Issue 154 - SafetyNet Journal 154
Welcome to SafetyNet Journal, your source for the latest in local and international OHS news and campaigns. In this edition: Safe Work Bill dumped; Working Rights are Human Rights; BHP says Asbestos comp laws ‘unfair’; Aussie men six times likelier to face work injury; and warning on forklifts.Union News
Research
WorkSafe News
Worksafe Prosecutions
International News
Events
Union News
Activities and news for reps
Safe Work Australia Bill dropped – Gillard to go back to States
The stand off over amendments to the Safe Work Australia Bill has seen the legislation pulled by the Government. All non-government Senators have backed amendments that would maintain current levels of both union and employer representation on the body to replace the ASCC. The Safe Work Australia Bill, as proposed by the Government, would lower the number of representative positions from three people to two from both unions and employer groups. The ACTU and most employer groups support the amendments.
Deputy PM, Julia Gillard, announcing she was pulling the legislation has vowed to meet with State Workplace Relations Ministers and COAG to see what can be “salvaged” from the stalled harmonisation process. She has also written to Australia’s top 100 companies urging them to back the legislation as it currently stands.
The Australian ACTU media release
Working Rights are Human Rights
This week marks the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Australians are getting a once in lifetime opportunity. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd this week announced an inquiry into whether Australia should have a formal Bill of Rights. Incredibly Australia is the only democratic country in the world which does not have some kind of formal statement of human rights protections. Article 23 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work, and to protection against unemployment. It goes on to say that everyone has the right to equal pay for equal work and enshrines the foundation of a living wage and also declares that everyone has the right to join a trade union.
Occupational health and safety rights are fundamental to the fight for human rights and this opportunity to enshrine universal standards of protection is one not to be missed. Online activist network GetUp! is collecting submissions on what people want to see in a potential Human Rights Act. You can make a submission via their online form.
See also: Workplace law a matter of human rights – Sharan Burrow via ABC There’s also a great YouTube video
CFMEU: Human Rights for Australians should start with construction industry
Construction workers say they will use the Rudd Government's public consultation on the recognition of human rights in Australia to call for the immediate repeal of the building and construction laws. Dave Noonan, CFMEU Construction National Secretary said all Australians should be treated equally before the law. Construction workers have been singled out for special treatment by the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) since the former Howard Government brought in the building and construction laws. The ABCC's investigative powers transcend all other legislation in Australia. The laws have been criticised five times by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) for undermining workers' rights to participate in collective action and to be represented by their union.
CFMEU media release ABCC campaign continues – VTHC
Ask Renata –
What are your thoughts on posture balls for sitting on in the workplace?
The advice from WorkSafe is that posture balls are UNSUITABLE as workplace/workstation seating. This is because they are designed to be used for short periods of time, as part of an exercise class or program. They were not designed for long term use.
WorkSafe has produced guidance on this issue: "Fitness ball is not suitable as a chair". You can get to this guidance from the page on office amenities on our website and you'll also find other interesting information there.
Do you have an OHS-related query? If so, Ask Renata
Union Summer positions available
Union Summer is a three-week internship program run by the Young Unionists Network. It aims to bring unions together with young workers, students and activists and give them the opportunity to get active in organising campaigns. Union Summer runs from January 27 - February 13 2009. The training will cover basic organising skills and concepts, campaigning, the history of unions, the role of unions in the workplace, Occupational Health and Safety, expectations of interns and an orientation to the particular unions and campaign or project that interns will work on. There will also be a component of training time for interns to work on problem solving and development of a small group project. Interns get a basic stipend of around $250 a week for their efforts and 4.5 days of their time will be spent at historic Trades Hall. Places are limited so if you or someone you know may be interested get in touch now.
