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Media articles (including Hansard)
South Australian Parliament. Hansard House of assembly
WORKCOVER
Question:The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Leader of the Opposition):
Will the Minister for Industrial Relations advise the house whether the WorkCover Board has received any advice that WorkCover's unfunded liability is at risk of blowing out to $1 billion if changes to the WorkCover scheme are not made? WorkCover's unfunded liability has already reached $694 million. The annual report states that, if there is no improvement in the non-redemption or return to work rate, another $300 million could be added to the unfunded liability. This would make the unfunded liability $1 billion.
Answer:The Hon. M.J. WRIGHT (Minister for Industrial Relations): That is already in the public domain. I think that, when I returned from sick leave, I made a ministerial statement. Also, of course, the annual report in which reference is made to that particular item has been tabled.
The Hon. I.F. EVANS: Will the Minister for Industrial Relations advise the house whether the WorkCover Board has received any advice confirming that, without changes to the legislation, WorkCover's unfunded liability is at risk of blowing out to $1 billion? The statement from the Chair of WorkCover in the most recent annual report states:
There is a limit to how much impact reform of the WorkCover business, as opposed to the WorkCover system, can have on the financial sustainability of the scheme.
The annual report raises the risk of another $300 million being added to the unfunded liability.
The Hon. M.J. WRIGHT: I am not too sure where the Leader of the Opposition has been, but last year I made a ministerial statement, I tabled the annual report and, to the best of my recollection—
Members interjecting:
The SPEAKER: Order! I cannot hear what the minister is saying.
The Hon. M.J. WRIGHT: I made a ministerial statement when I returned from sick leave. I would need to check that statement but, to the best of my recollection, I made the point that I was engaged in discussions with WorkCover about potential changes, and I tabled the annual report.
Members interjecting:
The SPEAKER: Order!
The Hon. I.F. EVANS: My question is to the Minister for Industrial Relations. Has the government received any advice that, if it does not change the WorkCover scheme or the legislation, WorkCover's unfunded liability is at risk of reaching $1 billion? In the annual report, Chairman Bruce Carter states:
The question remains whether administrative and management changes alone will be enough to turn the scheme around.
The government has an observer on the WorkCover Board who reports back to the government.
The Hon. M.J. WRIGHT: I do not know how many times the leader wants to ask the same question, but he has asked the same question on three occasions. As I have said previously, when I returned from sick leave I made a ministerial statement and I tabled the annual report.
Members interjecting:
The Hon. M.J. WRIGHT: It is all in the annual report for you to read.
The Hon. I.F. EVANS: Is the Minister for Industrial Relations concerned that, if WorkCover's average discontinuing rate for claims older than three years remains at the same level experienced over the past five years, WorkCover's unfunded liability is at risk of blowing out to $1 billion? Notes to and forming part of the annual report state that, if projected improvements in those areas do not occur, WorkCover's unfunded liability could increase by $300 million, taking the total unfunded liability to $1 billion.
The Hon. M.J. WRIGHT: I would need to go back and check it but, to the best of my recollection, I made a full ministerial statement about our concerns in regard to WorkCover. If it was not in the ministerial statement, it would have been in answers to a range of questions I think asked by the shadow minister, in which I stated that we are concerned about the level of unfunded liability and concerned about the average levy rate. Make no mistake—
Members interjecting:
The SPEAKER: Order!
The Hon. M.J. WRIGHT: Everyone, including the Leader of the Opposition, knows that the return-to-work rate has plummeted since as far back as 1995. That is as clear as day. What we need to do is get more people back to work, and that is what we are actively engaged in doing. Some of the reference that the leader has made is in the annual report, and I tabled that report before Christmas. I would need to check the report, but I think there is also reference to the fact that, at this stage, because they have not been around very long, they have not been able to factor into their numbers the introduction of EML. As I have said previously, the change to the regulations and the introduction of EML is a fundamental change to claims management that will improve return to work. Are there other ways? Probably there are, and we are looking for them.
The Hon. I.F. EVANS: The Minister for Industrial Relations has been responsible for WorkCover for five years. Can he explain to the house why WorkCover has the worst return-to-work rate in the nation? The Chair of the WorkCover Board stated in the last annual report that increased return to work remains fundamental for improving the social and economic outcomes of the scheme and that, to achieve that, it may be necessary to effect legislative change to ensure that essential levers exist to meet the objectives of the act.
The Hon. M.J. WRIGHT: Yes, I can answer that question. In part, I have alluded to it in my previous answer. If you look at the return-to-work figures, the return to work plummeted as far back as 1995. The reason why we have the worst return-to-work rates is that we have long-term claims that we did not get back to work. Why did we not get people back to work? There is a range of reasons but, fundamentally, we had regulations in place that did not provide the claims managers with the correct incentives to get people back to work. What has this government done about it? It has changed the regulations in the parliament so that we now have the correct incentives and penalties in place for whoever the claims management agent is.
What has the board done? It has chosen EML to manage the claims management, and we will see the benefits of those results. This problem dates back to long-term claims that were in the system as far back as 1995, where we have not been doing well at getting people back to work.
Question: Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop): My question is also to the Minister for Industrial Relations. Minister, you have been responsible for WorkCover for more than five years. Will you explain to the house why during that time WorkCover's unfunded liability has blown out from $67 million to $694 million?
The SPEAKER: I remind the member for MacKillop to address his remarks through the chair.
The Hon. M.J. WRIGHT: It is because the actuaries have caught up with the bad business of the previous Liberal government.
Mr WILLIAMS: Having been responsible for WorkCover for more than five years, will the Minister for Industrial Relations explain why WorkCover is now the worst performing scheme in the nation? In January this year, WorkCover CEO Julia Davison was quoted in The Advertiser as saying that the South Australian scheme is `the nation's worst performing despite an overhaul of management and procedures during the past two years'.
An honourable member: Shame!
The Hon. M.J. WRIGHT: I do not know about shame. I do not know why the shadow minister does not go back to my ministerial statement where I talk about the level of the unfunded liability and the average levy rate. It is five years today, but we have to go back to 1995. That will show that the return to work plummeted from 1995. As a result of return to work plummeting, we were not getting people back to work and we had long-term claims in the system. I have already talked about the change in the regulations to provide incentives and penalties to the claims management agent. That should have been done by the previous Liberal government.
Mr WILLIAMS: My question is to the Premier. Has the Economic Development Board expressed concern that WorkCover's unfunded liability is at risk of reaching $1 billion; and, if so, has the Economic Development Board suggested any changes to the scheme?
