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| Thu 30 Nov 2006 |
Issue 104 - SafetyNet JournalThu 30 Nov 2006Welcome to SafetyNet 104 – though we are approaching the end of the year, there’s a lot happening that OHS reps and workers need to be aware of. Union News Research WorkSafe News International News Events Union NewsActivities for OHS repsThe VTHC has a number of issues of concern, including: New VWA website – so many current links not working!
The Victorian WorkCover Authority has a new website. The VWA says the new look site ‘delivers a site that enables users to quickly and easily access information.’ However, it’s going to cause a bit of frustration for a while for users of OHS Reps @ Work, as all links to WorkSafe or WorkSafe documents will have to be changed. So we ask reps and other users to have a bit of patience until this work can be done. If you come across any other broken links while using the site, please let us know and if you know the new link, tell us that too. It’s going to be a long and very tedious job, but we promise to try to do it as quickly as we can. This week’s FAQ:
Can my employer decide who’s on the health and safety committee? No – the OHS Act makes it clear that an OHS Committee established under the OHS Act must be the result of negotiation – we recommend between the employer and the health and safety reps, or if there are no reps, the employees. Further, the Act specifies that at least half the members of the OHS Committee must be employees, and so far as is practicable, be health and safety reps or deputies. In the case of committees existing prior to July 2004, advice from WorkSafe is that only those committees established at the request of an elected health and safety rep, can be said to have been 'properly established'
More information on OHS Committees If you have any questions or need help with any OHS related issue, Ask Renata. You are guaranteed an answer, usually within a couple of working days. Last chance to vote in our website poll. What is the main cause of stress?
ACTU opposes nuclear power station on OHS and environmental grounds What do you think is the main cause of stress? Vote now on the website poll – go to the homepage. There will be a new poll for the next edition of SafetyNet, so if you haven’t voted yet, do so now. The ACTU last week voiced its strong opposition to the Howard Government's push to build up to 25 nuclear power plants in Australia and labelled the move as a distraction from the Government's ongoing failure to address the problem of global warming. Commenting on the release of a report on nuclear energy options, ACTU President Sharan Burrow said, ‘John Howard risks facing the next election as a referendum on both industrial relations and nuclear energy. The Coalition has been in government for ten years and has done nothing to respond to the problem of climate change. ‘
‘Unions oppose nuclear energy for Australia because it raises intractable problems in terms of safety for workers and the public, waste transport and storage, cost, nuclear weapons proliferation and terrorism. Dangerous levels of radiation are not safe for workers and not safe for the planet.’
During Asbestos Awareness Week, she added ‘Unions have led the successful campaign to ban deadly asbestos products and we do not want to see another potential industrial disaster from the release of toxic nuclear materials in Australia.’
Read more: ACTU Media Release ACTU: Government creating national OHS scheme by stealth
The ACTU says we should not believe the Howard Government when it claims to have no plans to create a national OHS system – the reality is that it is already doing it. Referring to the recently passed legislation to allow private companies to join Comcare, ACTU OHS officer Steve Mullins said the Federal Government has created a national OHS scheme 'by stealth'. 'Comcare was designed for the Commonwealth public service but now companies from the construction, transport, finance and telecommunications industries have been invited to escape the state systems and go national,' he said. 'Workers are very concerned about this move. 'Howard has stripped back the Commonwealth health and safety Act making it harder for workers to access information and advice, placed the power to run worker health and safety representative elections in the hands of the employer, and invited his large corporate mates can join up to escape the stronger regulatory systems of the States and Territories.' NSW Government enquiry agreesThe NSW Government’s WorkChoices Inquiry considered the effects of the legislation on NSW workers, and also considered the potential problems arising from the expansion of the Comcare scheme. The NSW Legislative Council standing committee said the move could lead to a reduction in OHS standards in the large companies that moved, and would undermine state OHS schemes.
With regard to its main area of investigation, the Committee concluded that the ‘WorkChoices’ legislation will lead to a reduction in workplace safety and the profusion of low-pay, poor quality work. The Committee voiced concern at the ‘watering down’ of some OHS provisions in ‘WorkChoices’, particularly in relation to unlawful termination provisions for injured workers, state award OHS provisions, right of entry for union officials and OHS training. The Committee concluded that the legislation did nothing to promote safety in the workplace and called for the laws to be repeal.