Contact: Danielle Archer on 96593578 or at darcher@vthc.org.au
Teenager killed by truck at Ballarat gold mine
A teenager died after being struck by a dump truck at the Ballarat Gold Mine on the morning of Thursday 11 December. Mine workers are receiving counselling after the incident. It is believed the 17-year-old apprentice from Ballarat had received a lift on an earth-moving truck following a break and had just stepped out of the vehicle when it moved off and struck him.
It is the second major incident at the LGL Gold Mine in recent times. In November last year 27 miners were trapped underground for five hours after a rockfall. WorkSafe and the Victoria Police are investigating the current incident.
Herald Sun
Asbestos News
Asbestos Awareness Week follow up
Australia still lacks a consistent strategy to deal with asbestos. Asbestos is present in many workplaces (and homes) and a uniform regulatory approach is needed for Australia. Despite the fact that exposure to asbestos is a widespread and ongoing problem for many workers and members of the community, governments around Australia still do not regulate asbestos in a consistent way to ensure that exposure is eliminated where possible, or where this is not possible, minimised.
The Australian Mesothelioma Register tells us that 85% of deaths from this asbestos related disease are the result of workplace exposure to asbestos. It’s ‘Time to Deliver’! There are a lot of things that still haven’t happened to deal with the hazards of asbestos: Elimination from workplaces, Safe disposal at appropriate tips, Removal from homes, Better treatments for sufferers of asbestos related diseases and Research for treatments and cure
At a time when National Model OHS Laws are being developed, with a commitment that every worker will be better off, we need to also ensure that our State government delivers the highest standard of asbestos law and practice. Victoria has moved forward in some areas in the last year but still has a way to go. Read more about Victoria’s Scorecard and get some ideas on things you can do in your workplace.
OHS Reps Asbestos Awareness Week
BHP says asbestos comp laws 'unfair'
Australian mining giant BHP has demanded that South Australia's asbestos compensation laws be changed, claiming they are 'manifestly unjust', sparking outrage among unions and victims' supporters. Further angering victims groups, South Australian Premier, Mike Rann, has refused to guarantee his government will not cave in to the pressure and water down the laws.
A submission from the mining company, obtained by the South Australian Asbestos Coalition (SAAC), claims the laws are “unfairly slanted in favour of those seeking compensation for fatal illnesses caused by asbestos exposure.” BHP also says it is unfair that courts can impose "exemplary damages" - which effectively can be used as a punishment if a court finds a company knew of the dangers of asbestos but failed to act. The company’s stance has provoked anger with opposition and minor party MPs refusing to support any moves to change the current compensation arrangements. BHP Billiton recorded an annual net profit of $17.7 billion in August.
SMH The Advertiser
UK unions have win on asbestos payouts
A union-backed legal case has successfully defended the rights of asbestos victims from an insurance industry attempt to evade liability. The High Court last week ruled that employers' liability insurers remain liable to pay compensation for mesothelioma caused by workplace exposure to asbestos if they insured the employer at the time the asbestos exposure occurred. In what has become known as the mesothelioma 'trigger issue' test case a number of insurers argued the policies they sold, to provide cover against compensation claims from workers who were injured or suffered illness due to work, were 'triggered' by the development of the disease rather than by the exposure to asbestos.
Risks 384 See also the current edition of ‘The Lancet’ Editorial: Asbestos-related disease—a preventable burden – free online once people register
Nanotechnology News
Religious views colour attitudes to nanotechnology
A report published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology on survey results from the United States and Europe reveals a sharp contrast in the perception that nanotechnology is morally acceptable. Those views, according to the report, correlate directly with levels of religious views in each country surveyed. In the US and some European countries where religion plays a larger role in everyday life, notably Italy, Austria and Ireland, nanotechnology and its potential to alter living organisms or even inspire synthetic life is perceived as less morally acceptable. In more secular European societies, such as those in France and Germany, individuals are much less likely to view nanotechnology as ethically suspect. The survey results do not make a correlation between religious views and safety concerns surrounding the impacts of nanotechnology but do point to interesting issues about how the emerging technology is accepted in affluent countries.
