I have a lot of books about workplace safety.  Many of them are referenced frequently, several have changed my thoughts.  However if I was asked which book has had the most impact on my values and understanding of occupational health and safety (OHS), my response would be of a book I read before I even knew OHS existed.  That book is The Story of Ferdinand, and this is why.

Ferdinand is a bull who wants to sit under a cork tree and smell the flowers.  The world intervenes on this idyll and Ferdinand, with the help of a bee sting on the bum, is taken to the bullring.  Things do not work out and Ferdinand eventually returns to his tree.

This story has been interpreted as a political, anti-fascist book and has been banned but it has been enormously popular. (I received the 75th anniversary edition hardcover in a slipcase for a recent birthday.)

As OHS has expanded to included social and psychological issues and hazards, The Story of Ferdinand, can be viewed in terms of workplace bullying, pardon the pun, amongst others.

Ferdinand is expected to perform in a stereotypical bullish fashion in the bullring, the workplace.  He is not the right fit for that workplace or the job expectations of the Matador, picadores, banderilleros or the audience.  The workplace is designed to manage the performance of the bulls by sticking ribboned pins and spears into the bull in order to have the bulls work/perform in specific ways.  Ferdinand refuses to participate and change his character to conform and is returned to his field after the bullring/workplace has suffered reputational damage.

Underpinning this is a concise illustration of gender and what it means to be male.  Ferdinand knows from his youth that the regular masculine activities are not for him.  In this he has the important support of his mother.  Ferdinand’s pain from being stung by a bee is misinterpreted as ferocity and rage and he is taken to the bullring.

That workplace is built around a blood sport and the purpose of the workers we see is to enrage the bull and, ultimately, to kill the bull for the pleasure of the audience.  Testosterone is a constant cultural cloud in this world where Ferdinand lives.

The business and the workers have preconceived perceptions of bullfighting with which Ferdinand does not fit.

“They called him Ferdinand the Fierce and all the Banderilleros were afraid of him and the Picadores were afraid of him and the Matador was scared stiff.”

But

“[Ferdinand] wouldn’t fight and be fierce no matter what they did.  He just sat and smelled. And the Banderilleros were mad and the Picadores were madder and the Matador was so mad he cried because he couldn’t show off with his cape and sword.”

Such a workplace climate would test the strongest person but many of us work, or have worked, in places that have such pressures, values and expectations.  In the modern interpretation of OHS, such organisational values and workplace pressures can harm the mental health of the worker and therefore need changing and controlling.

Ferdinand survives this ordeal because he stays true to himself.  The story structure gives Ferdinand an easy path through these problems compared to what people can face in their workplaces.  Ferdinand experiences all of this without any apparent psychological harm and this is not likely to be the case with most people.

It may also be possible to think about The Story of Ferdinand in terms of work/balance.

The simplicity of the storytelling in this book is exactly why it can be open to many different interpretations.  Publishers would speak of this as maximising the readership spread.  The simplicity speaks to everyone in different ways but hooks every reader in some way whether it be the prettiness of the ladies in the audience, the bravado of the Matador, the mother’s understanding, or Ferdinand’s strong sense of self, or something else.

As I walk round workplaces, interview experts and talk with workers, I see bits of The Story of Ferdinand in the people I meet, the experiences of work and the expectations of managers and executives.  Clearly the book penetrated my various consciousness effectively at an early age, as children’s books and stories are meant to.  I am glad it did and will resist the temptation to think about The Story about Ping as about worker exploitation.

Kevin Jones

The European Union conducts research into occupational health and safety that, although there may be cultural and legislative differences, deserves attention from outside that geographical region.  Recently EuroFound released its annual review for 2014.  There are a couple of research projects that deserve consideration, particularly return-on-investment in construction safety, violence at work, psychosocial issues and precarious work risks.

A French study into risk prevention in the construction sector set out to assess the link between prevention and performance and found that

“….pro-active measures, far from hampering competitiveness, can in fact lead to an increase in economic performance.” (page 73)

The report lists  the following statistics

• risk prevention generates performance benefits: for every €1 invested, the return averaged €2.19;
• for non-profitable actions, two-thirds of the costs of investment are covered;
• companies with fewer than 20 workers have a return 3.11 times greater than the investment;
• a quarter of the safety measures cost less than €5,000 and had an efficiency 10 times higher than the average measure;
• payback averages 1.5 years (1.2 for small businesses).

One of the consistent attractions of EU OHS publications is that they usually include links to the original research.

The report also discusses the initiatives employed by various EU members on violence at work and psychosocial issues.  By showing the various cultural perspectives on the issue the report illustrates both the complexity of the issue but also the list of factors that need to be considered when developing policy measures.  The Belgian legislative initiative on psychosocial hazards was seen as too “formalistic” (page 75). An increase in workplace violence in Croatia was

“being attributed to the long-term situation of unpaid wages.” (page 76)

And the trend of increased violence against health care workers and emergency responders was occurring in Europe as it is elsewhere in the Western world.

There is a general understanding that the rate of workplace fatalities is decreasing almost everywhere and this can be comforting but there are many more occupational injuries and illnesses than fatalities.  Fatalities are very serious events but they are harder to contest. It is useful to note that Sweden is experiencing an increase in occupational injuries.

“The Swedish Work Environment Authority’s report noted a trend of increasing occupational injuries for the fourth year in a row, rising by 3% from the previous year. Stress-related injuries have increased by 50% over the past four years.” (page 79)

The situation in Europe over precarious work is much more significant than that in Australia but Australia is starting to give this sector some scrutiny and the EU report’s findings on the issue are worth noting.

“The link between poor health and work precariousness is illustrated by Benach and Muntaner (2007), who suggest that temporary workers are often exposed to work that involves a lot of noise; it is repetitive, strenuous and tiring and they rarely take personal leave. According to the authors, there is evidence that non-permanent workers have less information about their work environment and they are more likely to experience bad health. Seifert et al (2007) also link precarious work with poor mental health as an effect of weakening interpersonal relations and the lack of ability to take pride in one’s work.” (page 81)

This article has only dipped into the EU Report but it is rich with information about working conditions and OHS. It provides a reflection on one’s own country’s performance and policies but also indicates what may be developing hazards and risk for one’s own industry or region.