Final Report [pdf] Asbestos news
Asbestos Awareness Week Nov 20 - 24 During last week’s Asbestos Awareness Week, the VTHC and affiliates, together with a number of asbestos support groups helped remind workers and the general community of the very real danger that asbestos in our environment poses to our health. Australia has the highest per capita incidence of mesothelioma in the world. More than 500 Australians contract mesothelioma every year. Up to 18,000 Australians are likely to die from it by 2020. Safely eliminating asbestos in Australian workplaces and the wider community is the key to getting rid of asbestos related diseases. Remember: Asbestos Dust Kills. The VTHC launched its campaign to promote the safe elimination of asbestos in buildings at the refurbished CFMEU Building in Carlton on Monday, last week. The campaign encourages building owners who have taken action to ensure that their buildings are free of asbestos to put up a plaque attesting to this. The plaque unveiling is to be the first of many as more unions and responsible building owners get on board. OHS Reps have a role to play in this.
Read more ADSVIC Commemoration Service
The ADSVIC annual Commemoration Service held last week at the BMW Edge Theatre at Federation Square was a touching and timely reminder of the tragedy that is asbestos. Bishop Phillip Huggins led the service; Peter Gordon and Julie Stafford provide their ‘reflections’, and representatives of families of asbestos victims read poetry. The service included music, songs from the Ballarat and Clarendon College Choirs and Cassie Stafford, and a flower ceremony. After six years of campaigning and two and a half years of intensive negotiations with James Hardie, unions and asbestos victims groups last week secured a final deal from the company to compensate Australian victims of its asbestos products. James Hardie and the New South Wales Government signed the tax office approved, Amended Final Funding Agreement last Tuesday, which will see James Hardie make its first payment to the asbestos compensation fund as soon as February next year.
ACTU Secretary Greg Combet welcomed the signing of the agreement and said, ‘What we have secured today is a final, open ended, un-capped and importantly tax-office approved funding agreement from James Hardie which will see the company pay in excess of $4.5 billion into a fund to compensate current and future Australian victims of its asbestos products. ‘The only thing left to do now before James Hardie commences paying money into the fund is for the agreement to be voted on by James Hardie shareholders which we understand will occur in February next year. ‘This has been a long and at times difficult campaign but today I am more confident then ever that we will achieve our objective of getting some justice for asbestos victims,’ said Mr Combet. ‘The ACTU would like to thank the NSW Government, Bernie Banton and Asbestos Groups and all the unions and union members who have worked so hard to achieve this outcome. I am very proud of the role that Australian unions have played in securing this agreement,’ he said. Fact sheet and chronology of important events in the James Hardie campaign Labour-hire ‘safer’? Not likely!
The employer group representing labour-hire companies, the Recruitment & Consulting Services Association (RCSA) last week claimed that ‘independent research’, [commissioned by them!] has ‘revealed that the safety performance of the on-hire industry is not – as is often claimed – worse than direct employment, but it is in fact better.’ Based on very limited claims incidence data, the researchers from the Values Bank Research Centre claimed a ’27 per cent lower rate of claims’ but did acknowledge that number of claims does not necessarily equate to number of injuries. The RCSA criticises the 2002 Underhill report that found that on-hire workers were more likely to be injured, and more severely, than direct employees. The Value Bank researchers said, ‘..a review of the data shows its claims don’t stack up… [it] is outdated because crucial information wasn’t available at the time.’ But Elsa Underhill, senior employment & IR lecturer at Deakin University, said the sample was too small at only 232 workers across Australia. ‘Virtually all research shows [labour-hire workers] are more at risk,’ Underhill said. Her research, which looked at workers compensation claims across the labour-hire industry in Victoria, showed these workers were in an ‘extremely vulnerable position’. ‘They are more likely to be injured earlier in their placement ... [because] they are working in an unfamiliar workplace; they have to do tasks they haven't performed before and often haven't been trained in; and they lack job-specific training,’ Underhill said. ‘Some host companies do train but don't necessarily offer sufficient training in tasks they need to do. If they did, it would be too costly.’ She added that the results of her study were very consistent with overseas findings.
