discrimination – Page 3 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Addressing the invisible causes of visible harm

The trade union movement was instrumental in showing that workplace bullying was a pervasive problem in Australian workplaces. Many Codes of Practice and guidances for workplace bullying and occupational violence were written shortly after the action by the Australian Council of Trade Unions almost two decades ago. But, for some reason, although sexual harassment was mentioned in those early documents, it never received the attention in occupational health and safety (OHS) circles that, in hindsight, it should have.

Perhaps a more sustainable and effective strategy would be to focus on the “harassment” rather than the “sexual”, or in

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New inquiry into sexual harassment – an OHS opportunity and challenge

On June 20 2018, the Australian government announced a National Inquiry into Sexual Harassment in the Workplace, claiming it to be a world-first. Sexual harassment is not an occupational health and safety (OHS) hazard in many ways BUT the psychological harm it can create is. The job of an OHS person is to encourage employers to reduce work-related harm through prevention, so we need to prevent sexual harassment, just as we do for all the work activities that contribute to poor psychological health and safety.

The macroeconomic costs of sexual harassment in the workplace may be of interest to politicians and business lobbyists but this can be a significant distraction from identifying ways to prevent psychological harm, which should be the most important legacy of this type of inquiry.

Addressing the OHS impacts of

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#MeToo, #TimesUp and #OHS

Being International Women’s Day, the media is awash with articles about pay rates, gender equality and sexual harassment. One of those articles is written by Sarah Ralph of Norton Rose Fullbright. Ralph provides a good summary of the current gender issues and recent media attention (may require registration but it’s free). She makes several recommendations for how to reduce the risk of sexual harassment and unwanted media attention. Below those recommendations are looked at from the occupational health and safety (OHS) perspective to see how OHS can help reduce the psychological harm. Continue reading “#MeToo, #TimesUp and #OHS”

“so we know we’ve had laws, but why haven’t we had change?”

Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins, has been prominent in recent seminars about sexual harassment, particularly in the entertainment industry. In February 2018, Jenkins spoke at a seminar in Melbourne hosted by Screen Producers Australia and provided strong advice on how businesses can control sexual harassment.

Jenkins began her presentation with an uncomfortable reminder that business has been lax in addressing unlawful workplace behaviour.

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There is no such thing as a Cone of Silence, accept the reality

At a recent seminar on managing serious workplace incidents, there was a brief discussion about how evidence is collected and controlled. The response from the panel was that one should always assume that conversations are always being recorded or have the capacity to be. A non-safety example of this appeared in The Age newspaper recently. It appears that someone recorded the Royal Australasian College of Surgeon’s examination process and the recording included discriminatory comments. Two examiners have been stood down and the College is investigating the examination processes. Continue reading “There is no such thing as a Cone of Silence, accept the reality”

Attitudinal survey has promise but the restriction of data stifles discussion

The “Australia’s Behaviour Concerns” (ABC) survey has received a good deal of press in Australia this week as it provides so many options for each State’s media to report on concerns identified by the survey’s respondents. Of the thirty-eight concerns identified, three involve occupational health and safety (OHS) directly:

Work Harassment
Discrimination and Bullying
Unsafe Work Practices.

One of the significant issues with such surveys and findings is that these measure perceptions of safety and not the reality. Community concerns may be high but may mostly reflect topical events, campaigns and advertising so in terms of verifying marketing and OHS awareness campaigns, the survey may be most useful. Continue reading “Attitudinal survey has promise but the restriction of data stifles discussion”

Increased productivity and dignity at work are achievable

David Yamada, in his blog Minding the Workplace, states that

“the more we can get the concept of human dignity into our everyday discussions of work, the better.”

SafetyAtWorkBlog is a supporter of dignity at work and it is heartening to see that the concept is being discussed globally. Dignity, as an activator for change, seems to be a missing element in not only The Hedgehog Review but also very recently released reports, OHS guidances and Australia’s debate on productivity.

The Australian Human Rights Commission released a report last week about sexual discrimination called Working Without Fear. A quick word search for “dignity” shows no results, nor do searches for “bully” or “bullying”. This is disappointing but perhaps should not be a surprise as this report indicates again that the Australian Government considers sexual discrimination and workplace bullying to be separate issues although lawyers and the media often overlap the two.

The Working Without Fear report, based on a large telephone survey concludes that

“…. targets of sexual harassment are most likely to be women and less than 40 years of age. Consistent with previous surveys, the 2012 National Survey also shows that the harassers are most likely to be male co-workers, though women were at least five times more likely than men to have been harassed by a boss or employer. Men Continue reading “Increased productivity and dignity at work are achievable”

Category: discrimination

Addressing the invisible causes of visible harm

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New inquiry into sexual harassment – an OHS opportunity and challenge

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#MeToo, #TimesUp and #OHS

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“so we know we’ve had laws, but why haven’t we had change?”

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There is no such thing as a Cone of Silence, accept the reality

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Attitudinal survey has promise but the restriction of data stifles discussion

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Increased productivity and dignity at work are achievable

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