Kevin Jones

A United States report draws a parallel between increasingly difficult economic situations and an increase in workplace bullying.   This video report is lightweight but is a recent airing of the issue with a different approach.

The angle taken in the story is that of a “pink elephant” that women are just as likely to bully their workmates as men are.  Some of the speakers in the video try to relate female bullying to issues of female empowerment but bullying is more often a reflection of personal nastiness than a social movement.

Bullying received increased focus when workplace culture emerged but rather than a gender issue, our increasing intolerance for bullying is coming from a broader cultural movement than just through the workplace.

The video report originated through research undertaken by the Workplace Bullying Institute, an organisation that has existed for sometime and has very recently upgraded its website.

Kevin Jones

There seems to be new institutes and academic schools popping up regularly over research into the issue of work/life balance.  Recently one of the oldest and most prominent of the institutes, the Centre for Work + Life at the University of South Australia, released new research data.

The latest Australian Work and Life Index (AWALI) was released in late July 2009.  The executive summary identifies several important issues relevant to OHS:

“Three years of data about work-life interference in Australia tell us that many employees experience frequent interference from work in their personal, home and community lives, many feel overloaded at work and feelings of time pressure are also common and growing.”

“Work hours are central to work-life interference….. Many Australians are a long way from their preferred working hours and the 2008/09 economic downturn has not made any difference to the incidence of this mismatch.”

The work by Barbara Pocock and others at the Centre is characterised by recommendations for improvements rather than simply describing a situation.  In this data the researchers say

“Our AWALI reports over the past three years suggest that employers and public policy makers can help workers deal with work-life pressures.  This involves improving the quality of supervision and workplace culture, controlling workloads, designing ‘do-able’ jobs, reducing long working hours and work-related commuting, increasing employee-centered flexibility and options for permanent part-time work, improving the fit between actual and preferred hours and increasing care supports.”

It is obvious from these comments that OHS professionals need to work hard on these matters to create, or maintain, their workplace safety cultures.

Kevin Jones

Several years ago I attended a safety seminar hosted by Seacare.  Maritime safety is not part of my “brief” but safety is, and I was seeking alternate perspectives on my specialist area.  Seacare conducted a session where the treatment and management of an injured worker was work-shopped from incident to return-to-work.

It was the first time I had seen a panel of experts deal with the life of a worker across the injury management continuum.  The session showed the necessity to communicate across several disciplines and to always keep the focus on the injured worker.  I had never seen a better example of risk management in relation to an  employee’s welfare.

If only the real world was as organised.

Work/life balance in Australia is skewed towards those workers who have young families or a role as a carer.  This is due to work/life balance evolving from the feminist and social concepts of the 1970s and in response to the increased number of women in paid employment.  Barbara Pocock sees these matters in the 1970s as themselves a reaction to the “male-dominated employing class” that, in one exampled, believed that 3 month’s long-service leave was more important than maternity leave. (p212, The Work/Life Collision)

Work/Life Balance Origin

(Wikipedia has a peculiar article on work/life balance that has some interesting points and reference links but then undoes its good work by relying on a couple of major sources and many of them are commercial consultants.  That the Australian work in this area is not referenced, indicates a major deficiency.  Please note that the concept of balancing work life and non-work life existed well before “work/life balance” was first used.  SafetyAtWorkBlog would point the concept’s origin to around the same time as Australia’s introduction of the eight hour day in the mid-1800s or even earlier with Robert Owen in the UK calling for a 10-hour day.)

In the 2000s the emphasis remains not on work/life balance but work/family.  As a result, work/life balance will remain an issue handled in the management silo of human resources and being seen as relevant to a lifestage of an individual rather than the individual themselves.  There is also an inherent gender bias that could be minimised if the silo was removed.

The Seacare workshop illustrated for me that an injured worker is managed by different silos throughout their rehabilitation.  Wherever possible the employer outsources this management to experts in OHS, trauma counselling, medicine, physiotherapy, return-to-work coordinators, and other specialists.  The common element through all of these silos is the individual and that person’s health.

OHS & Work/Life Conflict

Occupational health and safety has a big advantage over work/life balance in that it focuses on the individual first.  Employers must provide for the health and safety of the worker and, by and large, employers get the safety obligation right.  This part of the process has long-established practices based principally on engineering solutions – stopping things falling on a worker, stopping the worker falling into machinery, stopping the inhalation of toxic dust – effectively “blue collar” solutions to “blue collar” hazards.

The mental health of the worker was not a big concern.  This is partly because in most of Australia, legislation only ever related to health and safety, and rarely to welfare.  Where welfare was a legislated consideration for the management of workers, the social context of the worker was acknowledged myuch earlier and work/life issues began to grow.

The regrettable element of this evolution was that “health” remained a narrow workplace definition instead of embracing the “welfare” or mental health of the worker.  If health had been supported by a definition that included welfare in all Australian States’ OHS legislation, the mental health needs of workers and the social contexts of worker management would have been discussed much earlier and in parallel.

Work/Life Balance Awards – A Missed Opportunity

An example of the divergence and the need, in my opinion, to reintegrate work/life balance and occupational health comes from some correspondence I have had with the organisers of the National Work/Life Balance Awards in the Australian Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR).  Until very recently, these awards were called the National Work and Family Awards.

DEEWR includes in its structure Safe Work Australia, the organisation responsible for monitoring OHS across the country.  It seemed odd to me, from the big holistic picture, that DEEWR has not included Safe Work Australia in the judging panel for the 2009 Work/Life Balance Awards.  DEEWR advised me that it believes the OHS experience of two of the judging panel, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, was sufficient.  Perhaps but why not draw on the OHS expertise of one’s own staff as well?

It also seemed odd that one organisation would conduct two national awards programs – the National Work/Life Balance Awards and the Safe Work Australia Awards.  DEEWR advised me that

“The [National Work/Life Balance Awards] recognise organisations that are outstanding in achieving positive outcomes through the implementation and communication of work-life balance policies, practices and initiatives which meet the needs of both the employer and its employees. The Safe Work Australia Awards focus on OHS more broadly and recognise businesses and individuals for their outstanding efforts in OHS and for making safety a high priority in their workplace.”

