In Tune with Safety

Harmonisation implies peace and cooperation, but in terms of proposed new national occupational health and safety laws, this is a word that's giving the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), the union movement's peak body, headaches. Worried that the new legislation will permanently erode workers' rights across the country, the ACTU has mounted a strong campaign to try and amend the legislation before the changes become permanent. 

At the centre of this concern lie occupational health and safety reforms started by the Howard government back in 2006. Described as the "harmonisation process", its aim was to make OH&S legislation across Australia consistent between states, rather than each having its own, as at present. By creating a single body of law, workers all around Australia would be treated equally.

All for one - and one for all

Despite its objections to parts of the proposed legislation, the ACTU says it supports the move to one set of laws.

"We believe that it shouldn't matter whether a worker is in the Northern Territory or Tasmania, or anywhere else in Australia, they should all be entitled to the same rights and protections," says Kate Dunn, an OH&S Project Officer with the ACTU. "Our concern in this process is that workers are going to lose existing rights in some of those jurisdictions."

Kate says the federal government is missing a great opportunity to create some of the best OH&S conditions in the world and, if the legislation is passed, it will never get that chance again.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to improve health and safety standards around the country," Kate says. "But, we believe that it's an opportunity to ‘harmonise up' instead of down. We think it would make the most sense to take the best bits out of all of the systems in Australia and combine them. We don't think any one system is perfect on its own, but there are features from all of them that, if put together, would create a world-class system."

Identifying key concerns

But Kate says the new laws aren't about increasing worker safety so much as reducing administrative red tape.

"It's all about reducing the regulatory burden. It's not about health and safety for workers," she says.
"The process could be used to do both but that's not what we see happening."

When you look at the figures, clearly something needs to be done about safety in Australian workplaces. According to federal government statistics, more than 135,000 Australians are seriously injured at work every year, with more than 260 people dying as a result of work-related injuries. In addition, every two to three minutes someone in Australia is injured seriously enough to lodge a workers' compensation claim. What's more, the total economic cost of work-related injuries and illnesses to the Australian economy in the 2005-2006 financial year alone is estimated at $57.5 billion.

"Employers hate union involvement in health and safety and this act will potentially make that more difficult," Kate says.
The ACTU has broken down its key concerns about the legislation, and how it fails to protect Australian workers, into five main areas.

Giving workers a say

"It's been proven that occupational health and safety systems are better and more effective if there is consultation between employers and their workers and their union," Kate says.

Workers must have the right to be consulted by their employer over all work-related matters that affect health and safety, and new laws in all states and territories must enshrine this right.

Making employers responsible

There should be an unqualified obligation on employers to provide a safe and healthy workplace and when something goes wrong, employers must prove they did not break the law.

Laws need to be toughened so that employers are legally required to find and fix problems. Employers pay only three per cent of the cost of workplace death, injury and illness and there should be tough penalties on employers who break the law.   The ACTU says laws in some states require an employer to show they have taken reasonable steps to provide a safe workplace. This is a common sense approach that should be maintained.

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