Answer: The Hon. M.D. RANN (Premier): I am delighted to be able to make a major announcement today in relation to the Economic Development Board; and then I will deal with the issue. It is extraordinarily prescient for the honourable member to ask this question. I am delighted to tell the house about the appointment of three new high calibre members to the state's Economic Development Board. The EDB is the government's key adviser on economic policy and development and I am pleased that in the future we will have the very best advice from members with experience at the highest levels of information, biotechnology and finance industries. The Economic Development Board represents a unique partnership between government and business for the future prosperity of South Australia that has already proved its worth. Telstra BigPond Group Managing Director Justin Milne, TGR BioSciences Chief Executive Dr Leanna Read—
Mr WILLIAMS: I rise on a point of order, Mr Speaker. Whilst this information is very important—and I am sure the Premier will have the opportunity to make a ministerial statement after question time—the question is whether the Economic Development Board has expressed concern about the unfunded liability of WorkCover.
The SPEAKER: The Premier will get to that.
The Hon. M.D. RANN: Of course, but obviously members want to hear the context and the calibre of the people. Mr Kevin Osborn is a financial specialist. They have all agreed to join the South Australian Economic Development Board. The appointment of Justin Milne and Leanna Read will bring considerable expertise to the EDB in the knowledge-based industries of bioscience and information communications technology. Dr Read is a highly regarded South Australian scientist, one of the pioneers of the state's biotechnology industry. Her experience in managing the transition of TGR's technology from the research laboratory to a successful commercial enterprise is particularly valuable.
Justin Milne is responsible for successfully driving the growth of BigPond's internet service provider business, BigPond's brand and Telstra's internet content. Mr Milne, who is a prominent South Australian, graduated from Flinders University and now lives in Sydney. In addition, the appointment of Kevin Osborn to the board will bring a wealth of financial sector experience. Mr Osborn has played a significant role, both locally and internationally, in the finance sector having served as Regional Chief Executive for Australia, New Zealand and Singapore for Bank One. He is now a non-executive director of Adelaide Bank and ABB Grain. His strong commercial acumen and financial management skills will be a great asset to the EDB. Justin Milne and Leanna Read, particularly, will help the board in South Australia to focus on the knowledge-intensive industries of the future, and help us achieve key targets in South Australia's Strategic Plan.
South Australia's economic development future depends on innovation in both the emerging technology sectors and new approaches to our traditional industries. Innovation is central to the update of the strategic plan released in January. Similarly, Mr Osborn's appointment will help us attain those targets related to venture capital, business investment and infrastructure, to mention just a few. I am pleased that three such dynamic business people are keen to join the EDB, and look forward to working with the board in coming years. Like the existing EDB members, the new members will play a hands-on role in promoting our state's key economic interests. On the issues of WorkCover, I will report back to this house sine die.
WORKCOVER
Speech: Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop): Today we saw the Minister for Industrial Relations and the Premier fail to take the opportunity to convince the house that WorkCover is not in even more serious danger than we had previously thought. A number of members on the government front bench tried to indicate that, because the report was handed down in December last year, the opposition should have been all over this some months ago. The reality is that parliament has sat for only two weeks since then. We all know that the minister received the report at least two months before he tabled it, at least two months before he released it. He sat on it for months and months waiting for the parliament to close down for the Christmas break. So, I think it is a bit churlish of the government to suggest that the Liberal opposition should have been over this is a bit earlier.
The reality is that the report discusses the very serious risk that the WorkCover unfunded liability as at 30 June last year was, in fact, $1 billion and not the $694 million that the minister reported in his ministerial statement to the house last December. I will read from the report for the benefit of the house, because I am sure that the minister will never inform the house of this information. I will read from the WorkCover annual report on page 78. We are talking about the `Notes to and forming part of the financial statements to 30 June 2006' and the unfunded liability. The report states:
The valuation of the outstanding claims liability is strongly dependent on the assumptions adopted in relation to the duration of claims and in particular long-term claims. In each of the Scheme's valuations since 2003, the Scheme's actuary has adopted a view in relation to these key assumptions that the discontinuance rates for long-term claims would be better in the future than those that the Scheme had experienced over the short-term as a result of initiatives being developed by WorkCover to reduce the number and cost of long-term claims with a reduced emphasis on redemptions.
I tell the house that that hope and wish have just not occurred. When I question the minister in the house, he tells us time and again that he is trying to get away from redemptions. What he is doing is keeping people on long-term claims into the future and driving up the unfunded liability of WorkCover. In fact, he is challenging the very viability of WorkCover into the future. The report further states that, if there is no improvement in the non-redemption discontinuance or return to work, the actual unfunded liability figure would be between $250 million and $300 million worse than the $694 million unfunded liability we have already heard about from the minister in his ministerial statement.
The minister says that we will get on top of return to work and get more workers back into the workforce. The 2005‑06 Australian & New Zealand Return to Work Monitor, which was prepared for the heads of workers compensation authorities and handed down in July 2006, is the experience up to 30 June 2006. Amongst other things, it states:
South Australia stood out as having the highest proportion of injured workers still receiving workers' compensation payments and well above the Australian national average.
This is the problem with WorkCover: the return-to-work rate is abysmal; and the minister is ignoring it and doing nothing about it. In fact, he put on a new claims manager and, when it took over all the claims on 1 July this year, it was forbidden to offer redemptions to injured workers. The report also states that South Australia has the lowest return-to-work and durable return-to-work rates, at 78 per cent and 67 per cent respectively, compared with the national average of 87 per cent and 80 per cent. The minister suggests that this problem occurred way back in 1995. At that time, the unfunded liability was about $276 million, if my memory serves me well, and by 2000‑01 it was down to $22 million.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member was given some latitude but took an extra breath. The member's time has expired. |
Posted by Reader at 2:05 PM, 8/3/2007 |
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Untitled Comment
Zinifex says lead production won't be affected by burns accident
Thursday, 08 March, 2007
Content provided to you by AAP.
MELBOURNE, March 8 AAP - Zinifex Ltd says lead production will not be affected at its smelting plant at Port Pirie, north-west of Adelaide, after a worker suffered serious burns.
"As it stands no, lead production isn't affected down there," a Zinifex spokesman said.
The spokesman said that at the moment the company was still investigating what occurred.
"As it stands, production is not affected, but there's a nunmber of preliminary investigations and hopefully with the result of those we'll have a much better indication," he said.
"There's been a discharge of molten material and unfortuantely one of our people has been in the path of that molten material."
At 1348 AEDT Zinifex's shares were down 41 cents or 2.45 per cent at $16.30.