Sources: RCSA Media Release; OHNews More information on Labour Hire Nanotechnology: Five-step check for nano safety
A team of experts has drawn up five 'grand challenges' to evaluate the safety of nanotechnology. Writing in the journal Nature, the team says that fears about nanotechnology's possible dangers may be exaggerated, but not necessarily unfounded. Author Andrew Maynard and his colleagues write that the development of the industry could be slowed 'unless sound, independent and authoritative information is developed on what the risks are and how to avoid them.' The five grand challenges include developing instruments to evaluate exposure to engineered nanomaterials in air and water and developing methods for assessing their toxicity. Dr Maynard, from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC, and colleagues say that the way science is carried out means it is ill-equipped to address novel risks from emerging technologies. Research into understanding and preventing risk often has a low priority in the world of technology development, research funding and intellectual property, they say. 'Without strategic and targeted risk research, people producing and using nanomaterials could develop unanticipated illness arising from their exposure,' the authors warn. 'Public confidence in nanotechnologies could be reduced through real or perceived dangers and fears of litigation may make nanotechnologies less attractive to investors and the insurance industry.' The US Environmental Protection Agency this week said it would regulate nanosilver products, marking a significant reversal in federal policy. Information on Nanotechnology
Andrew Maynard and others. Safe handling of nanotechnology, Nature, volume 444, pages 267-269, 16 November 2006. Dr Maynard's evidence to a September 2006 House of Representatives Committee on Science, considering 'Research on environmental and safety impacts of nanotechnology: What are the federal agencies doing?' Source: Risks 284 National campaign to combat skin cancer
The Cancer Council Australia has launched a new national skin cancer awareness campaign it hopes will significantly reduce the impact of the nation's most costly yet preventable cancer. Cancer Council spokesperson and melanoma surgeon, Emeritus Professor Bill McCarthy, said the campaign would make a significant contribution to changing the attitudes and behaviour of young people to skin cancer and sun protection. Protection from UV radiation is also a health and safety issue for reps. Information on UV Radiation on website Information on the campaign [pdf] UK news from the TUC2006 Safety Reps Survey
The TUC conducts a survey of safety representatives every two years. 3,339 reps responded to the 2006 survey. Even more than in past surveys, overwork or stress was the most commonly identified hazard – by six out of ten reps (61%). Stress and overwork was the major concern across most sectors, and in workplaces of all sizes – though apparently much more of a concern in places with over 1000 workers. Other major concerns were:
The 2006 survey with the full results can be downloaded from the TUC website New Edition of Hazards now available
The latest issue of the award-winning Hazards magazine - the only magazine written especially for trade union health and safety reps - is now available. This issue of the not-for-profit publication asks whether workplace health and safety has had its chips, as healthy lifestyle and 'work is good for you' initiatives come to the fore. It highlights UK’s TUC demolition job on damaging myths about ladder 'bans' and other fanciful stories aiming to undermine genuine safety controls. And it looks at issues from work and the older worker, to deadly shipbreaking hazards in Asia. There's also plenty of news and resources. Hazards magazine, No.96, 2006 Subscription information, including online or print-off-and-post order forms. New report on aging workers
Hazards magazine reports that statistics show that over one third (36.5 per cent) of UK workers believe they will be unable to do their job at 60. Hazards calls on employers to stop using bogus health and safety excuses to get rid of, or not employ older people, and start helping keep the ageing UK population in work and off benefits. The message is relevant to Australia too, which also has an ageing population. Access the new Hazards report on health and safety and ageing workers, Not dead yet. ResearchRaised cancer risk in firefightersCincinnati Enquirer. BBC News Online.
GK LeMasters and others. Cancer risk among firefighters: A review and meta-analysis of 32 studies. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, volume 48, number 11, pages 1189-1202, November 2006 [abstract]. Hazards cancer and work and health webpages. US firefighters' union IAFF webpages on presumption laws in the US and Canada. Source: Risks 283 Sitting straight 'bad for backs'
A new study has suggested that sitting up straight is not the best position for office workers. Scottish and Canadian researchers used a new form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to show it places an unnecessary strain on the back. It appears that the best position for a worker to sit at his/her desk is to lean slightly back, at about 135 degrees. The research, carried out at Woodend Hospital in Aberdeen, Scotland, involved scanning twenty-two volunteers with healthy backs with a positional MRI machine, which allows patients the freedom to move - so they can sit or stand - during the test. Three different sitting positions were looked at: a slouching position, in which the body is hunched forward as if they were leaning over a desk or a video game console, an upright 90-degree sitting position; and a "relaxed" position where they leaned back at 135 degrees while their feet remained on the floor. The researchers then took measurements of spinal angles and spinal disk height and movement across the different positions. Spinal disk movement occurs when weight-bearing strain is placed on the spine, causing the disk to move out of place. The researchers found that disk movement was most pronounced with a 90-degree upright sitting posture, and the least pronounced with the 135-degree posture, suggesting less strain is placed on the spinal disks and associated muscles and tendons in a more relaxed sitting position.
Read more: BBC News WorkSafe NewsActivities – WorkSafe VictoriaLast week, an East Gippsland man died when his tractor rolled in isolated country at Timbarra. Yesterday’s death is the 25th work-related death reported to WorkSafe this year and the fourth this month.
