National Union of Workers

Compiled with the assistance of the ACTU OH&S Policy

Workplace Health and Safety is about preventing work-related injury and disease, and designing an environment that promotes well-being for everyone at work.

Health and Safety laws in Australia provide a framework for the resolution of Health and Safety issues in the workplace.

However, unions like the NUW, see these laws as a minimum standard to be improved upon through negotiation.

Employers have a responsibility to provide and maintain a safe and healthy working environment and to provide information to workers about the hazards they face at work.

Workers have a right to have a say and participate through their elected Health and Safety Representative.

Workers also have a responsibility to work safely and to think of other workers.

The NUW believes improvements in Occupational Health and Safety are best achieved by prevention, through the control of hazards at their source.

Where adequate control cannot be achieved in this way, it should be achieved through the successive application of controls following the “preferred order” or “hierarchy” of control, as detailed below.

The challenge for unions like the NUW is to achieve genuine Health and Safety improvements and workplace change for their members in an environment of great economic and social pressures from many employers.

1.    HUMAN AND ECONOMIC COSTS IN AUSTRALIA

The Australian Bureau of Statistics report Australian Social Trends 2002: Health-Risk Factors: Work Related Injuries noted that in September 2000, nearly 480,000 Australians had experienced at least one work-related injury or illness in the previous 12 months.

Not all of these injuries resulted in a loss of work time or workers’ compensation claims however, it is evidence of the need to make our workplaces safer.

The same report found that 64 per cent of those injured did require at least part of a day off work, while 40 per cent received workers’ compensation.

The National Occupational Health and Safety Commission’s annual report from 2004 found that there were: “16.1 claims per 1000 employees for workplace injury and disease resulting in one week or more off work in Australia in 2002–03”.

Furthermore: “14 claims per 1000 employees were for injury while 2.1 claims per 1000 employees were for disease”. And “of claims that have resulted in one week or more off work, 22% continued beyond 12 weeks, 14% past 26 weeks and 9% past 52 weeks.

Information courtesy of Work Relations Ministers’ Council Comparative Performance Monitoring, Sixth Report, November 2004

2.    IDENTIFYING THE PROBLEM

To prevent injury or illness, Health and Safety problems must first be identified.

Some possible hazards at the workplace include: cold, heat, shift-work, poor floor surfaces, poor guarding, poor maintenance, poorly designed or faulty plant and equipment, dust or chemicals.

Once the hazards have been identified, the risks to workers from being exposed to such hazards must be determined.

Once those risks have been identified then solutions should be immediately put in place to eliminate or reduce them.

As already stated, the NUW aims to prevent workplace injury and illness.  Improvements in Health and Safety must focus on removing or reducing hazards at their source - thereby seeking to prevent injury and illness arising.

The best way to make your workplace safe is to negotiate by following basic steps - The Preferred Order or Hierarchy of Hazard Control:

(a)   Eliminate

Remove the hazard by designing plant/substances/work processes without hazards

(b)   Substitute

Use a safer alternative or modification

(c)   Engineering Controls

Design out the problem

(d)   Change to Safer Work Practices

Change how or when you do the job

(e)     Organise Training

(f)    Use Personal Protective Equipment

Use the proper safety gear for the job

3.      CONSULATION & PARTICIPATION

Workers must have a say and participate to ensure that management meets its responsibility in providing a safe and healthy workplace.

Workers, through their elected Health and Safety Representatives have certain rights, powers and functions.  They must therefore be involved in decision-making about the issues which affect their health and safety.

Workers should be actively involved in developing policy, procedure and standards to meet the needs of their own workplace.

IN SUMMARY, ACTU OHS POLICY IS:

• Workers have a right to a work environment that is safe, healthy and free from stress;
  
• The employer has the responsibility to provide a safe and healthy work environment;
  
• All hazards must be eliminated or reduced at their source to prevent injury rather than making workers adapt to hazardous situations; and
  
• Workers have a right to take action to improve OH&S at their workplace