When reading the draft documents for Australia’s harmonised OHS laws, it is very useful to run various scenarios or hazards through one’s mind and see how these could be affected or managed. The most challenging hazards are the psychosocial hazards (or bio-psychosocial as they were referred to at the recent Comcare conference in Canberra) of stress, mental … Continue reading “Contractor management in Australia’s new OHS laws”
Adam Sage has been following the suicides that have occurred in France Telecome for some time. On 23 September 2009 in the TimesOnline (a week later in The Australian newspaper??), Sage provides a useful summary and cogitation on the “cluster”. But although this number of suicides in one company should be alarming, it is not … Continue reading “23rd suicide at France Telecome in 18 months”
The Braidwood inquiry report into the use of energy weapons (tasers) is readily available on the internet. Regular readers of SafetyAtWorkBlog would know that I consider tasers to be a item of personal protective equipment (PPE) for enforcement officers. Determining whether PPE is the most appropriate hazard control measure usually involves the application of the … Continue reading “Thoughts on tasers and the hierarchy of controls”
SafetyAtWorkBlog has had a tremendous response to the article concerning Working Hours and Political Scandal. Below are some of the issues raised in some of the correspondence I have received from readers and OHS colleagues. The Trade Union Congress Risk e-bulletin has a similar public service/mental health case which has been resolved through the Courts. … Continue reading “OHS and workload – follow-up”
Several OHS regulators in Australia, OHS professional associations and trade union have directories for OHS advisers. Most of them are in the traditional OHS areas of guarding, engineering, chemical safety….. Psychosocial issues such as work stress or workplace bullying haven’t featured as much. The Australian Psychological Society (APS) has a very good searchable directory for … Continue reading “Australia’s “Find a Psychologist” directory”
On 9 July 2009 I wrote in SafetyAtWorkBlog “The Fair Work Act has no relevance to occupational health and safety, so why mention this on SafetyAtWorkBlog?” The Fair Work Act changes the negotiating and consultative structure of Australian workplaces stemming from changes in industrial relations law. A book that came across my desk this morning … Continue reading “An OHS look at the Fair Work book”
A survey of graduates by GradConnection released on 15 July 2009 has important information for Australian companies and provides some optimism for the OHS profession and regulators. A dominant element of modern employment is work/life balance. In some disciplines this is taken as workplace flexibility. In terms of workplace safety, work/life balance is a euphemism … Continue reading “What the next generation of graduates wants”