A man suffered burns to as much as 60 per cent of his body in what has been described as an explosion.
The South Australian Ambulance Service said the man was initially admitted to Port Pirie Hospital but was later airlifted to the Royal Adelaide Hospital for treatment in the burns unit.
His condition was considered serious but his injuries were not believed to be life threatening. A second worker was treated at the scene for minor injuries
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Posted by Anonymous at 2:44 PM, 8/3/2007 |
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Untitled Comment
OWS wins $33K penalty from Brochure Flow
Thursday, 15 February, 2007
Sourced by CCH Political Alert
The Office of Workplace Services (OWS) yesterday won a huge $33,000 in penalties in the Melbourne Magistrates Court from Brochure Flow Pty Ltd, a sales and marketing literature distribution company based in the Melbourne suburb of Burwood.
The underpayments of $5528.65 plus interest for two employees, and resulting penalties, stem from four breaches of the Clerical and Administrative employees (Victoria) Award 1999, and Workplace Relations Act 1996 (the Act).
When handing down the decision, Magistrate Kate Hawkins said the breaches were "serious, blatant and go to the heart of the obligations imposed by the Act." "Failure to pay Award rates of pay, and conditions such as annual leave are not trifling matters," said Magistrate Hawkins. "There is a need to deter other employers from similar disregard for employees' rights."
OWS Director Nicholas Wilson says OWS makes every effort to ensure employers are aware of their obligations and have the opportunity to comply voluntarily, and employers who persist in doing the wrong thing risk high penalties.
"There is no excuse for not paying staff properly," said Mr Wilson. "Every business must be aware of its workplace relations obligations, since OWS audits that uncover underpayments can and do result in Court action.
"Most employers make every effort to do the right thing and meet their obligations. But it's important that the employers who intentionally flout the workplace law understand they will be caught and penalised.
"The central role of the Office of Workplace Services is to ensure that the rights and obligations of workers and employers under the Act are protected, understood and enforced", said Mr Wilson.
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Posted by Anonymous at 2:58 PM, 10/3/2007 |
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Asbestos (1)
Fed: Asbestos diseases highest in Australia: study
Wednesday, 14 March, 2007
Content provided to you by AAP.
By Tamara McLean, National Medical Writer
SYDNEY, March 14 AAP - Australia has one of the highest rates of asbestos-related disease in the world, according to a new report.
The international analysis, published in the Lancet journal, found a clear link between historic asbestos use and recent asbestos-related disease deaths.
The Japanese researchers analysed the amount of asbestos consumption per head of population in 33 countries during the 1960s, the decade when the product rose in popularity.
They compared consumption with rates of related lung and chest diseases between 2000 to 2004, and gave Australia one of the highest placings worldwide.
The team said their results foreshadowed a "global epidemic" of asbestos-related disease which was a cause for "widespread concern".
"This ecological study reveals clear and plausible positive relations between amounts of historical asbestos consumption and deaths from diseases associated with asbestos," they wrote in the journal.
"Our results lend support to the notion that all countries should move towards eliminating the use of asbestos."
Asbestos, and building products containing the fibres, were banned Australia-wide in 2003, but every year hundreds still die from conditions sparked by contact with the product decades ago.
The illnesses, including asbestosis, lung cancer, pleural disorders and the lethal cancer mesothelioma, have been the subject of a large-scale compensation deal involving the building company James Hardie.
Asbestos researcher Alison Reid, from the University of Western Australia, said the number of Australians dying from the disease would not peak for another decade.
"After that the rate should start to drop off but it will take us a while. Australia is just riddled with it," Ms Reid said. "We took it up so enthusiastically, importing it, mining it, using it everywhere in everything."
Treatment for the disease is very limited, and it is universally fatal, with most patients living just nine months between diagnosis and death.
Some doctors have had limited success with chemotherapy and radical surgery, but Ms Reid said it was only palliative care, not a cure.
She said that despite the study's alarming results, there was little point in screening for the disease.
"Even if we find people who have it, we have virtually no treatment to offer them," Ms Reid said. "You'd just be really frightening people."
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Posted by Family Loss at 5:06 PM, 14/3/2007 |
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Bernie Banton
NSW: Banton joins accident compensation fight
Wednesday, 14 March, 2007
Content provided to you by AAP.
By Karen Davis
SYDNEY, March 13 AAP - Asbestos campaigner Bernie Banton has taken up a new fight - against the NSW government's personal injury laws.
Fresh from a successful six-year battle with building products company James Hardie over compensation for asbestos victims, Mr Banton today announced he's joining a campaign calling for fair compensation for people injured in accidents.
The campaign, A Fair Go for Injured People, was launched in September by four peak legal bodies in response to sweeping government changes to NSW personal injury legislation.
Under the changes, people injured in civil liability cases, motor vehicle accidents or in the workplace must meet a certain threshold of bodily impairment before they can be awarded compensation for pain and suffering.
Mr Banton labelled the threshold ridiculous and said too many people were missing out on fair compensation.
"I see this is a repeat of the James Hardie issues, people being denied their right to compensation," he told reporters in Sydney. "We need to get it on the agenda and get commitment from government and alternative governments that they are going to attend to this issue because it needs to be attended to now, not in the future.
"People are missing out on what is rightfully theirs."
Mr Banton said he would use similar tactics in this campaign to those he used against James Hardie.
"We've just got to keep at them. The only way to win these wars is to keep at them and not let the issue die," he said. "It's so important for people's financial future that the money is there and available to them and we've got to get people over this ridiculous threshold ... I believe that all that is necessary is a stroke of the pen.
"It's this threshold that's got to be adjusted so everybody gets a fair go, all we're asking for a fair go."
Campaign spokesman and NSW Bar Association president Michael Slattery QC said 95 per cent of people were unable to access proper compensation.
As an example, Mr Slattery said green slip insurers had taken in $10 billion in premiums since 1999 and paid out just $2.7 billion in benefits to the injured. "It's a very important campaign and having someone like Bernie Banton on board and assisting with it will give it a great boost and hopefully it will get real attention from the NSW government and the opposition," he said. "Thousands of workers are missing out ... I think Bernie's going to make a difference." The campaign is being driven by the Law Society of NSW, the NSW Bar Association, the Law Council of Australia and the Australian Lawyers Alliance.
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Posted by Family at 5:10 PM, 14/3/2007 |
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WA: State Government stresses importance of safe workplaces and practices
WA: State Government stresses importance of safe workplaces and practices
Thursday, 15 March, 2007
Sourced by CCH Political Alert
The State Government has stressed its commitment to safe workplaces and practices in the light of Cyclone George.