If the Safe Work Australia Awards focus on “OHS more broadly” why not have one set of awards that acknowledges both the work and social contexts of employees?  This is harder to answer when

“Applicants for awards must consent to an assessment to determine whether they have complied with the Fair Work Act 2009, the Workplace Relations Act 1996 and any relevant state or territory legislation, award or other industrial instruments” [my emphasis]

This would surely include the OHS legislation of each State and the Commonwealth.

DEEWR does not involve any of the state OHS regulators in the awards process.  The judging panel does not analyse the workers’ compensation premium awards rates of award contenders.  State regulators could surely provide a useful perspective as it is mostly under their jurisdictions that businesses are prosecuted for OHS breaches.  Worker’s compensation premiums are used by all regulators as a major (sometime the only) indicator of safety performance and for targeting of enforcement programs.  The judges of the National Work/Life Balance Awards do not.

OHS professionals and return-to-work coordinators acknowledge that the non-work life and mental health of workers are important elements in regaining a fully-functional employee.

DEEWR made the decision to rebrand the awards to Work/Life instead of “work and family”.  This does not reflect the complex interrelations of the social and individual contexts of the health and safety of individual workers.

DEEWR is coordinating the reforms of laws into both OHS and workers compensation.  The Australian Government is working on legislative harmonisation across all legislative jurisdictions in workplace health and safety.  These OHS laws are likely to extend employer obligations well beyond workers to the public and those potentially affected by work practices..

However DEEWR is missing a major opportunity to set the agenda for the future by acknowledging that the impacts on an individual of the work life and the home life should be managed across the social and employment disciplines.

Kevin Jones

The images included in this posting show some of the many terrific books dealing with, or mentioning, work/life management.

It is very easy to forget that workplace health and safety is a global issue.  The pressures of work and the daily OHS issues can constrict our perspective for so long that we are surprised when we are reminded that people work everywhere and are therefore in danger in some way.

An article (citation below) from the  Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health released online on 12 November 2009 is just one of those reminders that we need every so often.  The article is called “The global and European work environment – numbers, trends, and strategies” and says

“We have estimated that globally there are 2.3 million deaths annually for reasons attributed to work.”

For the statistics junkies, the article goes on to report that 1.95 million of the annual deaths are due to illness and

“The average rate of disability and absence from work can be some 25% of the workforce in Europe.”

“The biggest causes of work-related illness in Europe are musculoskeletal diseases and psychosocial disorders (mental health)….”

“Work-related stress….affect(ed) an estimated 22% of EU workers in 2005…”

By looking at a variety of statistical records, the authors conclude that

“In the present political situation and serious economic downturn, legal measures need to be supplemented with economic justification and convincing arguments to reduce corner-cutting and avoid long-term disabilities, premature retirement, and corporate closures due to a poor work environment.”

The relationship between fatalities and other outcomes of work injuries and illnesses

The researchers advocate an integrated approach to managing safety in a workplace and list a “toolbox” of suggested areas.  Many of these are already in place in many management systems.

This sort of global data is not going to change the management or operational practices in individual workplaces.  That change will mostly come in response to site-specific events or initiatives.  Governments need to know these statistics and trends so that they may plan strategic programs or structure their legislation but it is equally important for citizens and OHS professionals to be aware of this data for it is the citizens who hold governments accountable.

Kevin Jones

Takala J, Urrutia M, Hämäläinen P, Saarela KL. The global and European work environment – numbers, trends, and strategies. SJWEH Suppl. 2009;(7):15–23.

A weekly radio program broadcast on Australian community radio station 3CR, Stick Together, broadcast a lecture by Barbara Pocock on the meaning of work.

Barbara Pocock is a leading workplace researcher and remains the voice on work/life balance.  She is always worth reading and listening to.  It is impossible to management workplace safety without continuing to learn what work is and how people look at work.  A podcast of the Stick Together program is available for download.

Pocock says that many of the perspectives on work are negative and is therefore approached as a chore.  She talks about how laborious jobs have declined in relation to technology and client demand and discusses

• “efficacy, identity, contribution, vocation
• social connection
• opportunity to learn
• positive spillover from work”

Kevin Jones

Some of the best OHS writing comes from the personal.  In a couple of days time a new book will go on sale that illustrates big issues from a niche context and brings to the research a degree of truth from the personal experiences of the author.

Pia Markkanen has written “Shoes, glues and homework – dangerous world in the global footwear industry” which packs in a range of issues into one book.  The best summary of the book comes from the Preface written by the series editors.

“Pia Markkanen’s extraordinary first hand investigation of the dangers of home work in the shoe industry in the Philippines and Indonesia is an important contribution to our understanding of work, health and the global economy. She also carefully documents the intersection of gender relations and hierarchy with the social relations of “globalised” economic development and reveal as the important implications for the health of women, men and children as toxic work enters the home.”

As one reads this book, local equivalents keep popping into the reader’s head.  For instance, Markkanen’s discussion of the home as workplace raises the definition of a “workplace” that is currently being worked through in Australia.  She briefly discusses the definition in her chapter “Informal Sector, Informal Economy” where she refers to an ILO Home Work Convention, and usefully distinguishes between the homeworker and the self-employed, a distinction that Australian OHS professionals and regulators should note.

Markkanen does not impose a Western perspective on her observations and acknowledges that regardless of the global economic issues and social paradigms, “shoemakers felt pride for their work”.  This pride goes some way to explaining why workers will tolerate hazards that others in other countries would not.  In many OHS books this element is often overlooked by OHS professionals and writers who are puzzled about workers tolerating exposure and who look to economic reasons predominantly.

In South East Asia, limited knowledge can be gleaned from literature reviews as the research data is sparse.  Markkanen interviewed participants first hand and, as mentioned earlier, this provides truth and reality.  She describes the shoe makers’ workshops in Indonesia:

“Shoe workshops are filled with hazardous exposures to glues, primers, and cleaning agents, unguarded tools, and dust.  Work positions are often awkward, cuts and burns are common, as are respiratory disorders.  Asthma and breathing difficulties are widespread when primers were in use.  Workers were reluctant to visit doctors because of the expense.”

