World Day for Safety and Health at Work, and International Workers Memorial Day will be commemorated on April 28.

Work-related injury and death exact a heavy toll on Australia and internationally.

ABS data said 689,500 Australians experienced a work-related injury in 2005–06.

Safe Work Australia (SWA) said 453 people died from work-related traumatic injuries in Australia during 2006–07, and 2,603 people died from work-related illness or injury in 2005–06.

The theme of this year’s World Day for Safety is ‘Emerging risks and new patterns of prevention in a changing world of work’, while the theme for International Workers Memorial Day is ‘Remember the dead – Fight for the living’.

The International Labour Organization (ILO), which organises World Day for Safety, said emerging risks included, for example, nanotechnology, biotechnology, higher workloads, work intensification, migration for work, and the informal economy.

The ILO’s latest international figures from 2003 show that each year, worldwide 337 million people are injured in accidents that result in more than four days off work, 358,000 people die in work-related accidents, and 1.95 million people die from work-related diseases.

For more details, visit ABS, SWA traumatic fatalities, SWA illness and injury and ILO

Effort should be directed toward developing a national set of tools to improve return-to-work outcomes not harmonised workers’ compensation laws, says workers’ compensation expert and occupational physician Dr Mary Wyatt.

Wyatt was one of four experts invited to address the recent Workers’ Compensation Harmonisation forum.

Wyatt said, in a statement issued after the forum, harmonising workers’ compensation laws would use a vast amount of resources that could be better spent on developing a standard set of tools to support and enable return to work.

‘Rather than advocating more tinkering with the rules, our focus should be on improving return to work performance and the health of employees within workers comp systems,’ she said.

‘This is also the best way to help workplaces reduce costs and improve productivity, and the best way to reduce the cost burden on the community.’

She said Australia had a poor track record in the health outcomes of compensation systems; employees with a compensable condition had poorer outcomes than those with the same condition but not covered by compensation.

‘The training, resources and tools available to employees, employers and people who work in the field are limited and complex cases are very hard to manage,’ she said.

‘There is an opportunity for SafeWork Australia to focus on an unresolved problem that is common to all authorities: that of returning people to health and activity as quickly as possible.’

For more details, visit Return to Work Matters

Small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) in New South Wales (NSW) are more likely to face greater internal OHS training costs and undertake more training than in other jurisdictions, according to the Productivity Commission’s (PC) final OHS benchmarking report released last week.

The Council of Australia Governments (COAG) commissioned the PC report, ‘Performance Benchmarking of Australian Business Regulation: Occupational Health and Safety’, which has been conducted during the current harmonisation process.

SMEs in NSW were more likely than those in other jurisdictions to face moderate or substantial internal OHS training costs.

The PC report suggested this might be due to more stringent training requirements in NSW.

When it comes to undertaking OHS training, in NSW a higher percentage of SMEs undertake internal and purchase external training than in other jurisdictions.

In the Northern Territory, SMEs were least likely to undertake internal training than in other jurisdictions, while in Western Australia the lowest percentage of SMEs purchased external training.

‘The lower proportion of businesses in the Northern Territory conducting internal OHS training may be related to it being the only jurisdiction to not impose a general duty on employers to conduct training,’ the report said.

For more details, visit the Productivity Commission

Forklifts in the grocery, and fruit and vegetable wholesaling industry will be the target of a national safety inspection campaign during April and May.

Forklift operation systems, load positioning and handling, maintenance systems, and operator pre-start checks will be inspected.

Manual handling, working at heights, induction, and slips, trips and falls, will also be looked at, but forklifts will be the main focus.

Speaking about Western Australia, WorkSafe WA Commissioner Nina Lyhne said in a statement: ‘On average, around 180 Western Australian workers are injured in incidents involving forklifts each year, and four WA workers have died in forklift-related incidents since 2004.

‘Forklifts – and indeed all mobile plant in workplaces – should be used with the greatest caution and only by workers who have the relevant skills and training.’

Lyhne added: ‘This campaign will allow inspectors to identify common problems with forklifts in the grocery and fruit and vegetable wholesaling industry while they provide information and – if necessary – take action where safety concerns are found.’

For more details, visit WorkSafe WA

The annual Safety in Action Conference starts next Tuesday, April 20, at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

The three-day Safety in Action conference is held by the Safety Institute of Australia with the support of WorkSafe Victoria and is sponsored by Downer EDI.

Fifty expert speakers from industry, law and academia will present papers at the conference.

Lawyer Barry Sherriff will deliver the keynote address on day one, addressing due diligence under harmonised OHS laws. During the conference, CEOs will also explain their approach to safety.

A roundtable of nine prominent OHS contributors led by international safety academic Professor Patrick Hudson will discuss ‘safety – a wicked problem’ at the conclusion of day one.

Professor Hopkins will deliver the keynote address on day two, discussing the Texas Refinery fire.

‘Contemporary matters’ is also among the topics on day two.

WorkSafe’s acting executive director, Stan Krpan, will deliver the keynote presentation on day three. He describes harmonised OHS as the ‘next big thing’. Health and wellbeing are also among the topics to be discussed on day three.