Employment Protection Minister Michelle Roberts said a number of investigations were already under way and they should be allowed to run their course without interference.
"Worksafe, Police and the Coroner are all conducting inquiries into Cyclone George," Mrs Roberts said.
"We should reserve any judgement until these inquiries are complete."
The Minister said a broader inquiry would only be considered if current investigations pointed to more widespread problems in the industry.
"The current inquiries are likely to result in recommendations that the State Government and industry will need to act upon," she said.
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Posted by Anonymous at 8:46 PM, 15/3/2007 |
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Pay-off time for unions backing Labor
MICHAEL OWEN POLITICAL REPORTER
March 17, 2007 12:00am
Article from: The Advertiser
UNION support for the Labor Party during the state election a year ago is being handsomely rewarded with lucrative financial deals, the State Opposition says.
Liberals leader Iain Evans said yesterday evidence for his claims was found in four recent key decisions by the Government which clearly favoured unions - a guarantee of no cuts to WorkCover benefits, $3 million in grants for Occupational Health and Safety training, no shopping hours deregulation and permitting unions access to any workplace.
"The decisions . . . specifically advantage the same unions that financially support the Labor Party," Mr Evans said. He described Government moves this week to give union representatives the right to enter workplaces to talk about health and safety as "the crowning glory" of the Government's pay off to unions.
"When combined with the $3 million in grants for OHS training, Labor's unions are cashed up and provided with legally enforceable entry to any workplace in South Australia in a federal election year - that's a pretty good return on investment."
However, Industrial Relations Minister Michael Wright said the Government made decisions in the best interests of everyone.
"The Government will continue to work hard to have the best workers' compensation system," he said.
"Additional training in occupational health and safety means safer workplaces.
"And the Government believes its current shop trading laws strike the right balance between small retailers, large retailers and consumers."
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Posted by Anonymous at 12:06 PM, 17/3/2007 |
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r’ death on the wharves sparks union anger
The Mailhme Union Of Austraha NationaA Office
P. Crumhn
National Secretary M. Doleman
A. Newyn
J. Tannock
Deputy National Secretary Assistant National Secretaries
Ref: S/05/299
Media Release 1 9/3/07
r’ death on the wharves sparks union anger
MUA demands immediate government action
The second workplace death on the Australian waterfront this year - the fourth in four years - has angered waterside workers and sparked a further round of union demands for urgent government action.
Waterside worker Bobby Cumberlidge, 52, was crushed to death by a 24 tonne steel coil in
Westernport on Friday afternoon, March 16. His death comes only weeks after that of
Melbourne waterside worker Peter Ross at Appleton Dock on January 19.
Union frustrations have been building over the lack of government response to the high level of fatalities in an industry where workers labour in ‘floating factories’ that do not always conform to Australian OH&S standards. This is despite the union campaigning for a national safety code for more than 18 months.
In his letter to the ministers for workplace relations and transport Joe Hockey and Mark Vaile, Mr Crumlin called for urgent intervention:
“The MUA will never accept anything other than a workplace where safety is an essential prerequisite to every other activity that takes place there,” he said. “We have repeatedly asked for your assistance in establishing proper OH&S standards that refect the nature of the industry, particularly the interface with international shipping and the quite unique and specific risks involved for stevedoring workers.”
The union has repeatedly called for both state and federal governments to commit to a national standard that specifically identifies those risks through both national legislation and mirror state legislation.
Both major stevedoring employers have fully embraced and committed to a process.
The union is now urging governments to immediately commit to national forum of state and federal OH&S jurisdictions together with the relevant employer, shipowner and union stakeholders in the industry to urgently to develop a legislative mechanism protecting workers employed in this industrial and economically critical area.
“It is essential we have a government response to report back to our membership before the end of this week,” said Mr Crumlin. “Such a high death and injury rate cannot be further countenanced by the industry and its workers whose jobs increasingly come at the cost of their lives and their families.”
He warned said it was of critical importance that governments do not underestimate the union’s determination to have the matter progressed immediately.
Mr Crumlin has also taken the campaign to the global forum where he is chairing the dockers’ section meeting of the International Transport Workers’ Federation meeting in Sorrento, Italy this week. The matter is first on the meeting’s agenda tonight (Australian time).
CONTACTS: MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin (in Italy) 0418 379 660
Assistant National Secretary Mick Doleman (in Sydney) 0418 391 528
Kevin Bracken, Victoria Branch 0400 077 563
Warren Smith, Sydney Branch 0400 368 945
Chris Cain, WA Branch 0407 850 084
Mick Carr, SQId Branch 0419 641 463
Jamie Newlyn, SA Branch 0419 517 487
Mick Wickham, Tasmania Branch 0418 125 141
Jim Boyle, NNSW 0418 271 923
Mark Armstrong, SNSW 0419 693 346
Andrew Burford, NT 0409 714 150
Laurie Horgan, NQId, 0409 050 232
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Posted by another loss at 5:32 PM, 19/3/2007 |
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Lessons from Gretley: Mindful leadership and the law
Lessons from Gretley: Mindful leadership and the law
Available March 2007.
Following on from the highly respected Lessons from Longford comes Lessons from Gretley, exploring the 1996 Gretley Mine disaster in NSW and its OHS implications.
Written by premier OHS author Professor Andrew Hopkins, the book is provoked by current attempts to hold directors and managers responsible for workplace accidents.
Lessons from Gretley describes the 2004/05 conviction and fining of two mine managers in NSW following the mine disaster at Gretley near Newcastle in 1996 and discusses whether the law was unfair to these managers. The book also examines the impact of the Gretley prosecution on the industry, using interviews with a small sample of mine managers. Hopkins then proposes the controversial view that effective OHS law must hold the top corporate leaders responsible when something goes seriously wrong, regardless of whether they were personally at fault.
Purchase Lessons from Gretley: Mindful leadership and the law Promotion Code (optional)
Price A$75.00 (A$68.18 Ex. GST)
Quantity
Delivery & Handling Charge
Features
Based around a specific case study so real-life situations are discussed
Written with multiple audiences in mindżregulatory policy setters and organisational leaders
Discusses what kinds of legal/regulatory strategies can be used to focus the minds of leaders on safety
Covers what organisational leaders can they do to maximise the chances of safe operation
Contents
Introduction
The demand for prosecution
The first failure - reliance on faulty plans
The second failure ż dismissing the warnings
The campaign for law reform
Industrial manslaughter
Holding corporate leaders responsible
Organisational mindfulness
Mindful leadership
The lessons
An empirical study of the effects of the Gretley prosecution
Appendix
References
Product Includes
One print book
Authors/Consultants
Professor Andrew Hopkins is a sociologist at the Australian National University and has published widely in the area of occupational health and safety. He is author of CCHżs Safety, Culture and Risk and Lessons from Longford: The Esso Gas Plant Explosion.