She then reports on the interviews with Mr. Salet, a shoe manufacturer, Ms. Dessy, the business manager, Mr Iman, the business owner, Mr Ari, a skilled shoemaker, and many others.

Markkanen also illustrates the shame that the minority world and chemical manufacturers should feel about the outsourcing of lethal hazards to our fellows.  In the chapter, “Shoemaking and its hazards”, she writes:

“Shoe manufacturing will remain a hazardous occupation as long as organic solvents are applied in the production.  It is notable that in 1912, the Massachusetts Health Inspection report declared that naphtha cement, then in use for footwear manufacturing, was considered hazardous work.  The 1912 report also referred to a law which required the exclusion of minors from occupations hazardous to health – the naphtha cement use was considered such hazardous work unless a mechanical means of ventilation was provided and the cement containers were covered…. minors were prohibited from using the cement.  Almost a century later, hazardous footwear chemicals are still applied – even by children – in the global footwear industry.”

There is little attention given to the OHS requirements of majority world governments by OHS professionals in the West, partly because the outsourcing of manufacturing to those regions has led to the reporting of OHS infringements and human rights issues more than information about the legislative structures.

Markkanen provides a great section where she describes the OHS inspectorate resources of the Indonesian Government and the fact that Indonesian OHS law requires an occupational safety and health management system.  Granted this requirement is only for high-risk industries or business with more than 100 employees but there are many other countries that have nothing like this.  Markkanen quotes Article 87 of the Manpower Act 2003:

“Every enterprise is under an obligation to apply an occupational safety and health management system that shall be integrated into the enterprise’s management system.”

It is acknowledged that this section of legislation is hardly followed by business due to attitude and the lack of enforcement resources but we should note that safety management is not ignored by majority world governments.

Lastly, Markkanen provides a chapter on the gender issues associated with the shoemaking industry.  She makes a strong case for the further research into the area but it is a shame that to achieve improvements in women’s health the reality is  that

“women’s health needs female organizers and female women trade union leaders who understand women’s concerns”.

Some male OHS professionals may be trying to be “enlightened” but this seems to not be enough to work successfully in some Asian cultures.

Overall this book provides insight by looking at a small business activity that illustrates big issues.  The book is a slim volume of around 100 pages and it never becomes a difficult read because it is concise and has a personal presence that other “academic” books eschew.  As with many Baywood Books, the bibliographies are important sources of further reading.

At times it was necessary to put the book aside to digest the significance of some of the information.  Occasionally the reality depicted was confronting.  Baywood Books could do well by encouraging more writers to contribute to it Work, Health & Environment Series.

Kevin Jones

[SafetyAtWorkBlog received a review copy of this book at no charge.  We also noted that, according to the Baywood Books website, the book is available for another couple of weeks at a reduced price.]

On 19 January 2010 EuroFound began the fieldwork necessary for the next in its series of surveys of working conditions in Europe.  According to the media release:

“Eurofound launches the fieldwork for the fifth European Working Conditions Survey, involving face-to-face interviews of workers in 34 European countries. This critical and timely research tracks the current state of working conditions in Europe, highlights the quality of work and employment, and monitors changing trends. The first findings of the survey will be presented at the end of 2010.”

The beginning of fieldwork is far less interesting than the end of the fieldwork but the announcement does remind us of the statistics that the organisation has been able to amass since 1991.

There are distinct lessons for other countries and regions such as the United States and  Australia where individual states have OHS responsibilities.  In Europe it is possible to compare one country’s OHS progress with another but the European union seems to have new members every year and each country has distinct industrial and regulatory characteristics.

The US and Australia are much more stable in this context and the data would be invaluable for policy development.

The best example of showing the raw data comes from Eurofound’s survey mapping tool that it applies to its 2005 data.  (The working hours question can be found HERE) The tool pictorially displays the data related to each country’s response to the survey questions.  It is neat and interesting although researchers would prefer the downloadable spreadsheet data that provides greater detail by splitting the response into gender and age groups.  It is, effectively, a workplace census.

Such a survey is bound to be expensive but it would be worth it in terms of developing OHS and industrial relations strategies but also to indicate whether regulatory changes or enforcement campaigns work.

Kevin Jones

“A new evidence review* suggests that giving employees more flexibility over their work schedules is likely to boost their health as judged by measures like blood pressure and stress. But interventions that are motivated or dictated by the needs of the employer, such as cutting hours, either have no effect on employee health or make it worse.

“Control at work is good for health,” said review co-author Clare Bambra, a researcher at Durham University, in England. “Given the absence of ill health effects associated with employee-controlled flexibility and the evidence of some positive improvements in some health outcomes,” Bambra said, more flexibility in work schedules “has the potential to promote healthier workplaces and improve work practices.”

The above quote indicates that new evidence may help all of us in assessing the benefits or otherwise of allowing employees to telework, or of readjusting work practices to improve health and safety at work.

BUT

an article issued in support of the research clearly identifies the risks of drawing almost any firm conclusions from the evidence other than that more research is required:

“…the researchers added that the small number of the studies and their limitations should make observers cautious about the review’s conclusions.”

The report also looked at the potential health impacts of overtime.  The report itself states:

“This review examined the health and wellbeing effects of flexible working arrangements which favour the worker as well as those dictated by the employer (for example, fixed-term contracts or mandatory overtime).”

Several paragraphs later the report says

“…the study on overtime failed to provide detailed information on either the amount or duration of overtime worked, so it is therefore difficult to draw any conclusions regarding the effects of overtime on workers’ health and wellbeing.”

I am a big supporter of any research that provides information that can improve how workplace health and safety is managed but sometimes research reports, and I am not referring to the report quoted above specifically, seem to be issued to test the waters of public opinion through the media, as the research findings do not provide much of practical help.

Some seem to be trialling a new research strategy or a new research approach in a new area of study.  Clearly, I am not an academic so this may be a standing practice to progress a claim for additional research funding but from an OHS professional perspective I am more often than not disappointed at receiving research reports that show such potential and rarely live up to it.