Science Daily report BBC report
Other Union News
Incolink online now
The latest edition of Incolink is online now. Features articles on Excellence in Construction Awards; outstanding women in the construction industry, and how to do a safety audit of your won home.
Incolink [pdf]
Two killed in Broome explosion
Two men were killed in an explosion near the Broome port in Western Australia's north on 1 December. Reports suggest men were loading a truck with a powder used to make cement when a pressurised vessel on the rear of the vehicle exploded. WorkSafe WA is investigating the incident.
ABC
International Union News
Obama hints at tougher regulations for employers
US President-elect Barack Obama has indicated to unions that his administration will toughen regulations and support enforcement by federal agencies that oversee workplace safety, consumer products and environmental policy. He has already named a number of people to his transition teams for regulatory agencies who favour a firmer government hand in overseeing industry behaviour. In addition, Mr Obama has indicated in letters to a major federal employee union that he intends to take a more pro-union approach on employment questions than his predecessor. In letters to members of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) in the weeks prior to the election, he said he is in favour of a more robust government approach to a variety of regulatory issues. This would be a marked contrast to efforts by the Bush administration to weaken regulatory powers over the past eight years.
Risks 384 Wall Street Journal Read the letters on the AFGE website
Wal-Mart worker crushed to death in stampede
A Wal-Mart worker was crushed to death in the US when thousands of bargain-hunting shoppers stampeded at the opening of a discount sale. In the US Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping days of the year with major retailers offering drastic price reductions on household goods. The temporary worker was opening doors at the start of the day’s sales when hoards of shoppers pushed into the store and trampled him to death. Unions have condemned Wal-Mart’s safety record.
This incident was avoidable," said Bruce Both, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1500, the state of New York's largest grocery worker's union.
"Where were the safety barriers? Where was security? How did store management not see dangerous numbers of customers barreling down on the store in such an unsafe manner? This is not just tragic - it rises to a level of blatant irresponsibility by Wal-Mart," he told CNN.
CNN
Research
Men six times more likely to face injury at work
A new report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare suggests Australian men are six times more likely to be injured at work than women. Males aged 20 – 24 have the highest rate of hospitalisation due to work-related injury at 347.2 per 100,000 in the population. Women in the same age group are injured at a rate of 51 per 100,000. Women aged 50 – 54 were slightly more likely to be injured, the rate being 54.6.
The report says males were more commonly injured in the agriculture, forestry and fishing and construction industries, whereas the wholesale and retail trade and health services industries attracted higher rates of injuries among women. The construction industry was the most commonly specified industry for work-related injuries involving people aged 15–44 years.
Hospital separations due to injury and poisoning, Australia 2004–05; Clare Bradley and James Harrison; November 2008; Australian Institute of Health and Welfare [pdf]
Study finds industrial solvent cancer link
Exposure to the industrial solvent benzene increases a person's risk of developing multiple myeloma, according to new research from Italy. Dr Adele Seniori Constantini of Italy's Center for Study and Prevention of Cancer and her colleagues also found an increased risk of chronic lymphoid leukaemia with benzene exposure. Two other common workplace solvents in the same aromatic hydrocarbon group and often used as substitutes for benzene, xylene and toluene, were also tied to greater chronic lymphoid leukaemia risk. Benzene, a known carcinogen, is used in the manufacturing of plastic, synthetic rubber, dyes and drugs.
The more intense exposure was and the longer it lasted, the greater the risk. Being exposed to medium to high levels of benzene for more than 15 years increased a person's chronic lymphoid leukaemia risk 4.7-fold, while the same degree of exposure to xylene more than tripled risk.
Reuters Risks 384
UK: Bullying linked to sickness and disability
British workers with disabilities or those with long term ill-health face higher levels of hostile and negative treatment in the workplace, according to new research. In a survey of nearly 4,000 workers, the British Workplace Behaviour Survey 2008, conducted by Cardiff University and the University of Glamorgan, found employees with a disability or long-term illness reported they were more likely to have negative experiences at work. These experiences range from low expectations of workers, bullying and humiliation to, in some cases, physical violence.