CCH Product Code 34094A
ISBN 9781921223310
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Posted by reading at 3:10 PM, 20/3/2007 |
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Workplace deaths and accidents
I found this article from The Age, sorry it is long but it is interesting reading.
At least 2000 Australians died from work-related injuries or illnesses last year. But officially, only 27 died in Victoria. Gary Tippet investigates.
The Robert Sergi Bridge is a sweeping but otherwise unremarkable overpass where the Princes Freeway curves into the Geelong suburb of Corio. To most of the thousands of drivers who cross it each day it represents little more than another taken-for-granted chunk of transport engineering.
Yet its nameplate and a memorial plaque nearby tell a tragic story of sudden death and one family's abiding loss.
The plaque is dedicated to the loving husband of Jane and father of Mark, Ashleigh and Danielle. But the bridge is also a rare public reminder that - for thousands of Australians like Rob Sergi each year - just working for a living can kill you.
On October 8, 2000, Mr Sergi was a 40-year-old crane company owner helping to build the overpass across the Melbourne to Geelong railway line. Shortly after 7am, the 700-tonne concrete girder on which he and three others were standing collapsed. His workmates were hurt but Mr Sergi suffered a severe head injury and died at the scene.
On Thursday, construction company Leighton Contractors Pty Ltd was ordered to pay a total of $525,000 in the Geelong County Court after pleading guilty to four counts of failing to maintain a safe working environment under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 1985. It was the biggest penalty imposed on a company over workplace death since the 1998 Esso Longford explosion.
Jane Sergi welcomed the verdict. But earlier she had told The Age the accident and its long, painful aftermath had come at considerable cost to her, both emotionally and physically: "I still suffer from a terrible sense of loss. I believe the extremely traumatic and catastrophic way Rob died has added to the shocking impact that his death has had on me and our three children."
The same holds true for those working alongside Mr Sergi that day. Mick Yarker, who suffered multiple fractures to his right arm, leg, ribs and vertebrae, says: "Even the guys that were involved with no physical injuries . . . all have the same problems - nightmares and they get overcautious when they're doing something now. You're always thinking something might go wrong every time you're on a job."
For more than 2000 workers every year something does go fatally wrong on the job - sometimes catastrophically, but more often in ways that are slow, insidious and unseen.
On an official count there were only 27 "workplace deaths" in Victoria last year, and 15 so far this year. According to the latest available figures, in 2001-2002 there were 297 "compensated fatalities as a consequence of workplace activities" out of a national workforce of almost 10 million people. But no one with the remotest understanding of the issue pretends that this is but a proportion - maybe less than a 10th - of the real figure.
The problem lies in both definition and detection. Most people who talk of workplace deaths refer only to so-called "traumatic incidents" - falls, crushings, burns or chemical accidents, crashes and the like - while the national figure above counts only those deaths reported through workers' compensation statistics.
John Bottomley, of the Uniting Church's Urban Ministry Network, says: "The industrial deaths figure is misleading because it largely excludes deaths from industrial diseases . . . things like strokes, industrial cancers and so on." Work-related suicides and many road deaths also fail to register.
The National Occupational Health and Safety Commission estimates that when diseases are included there are more than 2000 work-related deaths in Australia every year.
Worksafe Victoria executive director John Merritt says that extrapolating research being done in the US and Finland could lift the national figure to as many as 4500 annually.
Australian Workers Union national safety representative Yossi Berger goes further, saying the toll is more like 8000 when you consider "all those silent occupational diseases" such as benzene-related leukaemias and chemically related diseases that might take 30 years to kill someone.
As Reverend Bottomley puts it: "Work has not only the potential for progress and economic security, it also has the potential to kill people."
Yet the problem seems to have escaped public notice, to the dismay of Jerry Ellis, former BHP boss and now chairman of the Occupational Health and Safety Commission, who points out that more people suffer work-related deaths than die on the roads.
Last month he wrote that one in every 20 workers suffers a work-related disease or injury each year; someone is injured seriously enough to lodge a workers' compensation claim every 2.4 minutes; young workers are extra vulnerable, with 50 suffering such injuries each day and five of those resulting in permanent incapacity. This all costs the Australian economy more than $30 billion a year.
"In any other field, this level of death and injury would not be tolerated," he says.
No one dies from accidents at work. John Merrett of WorkSafe is adamant on that point: the ways people die at work are predictable and preventable.
"The things that kill and seriously hurt people at work are the same sorts of things we've been seeing for decades," he says. And they are: workers falling off or being struck by something moving; something falling onto them or them falling into something; electrocution and burns.
More than 90 per cent of those killed are men and about three-quarters of them are production and transport workers, labourers or tradesmen.
"And we know quite easily how to fix it . . . you have fall protection, or guards to stop things falling on you . . . there's no great mystery about it," Mr Merrett says.
But in the majority of cases, workers do not die at work, they die from work. In a study released earlier this month, occupational physician Associate Professor Malcolm Sim said only a few cancers, lung and skin diseases, stress and other illnesses were being linked to work because of the timelag between exposure and outcome and because there may be a number of possible causes.
While mesothelioma was widely recognised as increasing in rate, it was easily identified because it had one cause, exposure to asbestos, he said.
"But there are other cancers that can be related to work practices, like respiratory tract cancers, bladder cancers, leukaemia and so on, which are not as easy to tease out because they have multiple causes."
Judy Antonello understands workplace death - and even more bitterly understands the confusion over the definition. Her 18-year-old son Rien, a courier "truck jockey", was killed when his van crashed in September 2002. On the statistical register, Rien is not classed as a workplace death but as a road toll victim.
"Every workplace safety ad I've ever seen on TV is based around a factory setting or someone falling on a building site," she says. "People simply won't perceive that that truck was my son's workplace."
Peter Cameron, of the Vehicle Safety Forum, says that of the 3.5 million cars and trucks in Victoria, more than 500,000 are registered as commercial vehicles. But that underestimates the number regularly used for work.
He estimates the number of work vehicles involved in serious road trauma would be proportionate to the number on the road - or higher given the kilometres driven.
