Reactivate OHS: The Time Is Now

Strong unionised workplaces are the only way to ensure occupational health and safety is properly reactivated, according to ACIRRT Senior Researcher Kathryn Heiler.

Speaking at the ACTU's Reactivate Health and Safety at Work seminar held in Sydney on 13 and 14 May, Heiler said that with a Labor government in every state it was time to win back some of the conditions that had been lost over the years.

And unions were "the only way we can do it," she said.

"We have more rights under OHS legislation than we do under industrial legislation and there is no replacement for what happens at the workplace level."

But she said many unions were missing out on the opportunity to organise around OHS issues because of poor communication between industrial and OHS officers.

Some industrial officials "shy away from" communicating health and safety issues with OHS officials while OHS officials could also avoid looking at industrial instruments, she said.

Heiler said this was sometimes due to officials not wanting to overstep their mark or feel out of their depth dealing with issues they did not have extensive experience in.

But there was "no point having all these fabulous rights in legislation if no one is using them", she said.

Heiler said it was time to "realign industrial relations and OHS conceptually and industrially" and to use opportunities provided by enterprise bargaining.

This included acknowledging issues such as inadequate staffing as OHS issues, refusing to be intimidated by "technical language experts and pseudo scientists", and working hard to reject the alienation of OHS reps, Heiler said.

To find out more about the ACTU's Reactivate OHS campaign, please click here.

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Last modified: Tuesday, 15-Nov-2005 20:37:37 EST