OHS Research Imperatives

It is worth having a look at the authors’ actual conclusions:

“The findings of this review tentatively suggest that flexible working interventions that increase worker control and choice (such as self-scheduling or gradual/partial retirement) are likely to have a positive effect on health outcomes.  In contrast, interventions that were motivated or dictated by organisational interests, such as fixed-term contract and involuntary part-time employment, found equivocal or negative health effects. Given the partial and methodologically limited evidence base these findings should be interpreted with caution. Moreover, there is a clear need for well-designed intervention studies to delineate the impact of flexible working conditions on health, wellbeing and health inequalities.” (equivocations emphasised)

It is only fair to acknowledge that research needs to start somewhere but I wonder whether studies and reports like this are what are being used to support workplace health initiatives, like Victoria’s  WorkHealth, a program that I have been largely critical of in the past.  The Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is keen on “evidence-based decision-making” and it is reasonable to apply this as a benchmark for any public or workplace health initiative.

One concern about WorkHealth is that it is turning out to be a self-justifying program.  The Victorian WorkCover Authority punted an estimated $A600 million of workers’ compensation scheme interest on an idea, some say folly.  Whether the OHS benefits of the scheme are being independently assessed is unclear but according to one media report on 11 February 2010 a similar scheme is planned to be introduced on a national level but, curiously, as a men’s health program.  The media report says that a revised women’s health policy is due for release sometime in 2010 (the country has had a women’s health policy since the lat 1980s).

It looks like there remains a lack of clear integration or delineation on these programs and policies.  Is WorkHealth a public health program located in workplaces or a OHS program with public health benefits?  Does this matter?  It may be possibly to continue with a ill-defined health program at a State level but such a scheme on a National basis introduces an entirely fresh level of accountability.

As with any investigation and research it is essential to reach for the facts and ultimately, the truth.  Research for research’s sake seems to occur frequently but research into workplace safety must have a practical application.  That practicality must be stated at the outset of the project and must be used as a benchmark throughout the research project, otherwise research becomes nothing more than a career path for elitist OHS academics.

Kevin Jones

*Joyce K, et al. Flexible working conditions and their effects on employee health and wellbeing. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2010, Issue 2

“Certain occupational exposures appear to increase the risk of developing postmenopausal breast cancer”, is a conclusion reached by Canadian researchers and released in April 2010 edition of the Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine.

The researchers acknowledged that “some findings might be due to chance or to undetected bias some findings might be due to chance or to undetected bias”, but there is enough evidence to generate concern in occupational sectors and, often, the media shows increased interest in breast cancer research.

Several Australian scientists have advised caution on interpreting the research findings.   Professor Bernard Stewart, Scientific Advisor to Cancer Council Australia, is well aware of the media interest in breast cancer risks,  has said

“This study contributes to, but does not settle, the issue of whether occupational exposure to solvents causes breast cancer.  For example, we know particular workplace exposures have been proven to cause lung, skin and bladder cancer, however any such causation of breast cancer remains in question.  Such investigations are can also be limited by the relatively low range of risk.

While smoking increases lung cancer risk by more than 20-fold, this study suggests breast cancer risk ranges from zero up to a two-fold increase following solvent exposure.  The findings should prompt action, but not anxiety. Implications that breast cancer risk may be greater following early-life exposure warrant follow-up research.

As things stand, there is no clear evidence that reducing solvent exposure can prevent breast cancer.  However, for a range of other health reasons, employers should aim to minimise solvent inhalation in the workplace.”

Professor Chris Winder of the University of New South Wales is more critical of the research

“Malignant breast cancer is unfortunately a common cancer in women, and the range of possible risk factors is large, including occupation.   This new study is useful because it suggests some workplace risk factors, such as exposure to some plastics and polyaromatic hydrocarbons as being associated with breast cancer.   But these results need careful evaluation, as the research methods are imprecise and exposure assessment inexact.  More work is needed to confirm these findings.”

Professor Stewart’s comments reinforce the need for workplaces to  undertake detailed risk assessments if hazardous substances are a required element of the work processes.  Studies that illustrate new consequences for substances that we already know are harmful confirm the need for an appropriate safety management system and illustrate the wisdom of eliminating hazardous substances.

Kevin Jones

A scientific symposium held in Canada in April 2010 has raised some serious concerns about the health impacts of shift work.  Some of the evidence has existed for a while but collecting it all together makes one wonder how companies can justify shift work in the face of such high risks to workers’ health.

From the evidence presented at the symposium, workers will be tired at work when working shift work and are more likely to be injured than those on day shift.  Some workers have an increased risk of breast cancer.  Foetal growth in some pregnant women may be impeded.  Circadian disruption may encourage the growth of tumours and an international agency is convinced sufficiently of the risks to determine that shift work itself is probably carcinogenic.

The Occupational Cancer Research Centre and the Institute for Work & Health should be applauded for making the evidence presented at the symposium publicly accessible.  Below are the key risk findings from the symposium:

• “Shift work can result in sleep disruption and sleep deprivation, and in sleepiness/fatigue at work.
• Night shift work has been associated with an increase in breast cancer in women who work rotating shifts for longer durations (i.e. 30-plus years).
• Evidence from animal studies supports the link between circadian disruption (in the form of suppressed melatonin production) and the growth of tumours.
• In 2007, based on limited evidence from human studies and sufficient evidence from animal experiments, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified “shift work that involves circadian disruption” (i.e. night shift work) as a probable human carcinogen (Group 2A).
• There is strong evidence that night, evening, rotating and irregular shifts are associated with an elevated risk of workplace injuries.
• There is evidence that shift work has a moderate negative effect on fetal growth in pregnant women.”

Abstracts and PowerPoints for each of the symposium presentations are available and they deserve to be read, kept and considered closely. For instance, one research study on injuries states:

“Estimates of the population attributable fraction indicate that 6-7% of workplace injuries can be attributed to the higher risk of injury associated with shift work schedules. On the basis of this estimate, an excess of 13,000 compensated injuries (lost-time and no lost-time) to men and 20,000 compensated injuries to women in Ontario can be annually attributed to the higher risk of injury associated with shift work schedules.”