Under Victorian law, commercial vehicles are recognised "workplaces" and as such have the same safety and maintenance requirements as a factory floor or building site. But, says Mr Cameron, the regulations are rarely enforced. "WorkSafe doesn't look at the sales rep's car. It only looks at the forklifts that operate in the sales rep's factory or warehouse," he says.
The forum, a group of automotive industry specialists, is lobbying the State Government for annual roadworthiness checks on commercial vehicles.
Another hidden cause of work death is suicide. A 2002 study by the Urban Ministry Network examined coronial records and found that work was a significant but unacknowledged contributor in many suicides.
Significant work-related factors were work stress, fear of retrenchment, arguments with employers or colleagues, performance pressure, long hours and lack of job satisfaction. Bullying, violence and lack of supervision were also cited. In almost a third of the suicides a work injury (mainly back injuries) or work-related mental illness was linked to the death.
Bette Phillips counsels grieving relatives through the Uniting Church's Work-Related Group Support. She believes society takes work-related stress too lightly and that sufferers' colleagues often miss the signs.
US studies estimate that mental illnesses affect up to 20 per cent of the community each year and are the biggest cause of lost productivity.
Reverend Bottomley, one of the authors of the suicide study, said many people were working 60 to 80 hours a week. "When people go to work and that work becomes their whole life, that life is very much at risk," he says.
But National Occupational Health and Safety Commission chief executive Robin Stewart-Crompton says Australia is not "in crisis on workplace health".
International Labour Organisation rates Australia as the seventh-best performer in workplace safety, he says.
"But in relative terms, when you look at all the advantages we have here - with climate, the level of development, our education, the question to be asked is why aren't we number one? When you look at the countries outperforming us . . . what they have is a history of consistently raising national awareness of the need for safety, not only in the working community but the community at large," he says.
But OHS authorities can claim significant successes. Workers' compensation statistics show a 16 per cent fall in claims between 1997 and 2002 and a 10 per cent drop in compensable fatalities between 2001 and 2002. WorkCover has introduced a "constructive compliance strategy", sending inspectors to targeted industries and sectors with high injury rates, and has doubled the number of prosecutions in the past three years.
But alarmingly, of the 15 deaths so far this year, all but two have been in regional areas and seven have been on farms.
FarmSafe Alliance figures show that annual adult farm fatalities from traumatic incidents have risen markedly since 1985 and have averaged 12 a year for the past four years. Of the seven farmers who have died so far this year, all but one was aged over 55.
FarmSafe's David Phillips suggests one reason for this is that as younger men head for the city, the average age of farmers is rising, making them physically less capable of coping and managing risks. Also, financial pressures, particularly due to drought, mean many farmers are using older, less reliable machinery.
Suicide was claiming an increasing number of men of the land, he said. "Farmers' suicide rate between 1989 and 1992 was something like 60 per cent higher than the standardised male rates in the same age group . . . and things have been a lot worse since then."
The Victorian Government is considering recommendations for tougher workplace action contained in the first review of health and safety laws in 20 years.
The review report by Chris Maxwell, QC, would see union safety officers empowered to enter non-union workplaces and to shut down dangerous premises; urges tougher penalties for workplace breaches, a code of conduct for company officers and jail for serious first-time offenders - though it baulks at recommending a new offence of industrial homicide.
Some suggest companies are now quicker to accept responsibility for workplace death and injury, as exemplified by Leighton's decision to plead guilty in the Sergi case. Others say some companies only plead guilty to avoid the "collateral damage" of media exposure.
But Reverend Bottomley says research with employers shows they are "typically devastated" by workplace deaths. As well as its shattering effects on victims' families, each death resonated through their workplaces, with family stress on employers and workers, sometimes leading to violence and divorce, resignations and absenteeism.
He says the issue of safety falls well behind what he calls "the whole economic progress myth" tied to our culture of working hard to get ahead.
"Happiness and wellbeing are not simply measured by how much you take home in the pay packet," he says.
"I think as a culture we haven't said to employers, managers - or workers - that the most important thing is that people come home each day from their work." |
Posted by Reader at 12:27 PM, 26/3/2007 |
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History
Workers' compensation (colloquially known as workers' comp in North American English or compo in Australian English) is a form of insurance that provides compensation for employees who are injured in the course of employment. While schemes differ between jurisdictions, provision can be made for weekly payments in place of wages (functioning in this case as a form of disability insurance), compensation for economic loss (past and future), reimbursement or payment of medical and like expenses (functioning in this case as a form of health insurance), general damages for pain and suffering, and benefits payable to the dependents of workers killed during employment (functioning in this case as a form of life insurance). Cash benefits are established by state formulas with maximum benefit level. The benefits are administered on a state level, primarily by the state department of labor.
These laws are usually a feature of highly developed industrial societies, implemented after long and hard fought struggles by trade unions. Supporters of such schemes believe they improve working conditions and provide an economic safety net for employees. Conversely, these schemes are often criticised for removing or restricting workers' common law rights in order to reduce governments' or insurance companies' financial liability.
Employees' compensation laws were first enacted in Europe and Oceania, with the United States following shortly thereafter. Workers' compensation programs were a key component of the labor structure of the former Soviet Union and similar societies.
Compensation prior to statutory law
'Prior to statutory law, employees who were injured on the job were only able to pursue their employer through civil or torts law.' In some countries like the United Kingdom this was difficult due to the legal view of employment as a master-servant relationship. Proof of employer malice or negligence was usually required, but difficult for an employee to attain. Although employers' liability was unlimited, courts usually awarded in favour of the employer, and paid little attention to the full losses experienced by workers: medical costs, lost wages, and damages for loss of future earning capacity.
Statutory compensation law
Statutory compensation law provides a number of advantages to both employees and employers. A schedule is drawn out to stipulate the amounts and forms of compensation an employee is entitled to if he/she has sustained given kinds of injuries. Employers can buy insurance against such occurrences. However, the specific form of the statutory compensation scheme may provide detriments. Statutory schemes often award a set amount based on the types of injury. These payments are based on the ability of the worker to find employment in a partial capacity: a worker who has lost an arm can still find work as a proportion of a fully-able person. This does not account for the difficulty in finding work suiting disability. When employers are required to put injured staff on "light-duties" the employer may simply state that no light duty work exists, and sack the worker as unable to fulfill specified duties. When new forms of workplace injury are discovered, for instance: stress repetitive strain injury silicosis; the law often lags behind actual injury and offers no suitable compensation, forcing the employer and employee back to the courts (although in common-law jurisdictions these are usually one-off instances). Finally, caps on the value of disabilities may not reflect the total cost of providing for a disabled worker. The government may legislate the value of total spinal incapacity at far below the amount required to keep a worker in reasonable living for the remainder of their life.