Source: WorkSafe Media Releases WorkSafe lays charges after workplace deaths
WorkSafe Victoria has charged two companies over alleged safety breaches, which resulted in the death of a man at a Carisbrook landfill and recycling depot on 7 May 2005. Landfill Reduction Pty Ltd and ACN 107 424 788 Pty Ltd (previously known as Haulmaster Equipment Co Pty Ltd) have been charged in relation to an incident. ACN 107 424 788 Pty Ltd is a supplier of mobile material handling equipment The man who died was an employee of Landfill Reductions Pty Ltd. He was helping to move a container of waste paper weighing nearly 11 tonnes. As the container was being unloaded it fell on to the man and killed him. WorkSafe has also charged Camden Neon Pty Ltd after a 26-year-old Sunbury man was electrocuted at Coburg on 18 April this year. The man, an employee of, was changing light bulbs in display signs at a car yard in Sydney Road. WorkSafe’s investigation found the man was in an elevating work platform changing a light globe while the electrical power was on.
WorkSafe Media Release New Campaign to help injured workers back to work
With more than 158,000 Victorians injured at work in the past five years, at a cost of more than $5 billion in compensation and rehabilitation, WorkSafe this week launched a new campaign to help injured workers return to work. WorkSafe Director - Claims Management Division, Seyram Tawia, said helping an injured person return to work is good for the worker, their families, workmates and it’s good for business.’ WorkSafe Media Release
Smoking banned in ACT pubs from 1 December
From 1 December, ACT pubs and clubs will be required to ensure their air is clear of tobacco smoke for workers and patrons. Under the Smoking (Prohibition in Enclosed Public Places) Act 2003, all enclosed public places in the ACT such as restaurants, pubs or nightclubs will be required to be smoke-free. But anti-smoking groups are critical of the new law as it could permit smoking in any space that is 75% enclosed. The Government has also foreshadowed further tobacco smoke controls including the introduction of smoking bans in outdoor public areas, such as outdoor dining and drinking areas, on the grounds of educational facilities, and around building entrances. Useful New ResourcesFrom NSW WorkCover: a Guidance Note: Ceiling Dusts Containing Lead [pdf] - for contractors and workers involved in the cleaning, repairing or demolition of ceilings that may contain lead dust. From WA WorkSafe: a draft code of practice [pdf] for Occupational Health and Safety for the State's public sector. The code includes information on induction and training, planning and documentation, leadership and management commitment, and common public sector hazards. From the Building Commission - New guidelines on Balcony safety: What you need to know about - Maintenance of Balconies [pdf], in response to recent incidents of structural collapse of balconies. International NewsILO feature on inspection approaches and news release on strengthening labour inspection . Strategies and practice for labour inspection, report of the Committee on Employment and Social Policy to the Governing Body (GB.297/ESP/3), November 2006 [pdf].
ILO: Combating child labourSource: Risks 284 Every year, millions of children who work pay a heavy price in terms of pain and abuse for their labour. The “World Report on Violence Against Children”, launched on Universal Children’s Day says many of the world’s more than 300 million child and adolescent workers suffer ill-treatment, physical and psychological violence, verbal or sexual abuse . The report paints a stark picture of the nature, extent and causes of violence against children, including forms of violence in places of work ILO Online reports.
UK: Materials from the HSERead more Dermatitis and Hairdressing
According to the HSE, up to 70% of hairdressers suffer from skin damage. It has launched a campaign ‘Keep your hands healthy and wave goodbye to bad hand days’ with resources and information WHO Resource ‘Gender equality, work and health’ 'Gender equality, work and health', a new review published by the World Health Organisation (WHO), documents the relationship between gender inequality and health and safety problems. It reviews gender issues in research, policies and programmes on work and health, and highlights some specific issues for women, including the types of jobs they do, as well as their need to reconcile the demands of work and family. Biological differences between women and men also are considered in relation to hazards they face in the workplace. The report says 'economic survival' strategies for women and their families sometimes result in a great danger to women workers' health. It calls for more and better programmes and practices 'to ensure women's health and safety at work, while facilitating their access to economic and social equality.'
Gender equality, work and health: A review of the evidence, WHO, 2006. Full report [pdf]. Source: Risks 283 EventsDon’t forget to register for OHS reps trainingSome reps and deputies haven’t had their refresher training yet, and so may not be up with all the changes to the OHS Act - enrol in a course now, but remember you must give your employer 14 days notice of your intention to attend a course under s67. Go to the training section of the website to check the courses scheduled at the VTHC OHS Training Unit to September this year.
Training program Contact Judith Rodda on 03 9663 5460 for more information either scheduled courses or what we can do for your workplace, and to enrol. |