Health and safety
Introduction
Occupational health and safety (OH&S) is an important legal issue in employment. There are important rights and obligations bestowed upon employers and employees in the workplace. These are designed to promote healthy, safe and productive workplaces and to minimise costly accidents at work. Billions of dollars are lost in our economy each year as a result of work-related deaths, injuries and diseases. When we have safer workplaces, we can reduce these risks and this lost productivity.
Occupational health and safety is very important
Workplaces can be dangerous places with many risks. Even a chair in an office can be unsafe for sitting on and the workplace kitchen has many risks, such as hot water urns for making coffee. So you don't have to be in the army or working in a mine to be exposed to unsafe risks. Risk management is an important field related to OH&S; we 'manage', minimise and remove workplace risks to make our workplaces safer and healthier. See animation 1
In Australia, we have a complex system of laws governing our OH&S. At the national level, we have the Commonwealth Occupational Health and Safety Act 1991 (Cth), which is currently being amended to improve compliance. There are also regulations, codes of practice, national OH&S standards and industry standards (made especially for the risks in certain job types). The Occupational Health and Safety Act 2000 (NSW) ('the Act') outlines OH&S requirements for NSW workplaces. There is similar OH&S legislation in other Australian States and Territories). All employees and employers must fulfil their rights and obligations under the Act and employers in particular must meet a 'duty of care' in relation to workplace safety. See image 1
How do we create 'safe and healthy' workplaces?
Under OH&S best practice, it is everyone's (employees and employers) responsibility to ensure workplace safety. In general, employers are ensuring that they implement their own OH&S policies to avoid fines and legal liability. Most workplaces are required to form OH&S committees, which meet regularly to monitor workplace health and safety. Such committees usually nominate a fire warden, for example. OH&S committees are made up of employees and employers, so they ensure that both groups are actively managing workplace risks and safety. Most Australian workplaces complete 'accident/incident' reports to provide legal documentation of workplace accidents and injuries (this also covers employers for insurance and provides a means to remove the source of or reason for the risk). See image 2
Generally, employers must manage OH&S and workplace risks by: training workers in safe working procedures, ensuring safe operation of machinery and equipment ('plant'), providing information to workers about workplace risks (hazards), training workers in OH&S, ensuring thorough supervision of workers and providing ways for workers to report their safety concerns. Employees must contribute to workplace health and safety by: following health and safety training manuals and guidelines; reporting workplace risks, incidents/accidents and unsafe aspects to management; never doing tasks or activities which will jeopardise their safety or the safety of others, and using machinery and equipment properly. See image 3