A related issue is that the same physical loss can have a markedly different impact on the earning capacity of individuals in different professions. For instance, the loss of a finger could have a moderate impact on a banker's ability to do his or her job, but the same injury would totally ruin a pianist.
Statutory compensation in Australia
As Australia experienced a relatively influential labour movement in the late 19th and early 20th century, statutory compensation was implemented very early in Australia.
Statutory compensation in Canada
Workers' compensation was Canada's first social program to be introduced as it was favoured by both workers' groups and employers hoping to avoid lawsuits. The system arose after an inquiry by Ontario Chief Justice William Meredith who outlined a system that workers should be compensated for workplace injuries, but that they must give up their right to sue their employers. It was introduced in the various provinces at different dates Ontario was first in 1915, Manitoba in 1916, British Columbia in 1917. It remains a provincial responsibility and thus the exact rules vary from province to province. In some provinces, such as Ontario's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, the programme also had a preventative role ensuring workplace safety. In British Columbia, the occupational health and safety mandate is legislated. In most provinces it remains solely concerned with insurance. It is paid by employers based on their payroll, industry sector and history of injuries (or lack thereof) in their workplace, sometimes known as "injury experience".
Statutory compensation in the United States
Workers' compensation laws were enacted to make litigation less costly for both sides and to eliminate the need for injured workers to prove their injuries were the employer's "fault". The first state law was passed in Maryland in 1902, and the first law covering federal employees was passed in 1906. By 1949, all states had enacted some kind of workers' compensation regime.
This system was originally known as "workman's compensation." Today, most jurisdictions have adopted the term "workers' compensation" as a gender-neutral alternative.
In the United States most employees who are injured on the job have an absolute right to medical care for that injury, and in many cases monetary payments to compensate for resulting temporary or permanent disabilities.
Most employers are required to carry workers' compensation insurance, and in most states heavy financial penalties may be imposed on an employer that does not. In many states there are public uninsured employer funds to pay benefits to workers employed by companies who illegally fail to purchase insurance. Insurance policies are available to employers through commercial insurance companies: if the employer is deemed an excessive risk to insure at market rates, it can obtain coverage through an assigned-risk program.
In the vast majority of states, workers' compensation is solely provided by private insurance companies. 12 states operate a state fund (which serves as a model to private insurers and insures state employees), and a handful have state-owned monopolies. To keep the state funds from crowding out private insurers, they are generally required to act as assigned-risk programs or insurers of last resort, and they can only write workers' compensation policies. In contrast, private insurers can turn away the worst risks and can write comprehensive insurance packages covering general liability, natural disasters, and so on. The largest state fund is California's State Compensation Insurance Fund. The federal government pays its workers' compensation obligations for its own employees through regular appropriations.
It is illegal in some states (although not in others) for an employer to terminate an employee for reporting a workplace injury or for filing a workers' compensation claim. Most states also prohibit refusing employment for having previously filed a workers' compensation claim. However, employers can consult commercial databases of claims data and it would seem nearly impossible to prove that an employer discriminated against a job applicant because of his or her claims history. To abate discrimination of this type, some states have created a "subsequent injury trust fund" which will reimburse insurers for benefits paid to workers who suffer aggravation or recurrence of a compensable injury. It is also suggested that laws should be made to prohibit inclusion of claims history in databases or to make it anonymous. (See privacy laws.)
It is also illegal to falsely claim workers' compensation benefits. Some employers hire private investigators to videotape claimants surreptitiously; some of these sub rosa videos have shown employees engaging in sports or other strenuous physical activity despite a having claimed a disability or injury. TV shows have recently been made using these videos. However, this evidence may be ruled inadmissible in law courts if it has been taken unlawfully.
Some employers vigorously contest employee claims for workers' compensation payments. In any contested case, or in any case involving serious injury, a lawyer with specific experience in handling workers' compensation claims on behalf of injured workers should be consulted. Laws in many states limit a claimant's legal expenses to a certain fraction of an award, payable only if the recovery is successful. In some states this fee can be as high as 40% or or as little as 11% the monetary award, if any is recovered. If no award is recovered, the attorney will be paid nothing and loses the time and money he or she put into the case, thereby having essentially worked for free.
In the vast majority of states, original jurisdiction over workers' compensation disputes has been transferred by statute from the trial courts to special administrative agencies. Within such agencies, disputes are usually handled informally by administrative law judges. Appeals may be taken to an appeals board and from there into the state court system. However, such appeals are difficult and are regarded skeptically by most state appellate courts, because the point of workers' compensation was to reduce litigation. A few states still allow the employee to initiate a lawsuit in a trial court against the employer.
Alternate forms of statutory compensation in the United States
Employees of common carriers by rail have a statutory remedy under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C. sec. 51, which provides that a carrier "shall be liable" to an employee who is injured by the negligence of the employer. To enforce his compensation rights, the employee may file suit in United States district court or in a state court. The FELA remedy is based on tort principles of ordinary negligence and differs significantly from most state workers' compensation benefit schedules.
Seafarers employed on United States vessels who are injured because of the owner's or the operator's negligence can sue their employers under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. App. 688., essentially a remedy very similar to the FELA one.
Opposition to statutory compensation in the United States
Opponents argue that workers' compensation laws may hurt the U.S. workers they were designed to help. Large employers may have an incentive to move segments of their business -- and their jobs -- to areas where workers' compensation benefits (and other employee protections) are less generous or are harder to obtain. This is because the United States lacks a unified and national set of employee entitlements covering minimum wage, wage and hour, or collective bargaining rights in addition to compensation. labor unions describe this system as a race to the bottom, as state legislatures cut employee entitlements to attract capital. Moreover, applying laws to citizens (or organisations) abroad, is an exception rather than the rule under common law.
United States employers can also move some operations to other countries where employee entitlements are much lower than in the U.S., and where there may be no workers' compensation or other legal remedies at all for workers who are injured or who are exposed to hazardous substances while on the job. Such countries may also have weaker or no legal protections available for employees in areas such as job discrimination, social security, or the right to organize or to join a trade union.
Some small business owners complain that the cost of workers’ compensation, which they pay in the form of insurance premiums, places a heavy burden on them.
