Victorian news
WorkSafe HSR Newsletter
Last week WorkSafe sent out its regular newsletter for HSRs. The newsletter has a great feature on the WorkSafe Award winners, including a video of joint Health and Safety Representative of the Year - Adrian Lidsey and Christopher Ball. Both United Workers Union members at Crown Casino, Adrian and Christopher finally succeeded in making the casino smoke free. They won the battle not only for Crown Melbourne, but also for workers at the casinos in Sydney and Perth.
The newsletter has other items of interest, including an invitation to access WorkSafe's HSR Support channel by scanning a QR code. Note, however, at this stage we are not recommending WorkSafe's support service for injured workers, as we believe there a few issues to be resolved. If you are injured on the job, then contact your union as soon as possible if you have any questions or issues. You can also contact the VTHC's Union Assist for expert advice. Check out the April edition of the HSR Newsletter.
Safety Soapbox April edition
The latest edition of Safety Soapbox was sent out last week.
The edition's editorial looks in detail at the changes introduced to the regulations in November 2021 to further protect workers against crystalline silica. While some of the changes commenced immediately in November, two requirements will commence on May 15, 2022. If you work with crystalline silica, then you need to check out what should be in place in your workplace. Also check the summary of the regulations, here.
As well as this major information piece, there are items on International Workers' Memorial Day, a summary of the changes to the OHS Act to specifically cover labor hire workers, and more.
In April the construction industry reported 214 incidents to WorkSafe. Of these, 74 per cent resulted in injury. 20 per cent involved young workers. Go to this page on the WorkSafe website for the April edition of Safety Soapbox.
National News
National Fatality Statistics 2022
Safe Work Australia has not updated its statistics on fatalities since April 21, at which time it had been notified that 52 Australian workers had been killed at work this year, this is five more than at the time of its previous update on April 7.
The fatalities have been in the following sectors:
- 24 in Transport, postal & warehousing
- 12 in Agriculture, forestry & fishing
- 4 in Public administration & safety
- 3 in Construction
- 2 in Electricity, gas, water & waste services
- 4 in 'other services'
- 1 in Accommodation & food services
- 1 in Manufacturing
- 1 in Mining
These figures are based mainly on initial media reports and provide a preliminary estimate of the number of people killed while working. Once the appropriate authority has investigated the death, more accurate information becomes available from which Safe Work Australia updates details of the incident. Consequently, sometimes the numbers of deaths in each sector change. To check for updates, and for more details on fatalities since 2003, go to the Safe Work Australia Preliminary worker deaths webpage. Updated information is used to publish Safe Work Australia’s annual Work-related Traumatic Injury Fatalities database which includes finalised work-related fatalities from 2003 onwards. Note that the figures are based on preliminary reports, and so at times will change.