For more details, visit Safety in Action and Firefly

Fifty three per cent of Europeans still believe ‘antibiotics kill viruses’, reveals a recent European Commission (EC) survey.

The EC’s Directorate General for Health and Consumers commissioned the ‘Antimicrobial Resistance’ survey from TNS Opinion and Social.

TNS surveyed 26,761 people between November 13 and December 9, 2009.

Some 4,033 interviews were conducted before European Antibiotic Awareness Day on November 18, while 22,728 interviews were conducted after the awareness day.

In response to the survey results, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said it was a ‘worrying trend’ that over half of the people surveyed believed antibiotics were effective against viruses.

The survey also found that 20 per cent of respondents said they had taken antibiotics to treat flu, and 14 per cent said that they had taken antibiotics for a cold. Both flu and colds are caused by viruses.

However, 83 per cent of the respondents said ‘they were aware that the unnecessary use of antibiotics makes them ineffective’.

For more details, visit the European Commission and ECDC

More than 350 immediate stop work notices have been issued to construction contractors in a recent crackdown on construction safety in the UK.

Inspectors from the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) visited 2,414 contractors unannounced in March.

Inspectors issued 691 enforcement notices at 470 sites, and ordered an immediate stop work in 359 of these cases.

The HSE said one in four sites failed safety checks and most of the enforcement notices related to working at height.

‘While it is encouraging that many small construction firms have got their act together and are giving health and safety the priority it needs, the fact that our inspectors needed to take enforcement action on almost a quarter of sites, and on a similar proportion of contractors, is a matter of serious concern,’ said Philip White, HSE’s Chief Inspector for Construction.

‘There are still a small number of employers or contractors who continue to put their own and other people’s health and safety at risk. This is unacceptable. I want to make it clear to these operators that we will not hesitate to take action where standards of health and safety are endangering workers’ lives and livelihoods.’

For more details, visit the HSE

The growth in the shipbreaking industry has prompted the release of online shipbreaking guidance from the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Since the US Navy and Maritime Administration stopped exporting ships for scrapping in 1997 and 1998 respectively, shipbreaking by US companies has increased.

Shipbreaking involves the dismantling, recycling or scrapping of ships and exposes workers to asbestos, falls, electric shock and fires.

However, it should be noted that the recently released guidance, ‘Safe Work Practices in Shipbreaking’, doesn’t contain any new legal obligations nor does it cover all the regulations pertaining to shipbreaking.

Rather, the guidance ‘highlights important information through references and hyperlinks’.

‘Shipbreaking workers’ safety and health depend on their employers following the standards meant to prevent work-related hazards,’ said US OSHA Assistant Secretary David Michaels.

For more details visit, OSHA and Safe Work Practices in Shipbreaking

The 19th World Congress on Safety and Health at Work is less then two years away and will be held in Istanbul Turkey in September 2011.

Turkey’s Ministry of Labour and Social Security will co-host the congress with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Social Security Association (ISSA).

The program will cover new challenges at work and the global economy, social dialogue, OHS partnerships and innovation, and proactive, preventative and systems OHS.

Before the World Congress, later this year in Rome, the International Occupational Hygiene Association (IOHA) is holding its 8th International Congress on health, work and social responsibility.

The IOHA congress will cover the integration of environment, health and safety, and run from September 28 to October 2, 2010.

For more details, visit World Congress and IOHA

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Nominations now open to the 2010 GIO / NSCA National Safety Awards of Excellence

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Major
Sponsor

ProSafe 2010 – Advanced Process Safety Control & Systems

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24th - 25th May Melbourne

The complexity and rapid evolvement in our society puts a pressure and demand on process industries to update their safety concerns on an ongoing basis. Vigilant re-validation and assessment of your current safety system performance and compliance are crucial to help to achieve sustainable and controlled process safety regime, for long term operational and profitability enhancement.

Followed by the great success of ProSafe 2009, ProSafe 2010 aims to continue highlighting the current and future challenges faced across industries and with modern trends and methods of PSM. This conference will promote contemporary management and guidelines to proactively endorse areas such as safety control, monitoring, people management, safety and leadership and modern accident/incident investigation.

The delegates will learn “how to” approaches of integration, adaption and optimisation of business strategies where people, technology and workplace environment collide. Participants will learn from practical solutions and best practices from successful industry leaders, furthermore gain valuable knowledge through workshop interaction and networking.

For more information, please click here.

* All NSCA members are entitled to a discount of 10% when registering with Ms. Esther. Please contact Ms. Esther for details and quote EN - NSCA during registration. *

For further details & brochures, contact:
Ms. Esther Wong
Tel No: +603 2723 6736
Fax No: +612 9223 2352

Visit the NSCA team at Safety In Action 2010

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Visit the NSCA team at Safety In Action from 20-22 April at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre and find out more about our extensive range of OHS&E resources, management systems, consulting and safety training available.

Ask us how our new labour hire service, OHS Outsource can help your business.

To find out more call 1800 655 510 or email natsafe@nsca.org.au

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