Below are the findings that do not relate directly to shift work health risks:

“Shift work is common. About one-quarter of the workforce in North America and Europe is engaged in shift work requiring working at night. In Canada, 11 per cent of workers work rotating shifts, six per cent work regular evening shifts and two per cent work regular night shifts.

A number of biological mechanisms to explain the association between light at night and cancer risk are being explored.  The key ones are the suppression of the normal night-time production of melatonin and the disruption of the circadian gene function.

There is not enough high quality evidence to reach firm conclusions on the influence of shift work on heart disease.”

Given the number of risks, the list of possible control measures is thin.  This may be due to research into problems rather than controls but it just may be that we are reaching a point where the risks of working night shift outweigh the benefits of production.  Could shift work become the classic example where safety is really sacrificed to the benefit of profit?

Kevin Jones

The May 2010 edition of the  Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine includes an important report about the increase of heart disease risk in young women.  There is often a lot of reports into the cardiovascular health of men so this report is very useful.

The basic findings of the report are:

“Nurses who indicated that their work pressures were a little too high were 25% more likely to have ischaemic heart disease as those who said their work pressures were manageable and appropriate.

But those who felt work pressures were much too high were almost 50% more likely to have ischaemic heart disease. After taking account of risk factors for heart disease, such as smoking and lifestyle, the risk fell to 35%, but still remained significant.”

It should be said that the report was from a Danish study of nurses and although the media statement says this relates to the heart risks of young women, the age range of the study sample was 45 to 60.  The study quizzed the nurses about work pressure and personal issues in 1993, at the beginning of the study, and their health was followed through medical records for the next 15 years.

The report itself states:

“In this study we find that work pressure that is too high is a significant risk factor for IHD [ischaemic heart disease] in younger female employees (<51 years of age).  The results should be taken into account in the planning of primary prevention.”

Many readers may be pleased to be described as “young” through to 51 but, if any of the mainstream media cover these findings, the shorthand reference to “young” rather than “younger” may confuse the relevance of the findings.

The study reference is “Psychosocial work environment and risk of ischaemic heart disease in women: the Danish Nurse Cohort Study” Occup Environ Med 2010; 67: 318-22.

Kevin Jones

In July 2010, Melbourne Australia is hosting the 2010 conference of the International Congress of Applied Psychology.  What was an OHS consultant at this conference?  The question should be why wasn’t OHS consultants at this conference?

This conference is not about workplace safety, per se.  It is about how people think and communicate.  It provides research (some would say evidence), often about how people relate to each other at work.  The exciting content of this ICAP Conference makes the Safety In Action Conference look like a history lesson.

The conference has made the full program and the speaker abstracts online, for free.  Both are big PDF files but are excellent resources for those OHS professionals looking for the latest research into bullying, driver safety, health & wellbeing, organisational behaviour, leadership, fatigue, stress and other issues.

The safety-related speakers include topics like this random sample:

• Reappraising the transactional model of driver stress and fatigue
• Driver behaviour theory: ninety years of psychological space in traffic
• Emotional intelligence: From research to application
• Psychological responses to disasters: An empirically informed approach to helping the survivors of trauma effectively and safely, in the field and in the clinic
• Fatigue and performance effects: What do we know and what do we need to know?
• How organizations create stress and respond to the consequences of stress
• Development of a psychological risk assessment tool to aid compliance with health and safety legislation: The People at Work Project
• The role of health and well-being in safety performance

The accompanying trade show was populated by a lot of academic bookshops but the conference discounts were bargains.  Of the three books purchased, the most fascinating is “Insidious Workplace Behaviour” by Jerald Greenberg.  In providing the definition of IWB as the book calls it, the author lists five characteristics:

• Intentionally harmful
• Legal
• Low-level severity
• Repetitive
• Individually and organisationally targeted

IWB is “subtle and stealthy behavior that cumulatively chips away at a worker’s dignity” (p.4)  This concept deserves enormous attention and may provide a new approach to the early signs, the clues to a toxic workplace.

A fascinating conference feature was the Brief Oral Presentations where speakers have a set 12 minute period to present research findings and answer audience questions.  In Melbourne this occurred in a large room of around 6 booths that fitted around 20 people each.  It is a type of “speed-researching” where one can go from concept to concept and allows the conference to offer hundreds of different speakers and, more importantly, different perspectives and evidence.  It was like dipping into the heads of thinkers from around the world.  It also put Australian safety conferences to shame.

Over ten years ago at an international HIV conference in Melbourne, students stood in front of posters tacked to furry partition walls.  Now those posters were PowerPoint available for viewing on a bank of PCs.  Less personal perhaps but worth a try.

The ICAP Conference runs for almost an entire week and is a terrific resource for OHS consultants, professionals and researchers.

Kevin Jones

Disclaimer: Kevin Jones was provided with a media pass to this conference

This week two new OHS books came across my desk unbidden.  Both are very good but have very different contexts and both were published by Baywood Publishing Company Inc.

“Who Is Nursing Them? It is Us.” “Neoliberalism, HIV/AIDS, and the Occupational Health and Safety of South African Public Sector Nurses” by Jennifer R Zelnick

Northern Exposure – A Canadian Perspective on Occupational Health and Environment by David Bennett

South Africa is an exotic foreign land to me.  I am aware of the basic political issues of the country for the last 30 years but, in terms of OHS, I know there have been some major mining incidents and that HIV/AIDS is a major occupational and social challenge.  Zelnick’s book illustrates clearly the difficulty of tackling a workplace risk that is also a hot, contentious public health and political issue.