Risks 385 EHRC media release
WorkSafe News
Safety warning after people hit by forklifts
WorkSafe has issued a reminder about the danger posed by forklifts after two people were struck by forklifts on the same day. WorkSafe is investigating the separate incidents in which a man in Bayswater North and a woman in Wodonga suffered serious leg injuries. The 22-year-old man was driving a forklift at a metal-fabrication business in Bayswater North when the machine tipped onto its side as he made a turn on gravel just before 2pm this afternoon. It's not clear whether he jumped or was thrown from the machine before it landed on him.
Earlier, a woman aged around 50, was struck by a forklift and suffered serious leg injuries around 11am at a food processing business in Melrose Drive Wodonga. Both people are being treated in hospital. WorkSafe said that with businesses facing their busiest time of the year it was essential that high standards of traffic management were in place, and enforced.
VWA media release
National Survey on Exposure to Workplace Hazards released
The ASCC has published results from its National Hazard Exposure Worker Surveillance Survey which will be used will be used to develop estimates of where workplace exposures exist to a range of hazards including occupational cancer, respiratory diseases, musculoskeletal disorders, mental disorders and cardiovascular disease. The survey results show there are still unacceptably high numbers of workers being exposed to hazards which are not being adequately controlled at the source. Much of the ‘controls’ involved issuing workers with personal protective equipment and clothing. Of concern:
- PPE still the main control against risks - such as gloves, masks and respirators are still the most common form of control against workplace exposures
- Close to 17 per cent of workers reported that they or their employer did nothing to prevent health problems caused by exposure to direct sunlight or sunburn
- Almost one in five (17 per cent) reported they or their employer had done nothing to prevent hearing from being damaged by loud noise
- One in five (22 per cent) reported that they or their employer had done nothing to prevent problems caused by working with vibrating tools and equipment or in vehicles that vibrate.
Heads of Workplace Safety Authorities meet in Melbourne
Australian and New Zealand Workplace Safety Authorities met in Melbourne recently to discuss the progress of a range of initiatives to further Occupational Health and Safety management across Australian workplaces. The Heads of Workplace Safety Authorities has agreed to conduct follow up targeted audits in 2009 to measure the long term impacts of the manual handling in manufacturing intervention campaign. In line with ongoing work to harmonise the activities of OHS regulators, HWSA members are developing a policy for the harmonisation of guidance material. This policy will assist jurisdictions to work cooperatively to reproduce information and guidance material with a view to maximising the harmonisation of information and guidance material across all jurisdictions. Harmonised guidance will also be available on the HWSA website.
HWSA media release [pdf]
Useful materials:
- Alert - Gas cylinder ruptures at filling station
This Alert warns of the dangers of returning damaged high pressure, aluminium alloy gas cylinders to gas suppliers without informing the supplier of the damage. - Pallets - Loading and unloading items - using vacuum lifters
This document provides a solution for loading and unloading items to or from pallets.
Worksafe Prosecutions
Company fined $175,000 for forklift fatality
A Laverton North cold storage company was convicted and fined $175,000 in the County Court after a worker died after being struck by a forklift.
A.B. Oxford Pty Cold Storage Pty Ltd pleaded guilty to workplace health and safety charges before Judge Michael Bourke. WorkSafe’s investigation of the incident found the company did not have any adequate traffic management system in place when 38-year-old was killed in April 2005.
When sentencing the company, Judge Bourke said there was:
- a pressing back-log of material at the company’s warehouse that had to be moved or stored,
- pedestrian walkways were crossed by forklifts and
- as pallets of stock were stacked two high, visibility for forklift drivers was hindered.
