OHS REPS @ WORK

21 June 2002

Hundreds of health and safety representatives from across Victoria will converge on the Melbourne Exhibition Centre on Wednesday June 19 for a one day Conference.

They will tackle current and emerging workplace issues such as stress, bullying, labour hire and chemicals and disease.

Health and safety continues to be an issue of major concern with 32 deaths and thousands of injuries in Victorian workplaces alone last year.

Victorian Trades Hall Council Secretary, Leigh Hubbard, said health and safety representatives were the people at the coalface who identify hazards and work to eliminate them.

"Union health and safety representatives are more effective at making workplaces safe because they are resourced by their union office. The unions provide representatives with consultation skills which enable them to negotiate and resolve unsafe conditions in the workplace," he said.

Mr Hubbard said the Conference aimed to build on past successes and encourage a more active form of health and safety activity in the workplace with representatives willing to "push the limits."

VTHC OH&S Campaigns and Information Officer, Margot Hoyte, said the Conference was the largest gathering of health and safety representatives in Victoria for five years.

"The issues we are addressing at the Conference are based on changes and hazards in the workplace throughout Victoria. Our workshop topics have been designed in response to feedback from affiliates at a regional and metropolitan level," she said.

Ms Hoyte said guest Keynote speaker, Editor of UK Trade Union Congress' health and safety Hazards journal, Rory O'Neill, was invited to address the Conference in response to a request from VTHC affiliates who wanted to hear an international perspective on health and safety.

Mr O'Neill is a UK-based health and safety activist who has served as Health Safety and Environmental Officer of the International Federation of Journalists. He has also written extensively on OHS issues and has published books on stress, sprains and strains and occupational asthma.

The Conference is sponsored by WorkSafe Victoria and hosted by the VTHC. It is free and open to all elected health and safety representatives as part of Work Safe Week.