The analysis of the impact of neo-liberal policies is less directly relevant to hazard management of HIV/Aids risks to nurses from needlestick injuries.  For any health sector workers outside of South Africa, the level of resources and the attitudes to needlesticks is confronting.  Any stigma relating to HIV/AIDs in non-African countries is doubly problematic in South Africa.  Interviews with hospital managers and nurses show a lack of confidentiality and

“Health care providers are scared to discuss  HIV/AIDS because they are scared that they cannot handle the emotions and all the complications….” (page 120)

Gender issues in health care is a crucial element in this book, a perspective that was new to this (male) reviewer.  These issues are complicated by the social and political context of South Africa.  For instance, and again on page 120, public health practitioners are directly acknowledging

“the intractable difficulties in changing sexual behaviour and traditional relationships…” and

“If true, the acknowledgement that all African women are living in fear of being infected, in the context of occupational exposure and reporting requirements, means that most nurses have a legitimate fear of reporting injuries and agreeing to VCT [Voluntary Counselling and Testing]”.

Several chapters in this book include a Chapter Summary and Chapter Conclusion which are very useful as there is so much information and discussion that, occasionally, one must be reminded of the major chapter points.

What was also quite powerful and a feature that would be good in other books is a chapter of excerpts from first-person interviews.  Too often academic titles summarize interview responses into comparative percentages and, although this indicates significant statistics, it also dulls the voices.  In the chapter “Nurses Speak” Zelnick writes

“Overall, nurses’ views corroborated managers’ descriptions of how denial, stigma, women’s position, and government failures led to problems with implementing OHS measures.” (page 146)

Much of the content of this book contrasts remarkably with the OHS issues faced in other countries.  Manual handling risks pale when reading about the lot of nurses in South Africa.

Canadian Perspectives

Bennett’s book is more comfortable to this reviewer as the ideological/Commonwealth environment is more familiar as there is greater overlap with general safety management.  However, this book includes a balanced approach to environment as well as OHS, a combination rarely include in the one book but it works.  There is a similar level of activism and regulatory response to these two areas of law and that overlap, that convergence, is reflected in the increase of integrated HSE professionals.

Bennett devotes one chapter to “Occupational Health: A Discipline Out of Focus”.  In that chapter he writes  about us living in a “scientific culture” which reflects some of the push for evidence-based decision-making.  On page 52 he writes:

“There ought to be a clear distinction between the facts or the objective truths of science on one hand and, on the other, the prescriptions, policies, and strategies which are, in some way, related to them ….

But, I contend, this is not so, since de facto, the science which is appealed to, embodies both moral values and the strategies which will be used in the approach to industrial disease.  These prescriptive issues ought to be for (democratic) policy-makers to decide.  If I am correct, the strategies have, in effect, already been decided before the policy process takes place-to the detriment of truly effective policies to promote and protect workers’ health.”

As with the previous book, there is a new approach to content where Bennett revisits several important books or articles about cancer – “Cancer-Gate: How to Win the Losing Cancer War” and “The Politics of Cancer Revisited” both by Samuel S Epstein and “The Secret History of the War on Cancer” by Devra Davis.  The enjoyment of these short sections is that they are not just book reviews.  Bennett looks at the reception the Davis book received and also places these texts in more familiar literary territory by collecting them with other books that

“…include a focus on the part played by work and workers, both as those on the receiving end of current policies and as instruments of change.”

– books such as Natural Capitalism, Disaster Capitalism and Fast Food Nation.

Bennett takes a similar approach with Sustainability – “Materials Matter – Towards a Sustainable Materials Policy” By Kenneth Geiser, “Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution” by Hawken, Lovins and Lovins.

The chapter that had most “punch” was when Bennett critiqued the role of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).  It provided a fresh approach to the potential “substitute for tangible national regulations” that is presented by a raft of international  standards including a health and safety management standard.  On page 159, Bennett writes:

“The chief danger for labor, however, is that an ISO Health and Safety Management Standard would come to be used as an empty surrogate for the health and safety regimes which have been built up over a century of carnage and campaigning and which were implemented in detail from roughly the early 1970s onwards.  Health and safety as merely a management function would cut workers out of the action completely and produce workplace conditions and procedures entirely alien to the regimes of the last quarter century.”

Bennett concludes the last chapter by speaking positively of the role of the ILO Guidelines on Safety and Health Management Systems but only after having considered the advantages and disadvantages of various national health and safety management systems, including Britain’s and Australia’s.  Bennett’s is a refreshing and thought-provoking perspective.

Both the above books, provided by Baywood for review, will appeal to safety professionals and policy makers but the Canadian safety and environment book clearly has a broader appeal but Zelnick’s book on South Africa is almost required reading for those who work in the health care sector and are active in OHS.

Kevin Jones

One of the first OHS trade exhibitions for 2011 in Australia starts today.  Exhibitions like Safety In Action are the best opportunities for many health and safety professionals, representatives and students to update their product knowledge.  It is usually here where one finds out about non-steel capped safety footwear, new fall harnesses or the latest interlock devices.  But do these innovative products needs to be promoted by scantily clad women as in the picture on the right?

This has been a constant annoyance at trade exhibitions for some time and, in fact, some exhibitions in Australia in 2010 received complaints about this type of promotional strategy.  Scantily clad women do attract the attention of potential clients, particularly in male-dominated industries, but there is considerable debate about whether the strategy promotes the product or the breasts.

The picture above was on a large brochure for portable safety showers supplied by Spill Station Australia as a magazine insert in April 2011.  I checked these showers out at a Safety In Action trade show several years ago and the structure and portability are great features.  But:

• What does this say about the safety shower?
• What does it say about the company’s understanding of their clients?
• Were all their male clients bottle fed?
• Does this company have no female customers?

The image got my attention but has discouraged me from contacting the company about their product.

The safety profession, generally, needs to be more sensitive to how their profession is promoted.  In Australia, the profession is trying to encourage more women to join.  The heavy industries of construction, petroleum, mining and others, the trade associations are all encouraging women to seriously consider a career in those sectors.  Depicting safety equipment in a sexist, soft-porn fashion throws the safety industry and profession back decades.

Over the next three days in Melbourne, the Safety In Action trade show will be promoting safety products and services to over 10,000 visitors.  Spill Station Australia is listed as an exhibitor at this trade show and it will be interesting to see if this type of strategy is echoed in their stand display.  If Spill Station does not, it is likely that one of the other exhibitors will.

