I wonder if government silently acknowledges these practices and structures its workers compensation systems accordingly. Should we see workers compensation as having its principle role in social security rather than in the business world, even though companies fund the scheme? Should business leaders see workers compensation premiums as their social contributions, rather than an annoying cost of operation?

Certainly shareholders would require some balance in these contributions as the companies exist to generate profit and dividends for shareholders, but would the drive to screw down workers compensation premiums be less strident if workers compensation was also seen as a community premium?

Companies are expected to change their working environment, management practices and workplace design to accommodate the work/life balance, a concept that acknowledges the workplace impact of non-work stressors. Perhaps businesses should specifically identify to shareholders the reductions in dividends and profits that the accommodation of work/life balance cause. Shareholders can then decide where to best invest for profit.

The difficulty is that by facing the fact that work/life balance costs (before it ever returns benefits) we are faced with the ruthless greed that most shareholders operate from. Yes, companies exist to make profits but we can’t blame the companies for that as it is the shareholders who provide the companies’ motivations.

Perhaps OHS professionals and practitioners should be trying to explain to shareholders how adequate investment in OHS can have a company and social benefit, as well as controlling workplace hazards. Safety from a moral basis, now there’s a challenge!