Annual OHS Reps Conference a Great Success
The annual VTHC OHS Reps' Conference on 24 October at the Convention Centre, part of WorkSafe's OHS Week (22-26 October 2007), has again been a huge success. It continues to be the largest meeting of OHS reps in the world.
Under the theme “OHS – Unfinished Business” the all-day Conference addressed many issues affecting how to achieve the best OHS standards possible.
Ann Taylor, VTHC President, opened the conference. VTHC Secretary, Brian Boyd and John Merritt, Executive Director of Worksafe, also spoke. Brian Boyd told the conference: “There is no acceptable number of deaths; there is no good reason to finish the day worse than how you started; accidents do not happen; accidents should not be part of life in the workplace; no one sets out to hurt themselves and workers wouldn’t be stressed unless there was something causing them stress in the first place.
“Let's be clear on a couple of things, workers have a right to a safe and healthy work environment, a safe way of doing work; workers have a right to have a say in their own health, safety and welfare; workers have a right to be represented on any matter that affects them.
“Better terms and conditions are best achieved by working together collectively.”
The Charter of OHS, Compensation and Rehabilitation Rights was distributed to every OHS rep. The reps at the Conference were asked to take back into their respective workplaces the material and information learnt so as to spread the OHS message as widely as possible.
Another highlight was VWA OHS Annual Awards night (23/10) that saw Tarek Souied (Woolworths) win the OHS Rep of the year out of several finalists
The week is sponsored by the Victorian WorkCover authority (WorkSafe) and included a range of events, meetings and forums across Melbourne and regional Victoria.
From the VTHC website
last updated august 2011