Kevin Jones

In early April 2011 SafetyAtWorkBlog questioned the appropriateness of an advertising image of a semi-clad woman in an emergency shower.  The emergency shower company, Spill Station Australia, has changed the major image of its shower ads in the most recent brochure being distributed with some Australian OHS magazines.

Kevin Jones

The Building Safety conference this weekend had one or two underwhelming speakers but these were overshadowed by some brilliant presentations, and by brilliant, I mean challenging. I had no indication of what was to come from the presentation by Dr Dean Laplonge on gender. His presentation has caused me to begin to reassess my own (male) perceptions and those of the safety profession.

The title of this article is a Monty Python reference where a professor from England joins the Philosophy Faculty of the University of Woolloomooloo. He is inducted into the faculty by being told the rules and he even has his name changed to Bruce. This sketch is a good example of humour through hyperbole but over the decades this sketch has become more disturbing as, amongst others, it shows a gender perspective of the early 1970s that, in some industries, still echoes.

I was reminded of this sketch as Laplonge talked about his experience with gender issues in the oil & gas, mining and construction industries in Australia and Canada but I could have easily considered the Lumberjack Song.

Dean Laplonge was critical of gender being misunderstood in male-dominated industries like construction. It has been misunderstood as an issue of simply increasing the number of women in a workplace. Yet, it could be argued, that more sustainable cultural change may come from a new perspective on gender being accepted and applied by the dominant gender demographic – men.

His presentation needs time to seep into our assumptions and attitudes and demands reflection. He stated that one cannot talk about OHS in a male-dominated workplace without including gender, yet in the construction industry incidents are investigated without even considering gender as a possible contributory factor. Laplonge identified the following traits in male-dominated industries:

• strength
• dominance
• control
• independence.

These may be admirable traits but to show these elements male workers often take excessive risks and perform unsafe acts. Safety is often seen as a threat as it contradicts this risk taking.

We have often thought of these workplace attitudes as a cultural element when what we really mean is it is a gender trait, but we do not have the words, or readily understand, the necessary concepts.

Laplonge mentioned several case studies in his presentation, several that are available as case studies on the Factive website. The following case studies are highly recommended. I am embarrassed to admit that I see elements of my own work and attitudes in them.

• Women are not men tamers.
• Communicating Safety Rules.
• Men Behaving Badly.
• The De-Masculinisation of Safety Observations.

It has been a long time since gender was widely discussed across society and this had usually come from a feminist perspective originating in the 1970s and 1980s. I read a seminal sociological text in my university days, Gender At Work, but had not considered applying some of those findings into the safety context. I will be revisiting it.

Laplonge’s presentation was an eye-opener to the presence of gender in many of the attitudes and approaches we apply to safety management. SafetyAtWorkBlog articles have touched on gender issues in the past, particularly in relation to workplace bullying, but I hadn’t realised the significance of the gender theme. I don’t believe that gender issues are a major element of workplace safety but they certainly exist and need to be acknowledged in our forward planning and investigations. I look forward to the journey

The second session of the SIA National Convention is flatter than the the first, not because it is not interesting but because it is providing us with the social context for occupational health and safety (OHS) rather than challenging the OHS profession.

Bernard Salt is a very high profile demographer whose job is almost entirely about providing social context to whatever we do. He mentioned OHS specifically only four times and then primarily to do with driving trucks but the age data Salt presented shows the need for improvement in the health and wellbeing of the workforce so that quality of life can extend in line with the extended period of our lives.

Peter Gahan (pictured right, speaking)of the Centre of Workplace Leadership is a regular speaker at the Safety Institute of Australia’s conferences. His outline reflects the theme of this conference by disrupting our sense of security and career.

The challenge comes from how we respond to this unease. If we curl up on the couch to binge watch a show, the career is over. We need to look for the opportunities that the disruption offers but this may require us to reassess, if not throw out, the foundations of our profession or the dreams on which we chose our career.

Richard Coleman is well known in the Australian OHS profession through his prominent safety career. His attraction as a conference speaker was on display because he was able to adjust his presentation to accommodate the examples and context that previous speakers addressed. Coleman focused on the digital disruption, particularly as it affects blue collar occupations. He believes that some of these jobs will go within the next five years.

Coleman’s focus on digital disruption provided a great summary of the OHS application of augmented reality and wearable technology. The latter has the best opportunity for safety improvement, particularly in the area of manual handling. Sensor technology can provide better levels of information and in real time that allows immediate interventions at times of great risk.

What these speakers and the panel are all about is to think creatively and think big. Fantasise about your job and the tasks you do now and whether they will exist in ten years and how you can change them now to prepare for the future. If your job leads to a dead-end, change the job. It seems easier to do this now, than ever before

Kevin Jones

The Safety Institute’s National Convention was given a youthful injection this morning by the presentation of Dr Jason Fox (pictured below, with beard). He challenged our thinking and our occupational health and safety (OHS) future, even though the sound quality was not as good as it could be leading to some of his words being missed.

One of the most visible changes in this conference is the presence of women on the speaker panels.  Each of these panels has illustrated and reinforced the need to change from the usually safety conference speakers, who are experts and important to listen to, away from the male-based (but changing) stereotype of the safety profession to which many speakers have referred. The SIA is trying to provide gender diversity but it, like so many other organisations, is not there yet in its transition from old to new and from past to future.

Panel member Jen Jackson (pictured) was not included as a speaker but she showed enough thoughtful contribution and personality that a presentation on safety communication would have been useful. She complemented the speakers and panel well and her response to her exposure to the safety profession would have generated a fresh external perspective.

I have written before that I think some speakers, experts and academics should be read rather than heard. Dr Fox is a vibrant speaker but twenty minutes, as Drew Rae has pointed out in a comments sections of this blog, does not allow nuance, discussion or debate. I have read some of Dr Fox’s GameChanger book and that media format allows for reflection and thought but try to see Dr Fox present on change first. He is a terrific multimedia knowledge package..

I can’t blog about the content of the second conference session as I need to listen back to it so as not to simply reiterate the talking points and audio grabs. But this session was lively and benefited from the mix of expertise from Andrew Hopkins, Jason Fox, Peter Baines, Siobhan Flores-Walsh and Jen Jackson.

Kevin Jones