Issue # 1405      1 April 2009

Lowest common denominator not the way to reform OHS

Unions are concerned that recommendations from a national review of Occupational Health and Safety Laws will reduce standards in the workplace.

Australian manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU) national secretary Dave Oliver said the recommendations dangerously undermine the basic architecture of Australian workplace health and safety system which is built on workers and their elected health and safety representatives (HSRs) participating with employers to create safer and healthier work.

“Individual workers are often afraid to raise issues of health and safety in the workplace, which is why it is so important that we have health and safety representatives and committees there to offer them the support they need when work is unsafe.”

The concerns of the AMWU include:

• removing the obligation on employers to consult with workers about health and safety matters which may affect them;
• removal of the right of workers to anonymously report health and safety concerns to their health and safety representatives/committee members;
• attempts to shift the costs of training of HSRs, from the employer to HSRs/Committee members personally;
• the ability for a worker or an employer to take a HSR to court for “acting unreasonably” or “repeatedly neglecting their function” as an elected representative;
• changes which will result in disputes rather than consultation and resolution of workplace health and safety hazards;
• stripping unions taking the legal option to initiate prosecutions against rogue employers on major breaches of the law when regulators don’t take action;
• creating barriers for union officials to help workplaces on health and safety issues.

“There is no doubt that the loss of these rights and protections will lead to increases in the number of people killed and injured at work each year,” warned Mr Oliver.

“The proposed new system would drastically undermine our current safety standards, when we ought to be aiming for the highest health and safety standards possible for workers in Australia.”

Next article — Pay cuts for low paid workers? No way!

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