On Wednesday, 25 October the Victorian Trades Hall Council hosted its the eighth annual OHS Representatives Seminar. Over 1700 people attended the seminar, marking a new record turnout what is the world’s largest gathering of OHS Representatives. OHS Reps came from as far afield as Mildura and from all industries and occupations.
The theme of this years’ conference – ‘Promoting OHS Standards – Let’s Band Together’ – summarised the union movement’s approach to health and safety and the Howard government’s extreme workplace laws.
In opening the event, Brian Boyd, Victorian Trades Hall Council Secretary, made the point that unions promote a standard of health and safety that is proactive in preventing injury and disease. ‘Our OHS standards also pursue the rights of workers to a safe and healthy work environment and the rights of OHS Reps,’ he said.. The threat of the Howard government to these rights was the theme of Brian’s further comments and of each of the speakers at the Seminar.
Minister John Lenders informed representatives that in light of impact of the federal government’s workplace laws, the ALP had determined at its the May 2006 ALP State Conference in May 2006 to provide further protection from discrimination as a result of raising an OHS issue.
The keynote speakers were Professor Kaj Frick from the Institute of Working Life, Sweden, talking about essential components of good worker participation (see related documents, below) and Professor Michael Quinlan from the University of New South Wales outlining the negative effects of the federal government’s workplace laws.
More information on Professor Quinlan's address, including presentation and articles.
Also addressing the OHS reps were John Merritt, WorkSafe's Executive Director and Oonagh Barron. Mr Merritt gave reps an overview of where WorkSafe believed OHS was at in Victoria - some of the improvements and where more attention would be paid. He responded to a number of questions from the floor and gave an absolute undertaking that one of the most important things that WorkSafe does is to support reps in the workplace. Ms Barron, who is WorkSafe's "Preventing Bullying at Work" senior project officer, reported on how the organisation was dealing with the issue of bullying.
The reps got a brief insight into some of the problems faced by workers and unionists in the Philippines when Mr Elmer Labog, secretary of the Philippine peak union body KMU and guest of the AMWU National Office, delivered a message of solidarity from IOHSAD (Institute of Occupational Health and Safety Development).
Mr Labog told the gathered reps 'Occupational health and safety is the core program of IOHSAD and the knowledge that more and more workers and labor activists, especially health and safety officers, are getting together to map out actions on OHS definitely brings good news.To gather more than 1500 health and safety officers from all over Australia and to bring to fore important issues of health and safety for the working people is a daunting task but it only proves that unionists and labor activists down under places a premium on protecting the rights of workers.
He went on, 'The realities of health and safety in the workplace in the Philippines are bleak. The drive to minimize cost on the part of employers, basic safety standards, such as personal protective equipment (PPE) are not made available for workers, exposing them to clear and present dangers. In one factory wherein employees work with lead all the time, the management ignored providing its workforce the appropriate PPE. If it wasn’t for the drive and persistence of the union and the workers themselves, the employers were more than willing to turn a blind eye on the issues of PPE.'
The full text of the solidarity message is attached below.