On Friday afternoon we met with Executive Director of WorkSafe and oneof their other managers and it’s fair to say we read them the riot act over years of failures from our so-called work health and safety regulator.
Most notably, WorkSafe have failed to commence an investigation after a doctor was left fighting for their life after an alleged stabbing at the NWRH, andrecently one of their workplace inspectors made a verbal attack on a workplace health safety representative (HSR) at Ambulance Tasmania.
These incidents have been the final straw after several years of growing frustration with WorkSafe’s attitude to health and community services workers’ safety.
We summonsed WorkSafe’s bosses to a meeting and took them to task overfive clear examples of the regulator failing workers and their HSRs – often clearly taking the side of bosses and, in most cases, not even talking to workers.
1. WorkSafe’s decision to remove a Provisional Improvement Notice (PIN) put in place by Ambulance Tasmania HSRs at the ramp at the RHH, despite clearly it still being unsafe for workers
2. Lack of action despite the issuing of PINs at Ashely Youth Detention Centre and the requests for WorkSafe to attend the workplace by trained HSRs
3. Lack of action across aged care where there have been clear breaches of health and safety laws through understaffing, including publicly reported issues across several Southern Cross Care sites
4. Failure to attend the site or to commence an investigation at the NWRH despite a near fatal incident
5. The abuse of an Ambulance Tasmania workplace HSR by a WorkSafe inspector
At the meeting we told them that we intend to raise these serious failures at the next meeting of Unions Tasmania and that we will be talking to union members about a potential no confidence motion if we do not see urgent change to the culture around WorkSafe’s actions.
Although we acknowledge WorkSafe’s claims about being under resourced, that doesn’t mean we can accept worker safety continually being compromised.
WorkSafe agreed that they would respond to our concerns within three weeks. It will be very interesting to see what they have to say for themselves – so keep an eye out for updates and we’ll let you know when we hear from them.
In the meantime, if you have any questions or worries about workplace health and safety, please give us a call on 1300 880 032.