He said the forklift driver bore no responsibility for the fatality and that the company’s managers should have known and identified risks which had existed, on and off, for some time. Forklifts have been involved in the deaths of 56 people in Victoria since 1985. Of these 30 were pedestrians who were struck by a forklift (15) or a falling load (15).
VWA media release
Two men prosecuted over apprentice ‘prank’
WorkSafe has prosecuted two men who set their friend alight in a workplace prank that went horribly wrong in January. Dandenong Magistrate Peter Reardon said the two men went ‘far beyond larrikin behaviour’ when they ignited brake-cleaning fluid sprayed on an apprentice who had only been working with them at Hallam for three days. He said that as the two defendants had been disciplined the previous day for setting brake fluid alight, it was inevitable that someone would be hurt. A third man is yet to face court. The men both pleaded guilty to workplace health and safety charges and were each convicted and fined $5000.
The court was told the young worker, 17 at the time of the 9 January incident, was off work for several months with first, second and third degree burns which required surgery, the application of artificial skin and physiotherapy. The two men before the court this week were sacked – yet remain friends with the injured man.
VWA media release
International News
Seven die in Colombia mining explosion
Seven miners were killed in a coal mine explosion in the town of Mongua, according to authorities from Boyaca in central Colombia. The blast was sparked by the build-up of methane gas in the mine, said officials with the state-run Ingeominas. Officials said two other miners were injured in the accident. Rescue workers laboured for more than 17 hours to recover the bodies and to prevent the escape of the lethal gas.
ABC online
ILO: On World AIDS Day - Workplaces are key avenues for responding to the challenge of HIV/AIDS
Millions of people living with HIV/AIDS throughout the world are of working age. According to UNAIDS estimates in 2008, more than two-thirds (67 per cent) of the 32.9 million people living with HIV worldwide live in sub-Saharan Africa. These people are in the most productive period of their lives, but also the period in which they are most exposed to and affected by HIV. This situation has serious implications for the objective of decent work for all, the driving theme of the organisation. One obstacle to the attainment of the goal of decent work is the discrimination faced by people living with HIV. These individuals increasingly have access to antiretrovirals and are therefore able to work. Nevertheless, they are sometimes subject to discrimination at the hiring stage, or to unfair dismissal later on.
Read more about the ILO’s response plan to improve the lives of AIDS sufferers
ILO media release
Events
Training at VTHC
The OHS Training Unit has a range of courses coming up in 2008. Check out the training page of the website for all the latest news and sign up for courses.
Contact Judith Rodda on 03 9663 5460 for more information on scheduled courses or what we can do for your workplace, and to enrol. Reps should think about enrolling for courses in the new year now.
Initial 5-Day Metropolitan (for Elected OHS Reps under the Victorian OHS Act - this course is approved by the VWA under Section 67)
January 22, 23, 28, 29, 30 Initial Carlton
February 2 – 6 Education (Carlton)
February 2 – 6 Initial Werribee
February 9 – 13 Initial Carlton
Course hours: 9am - 5pm. Course fee $670.00
Initial 5-Day Country
March 2 – 6 Initial Morwell
Course hours: 9am - 5pm. Course fee $690.00
Comcare 5-Day OHS Reps Course (for Elected OHS Reps under the Comcare Act)
February 16 - 20 Carlton
Course hours: 9am - 5pm. Course fee $650.00
2-Day Metropolitan
This 2-day course is an overview designed for managers, supervisors and committee members. It is NOT a replacement for the VWA approved 5-day training for elected reps.
January 22 and 23 Carlton
Course hours: 9.30am - 4.30pm. Course fee $350.00
1-Day Refresher
The Refresher course is approved by the VWA under Section 67 of the Victorian OHS Act 2004 for elected reps and deputies.
January 28 Legislative Update Carlton
January 29 Health Services Legislative Update Carlton
Course hours: 9am - 4.30pm. Course fee $180.00
Go to the 2008 Training program page to download an application form.