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Issue No. 143 | 05 July 2002 |
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Bad Bosses
Interview: Media Magnet Bad Boss: Abbott's Heroes Technology: All in the Family International: New Labour's Cracks Economics: Virtuality Check History: Necessary Utopias Poetry: Let Me Bring Love Review: How Not To Get It Together Satire: NZ, UK Added to Australia�s Migration Zone
The Soapbox The Locker Room Bosswatch Week in Review
 Lessons from Air DisasterBuggering the BushThe Great GiveawayDown and OutWhy I hate Telstra
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History Necessary Utopias
The Robens Committee was appointed in 1970 in the UK to "review the provisions made for the safety and health of persons in the course of their employment...and to consider whether any changes are needed in: (1) the scope or nature of the major relevant enactments, or (2) the nature and extent of voluntary action concerned with these matters, and to consider whether any further steps are required to safeguard members of the public from hazards, other than general environmental pollution, arising in connection with activities in industrial and commercial premises and construction sites". The committee acknowledged the huge complexity of the task it was given. The timing of the report was also important. Throughout the western world what conservatives later came to see as an "excess of democracy" was causing governments and business to look nervously upon the social activism of unions, environment, feminist and anti-racist groups. Legislators had to find ways to appease activists and also to keep business happy. A crisis of legitimation, as Habermas would have said. The Committee concluded that a more self-regulating system was needed. Less of the detailed regulation, which had developed over the previous 50 years was seen as the way to go. Joint self-regulation by employers and employees was recommended. Voluntary standards and codes of practice should be used to promote safety. A national authority for the UK was another recommendation. Statutory inspection to assist and advise in workplaces was another recommendation that we all are now familiar with. Robens was concerned at the rising level of death and injury, and in the US a major report at around the same time was also pointing at this issue. According to Biggins the Flixborough disaster in the UK and the Farmington mining disaster in the US at this time focused attention on the issue as never before. Workers in Australia responded by setting up the first workers health centres. Women's health centres also began to be established then. These revealed that demand for more information was rising from particular groups. The old models were to be swept away. One of the major subjects that heightened activity on this was asbestos. The first agreements between employers and unions in Australia were struck in 1982-83. These took into account the main approaches recommended by Robens. That is a preventative approach, dissemination of information and education, and a consultative approach with worker participation and OHS representatives and committees. The first full time OHS union officials in Australia were appointed in 1979 and the ACTU and the Victorian Trades Hall Council established a joint OHS Unit in 1981. The ground breaking manual by John Mathews was published in 1985 (updated in 1993). The Accord between the ACTU and the ALP included a commitment to non-wage benefits, including OHS. This menat funding for training of union officials, disseminating information and establishment of OHS officers in state labour councils. The ACTU adopted a firmly preventative policy in 1979. it was based on the principle that: Improvements in workers' health and safety can predominantly be achieved by collective action to improve conditions, rather than by personal changes in lifestyle; hence health and safety is a legitimate trade union issue. Improvements in workers' health and safety should be won through reducing hazards at source, and modifying the workplace to fit the needs of people, rather than modifying people's behaviour, or adapting them to fit the demands of a hazardous workplace. This firmly pushes union involvement in the design of all jobs, a big demand on unions and their members, and a big change in the mindset of employers and workers. Corporate minds were drawn to the issue by the increasing costs of workers' compensation. Government also were pushed into trying to reduce costs and increase efficiency. Another crucial move for the unions was the linking of OHS procedures with the 1970s push for industrial democracy. The first Australian state to move on OHS laws was South Australia, and it was also the state to introduce more industrial democracy. Don Dunstan, premier at the time pointed to the fact that worker participation had lifted profits, saved jobs, cut absenteeism and reduced industrial accidents. Biggins also points out that the Robens report and the introduction of legislation based on it was undertaken at a time that government was trying to achieve wage restraint. The Accord were framed under similar circumstances and the federal OHS laws based on the earlier British model. Gunningham considers that the Australian laws were poor cousins to the British laws. They did not put enough obligations on employers. They did not require written policies by employers and there was not enough in the laws to ensure enforcement. These are problems that hark back to initial attempts to have any workplace safety rules in the early 1800s. This is part of Gunningham's whole critique of the Robens approach. He argues that consultation, more effective self-regulation and voluntary measures do not form the foundation of an effective safety strategy. He says there is a need for more vigorous enforcement sanctions capable of deterring recalcitrant employers from breaking the law, and a broader role (incorporating enforceable rights) for worker representatives. Mathews broadly concurred with this in his manual for unionists. Enforcement is the crucial issue. He says that the factory inspectorate was a great social innovation in 19th century England (showing that we still haven't changed all that much as if this issue is fully addressed then we would have less problems for workers) and these have never been well funded. In the US authorities from the 1970s frequently used criminal charges, but with the winding back of protection for US workers since the Reagan era have made it even harder for workers there. In 1991 the Victorian Minister for Labour announced that he was considering plans to lay criminal charges, including manslaughter, against negligent company executives. Kennett arrived soon after so that stopped. Now we see the Bracks government being unable to get such legislation through in 2001. I could have written a similar article in 1902 as today!! Mathews mentions that Brent Fisse, then from Sydney University, envisaged court- imposed requirements on companies convicted of breaches to come up with approved technical solutions within a time limit, and proof of their implementation; or requirements that companies place full-page advertisements in newspapers setting out the specifics of their offence and the steps they have taken to remedy the problem; or being forced to create new parcels of shares which are to be allocated at company expense to community organizations who can use them to intervene in the company's management and its annual general meetings. Utopians such as myself would see that only a shift of the power to control production to the men and women at the workplace would produce a fundamental improvement in health and safety. The law could do a great deal more, without reaching the utopian ideal. The joint approaches of regulation and enforcement of statutory regulation, and worker participation on an equal legal footing with employers on developing better and safer ways of working do substantially improve OHS, and unions have to continue to struggle to get and maintain these standards, with the ideal of worker control being the ultimate goal. See: D. Biggins (1993) The Social Context of Legislative reform part 2: Twentieth Century Australian reforms. (The Journal of Occupational health and Safety in Australia and New Zealand. Vol. 9; no. 3, June. John Mathews. (1993) Health and Safety at Work: a trade union safety representative's handbook. (Leichhardt, NSW: Pluto Press) Lord Robens. (1972) Safety and Health at Work: report of the Committee 1970-72. (London: HMSO) Neil Gunningham (1984). Safeguarding the Worker: Job hazards and the role of the law. (North Ryde, NSW: Law Book Co)
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