Economists who favor the distributism system of economics cite workers' compensation as an example of how far the modern capitalist economic system approaches what they call the "servile state" or "slavery worker" system. They say that in past times when ownership of the means of production were more widely distributed, it would not be natural to hold an employer responsible for a worker's injury, since the worker was freely choosing to work for that employer. Distributists assert that in modern times, with the vast majority of people dispossessed of the means of production, requiring employers to have workers compensation shows how much workers really are dependent on being employed and are essentially forced to work for someone else to survive. Some distributists who feel that capitalism is heading unstoppably in the direction of a slavery system, feel that this will come about by workers exchanging their personal freedom for economic benefits like workers' compensation.
Merge from Workers Compensation insurance
Workers Compensation insurance is a system to provide medical care and compensation to injured workers on a no-fault basis. In the United States, this system is largely administered through the use of mandatory insurance coverage imposed upon employers. A few states maintain so-called "monopoly" systems administered directly by state government, and some states operate state funds that compete with private insurance. The majority of U.S. jurisdictions operate by mandating that employers purchase insurance that provides the statutory benefits to workers.
History
Workers' Compensation in the U.S. began in 1911 during the Progressive Era when Wisconsin passed the first statutory system. Other U.S. jurisdictions followed suit. In general, statutory Workers' Compensation systems strike a compromise, guaranteeing workers medical care and payment for lost time on a no-fault basis. Prior to the enactment of Workers' Compensation laws, injured workers had to file suit against employers, and such legal actions had significant drawbacks for workers. At the same time, a successful suit could impose very large and unpredictable costs on an employer. Statutory Workers' Compensation systems provide for prompt payment of medical, rehabilitation, and lost time costs to injured workers, while placing limits on the cost of the system for employers.
In many states today, Workers' Compensation represents a major cost of business for employers, and there is ongoing political maneuvering by both business and labor groups to shift the compromise balance struck by Workers' Compensation statutes. In general, business groups seek to limit the cost of Workers' Compensation coverage, while labor groups seek to increase benefits paid to workers.
For the commercial insurance market, Workers' Compensation represents a major line of business, although one that is sometimes problematic for the insurance industry. Premiums are large, but many insurers find it difficult to turn a profit in many states, as benefit costs sometimes exceed premiums. This line of insurance is regulated fairly closely by most states, although in recent years many states have allowed insurance companies greater flexibility in pricing this line of coverage. The hope has been that by encouraging price competition among insurers for Workers' Compensation insurance, employers would benefit by being able to obtain lower overall premiums. However, the introduction of competitive pricing for Workers' Compensation insurance has also led to significant swings in cost, as the insurance market moves between 'hard' and 'soft' markets. Employers often benefit from lower premiums in 'soft' insurance markets, only to see their premiums increase exponentially during 'hard' insurance markets.
Injured Workers sometimes complain that insurance companies do not treat them fairly or in compliance with the law, while employers often complain about their costs of insurance being driven up by exaggerated or fraudulent claims. Thus, the field engenders a considerable amount of controversy and litigation. These disputed areas include both claims and premium computations.
The statute of limitations for filing a compensation claim for an accidental injury varies from state to state. |
Posted by Anonymous at 3:08 PM, 27/3/2007 |
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Man dies after pergola fall
Man dies after pergola fall
Wednesday, 28 March, 2007
Content provided to you by AAP.
MELBOURNE, March 27 AAP - A builder has died in hospital after falling through the roof of a pergola he was constructing in the Victorian city of Bendigo.
The man, aged in his late 50s from the Bendigo suburb of Eaglehawk, fell through the pergola's plastic sheet roof to the ground at a property at nearby Epsom about 1pm (AEST) today.
He later died in hospital.
The man's death takes Victoria's workplace death toll to 11, up from five at the same time last year.
Four of this year's deaths were in the construction industry, WorkSafe executive director John Merritt said.
Of the 41 workplace deaths since the beginning of last year, 11 were in the construction industry, he said.
"Planning a safe work site does not take long or add significant cost," he said.
"Most importantly it protects workers, workmates and families the horror of a tragedy. It protects business.
"In small businesses, the injured person often is the business. They own it; they do the work alongside others."
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Posted by Watch 11 at 3:25 PM, 28/3/2007 |
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Death of worker in melbourne
As the above post says and unfortunately it has to be repeated in this case.
"Happiness and wellbeing are not simply measured by how much you take home in the pay packet,"
"I think as a culture we haven't said to employers, managers - or workers - that the most important thing is that people come home each day from their work." |
Posted by John Richards at 8:35 PM, 28/3/2007 |
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WorkCover releases half-year results
WorkCover releases half-year results
RELEASE DATE 29/03/2007
WorkCover’s unfunded liability has increased to $722.7 million after a loss of $28.6 million for the half-year to 31 December, 2006. The Scheme is 66.1 per cent funded.
WorkCover’s financial result for the July-December 2006 period is primarily due to an increase in the estimate of costs for income maintenance (weekly payments). The Scheme’s funding ratio has increased despite this loss because of an increase in the asset base, largely due to continued, strong investments. WorkCover remains cash flow positive.
The result compares with WorkCover’s funding position at 30 June 2006, when the Scheme was 65 per cent funded, with an unfunded liability of $694 million.
The average levy rate for 2007-08 will remain at 3.0 per cent.
“Earlier today, the Government acknowledged the need for substantial change to the WorkCover Scheme and announced that it intends to commission an independent review of the South Australian workers rehabilitation and compensation legislation,” said WorkCover Board Chair, Bruce Carter.
“The Government’s review is supported by the WorkCover Board and is consistent with the Board’s position, outlined in our annual report released last December. Our position is that legislative change is required to ensure the Scheme is effective in supporting injured workers to recover and return to work at a reasonable cost to employers who fund the Scheme,” said Mr Carter.
“We’ve significantly reformed the management of the Scheme over the past couple of years, largely focusing on improving return to work outcomes through stronger claims management.
“We appointed a single, proven claims agent, Employers Mutual, in January 2006 and we remain confident that their expertise will greatly enhance the performance of the Scheme. However, it has become increasingly clear that we have a different legislative framework here in South Australia compared with those States that have been so effective in improving return to work outcomes,” Mr Carter said.
“Our legislation has remained largely unchanged since the late-1980s. This is in contrast to other schemes’ legislation which have been regularly reviewed and updated in line with changes to the business and social environment, and scheme costs.
“The WorkCover Board, in November 2006, proposed to the Government a range of legislative changes it believes will enable the South Australian Scheme to improve from having the worst return to work outcomes in the nation.
“Achieving balanced and sustainable improvement will require a substantial collaborative effort of the Scheme’s stakeholders and we therefore welcome the Government’s intention to consult with stakeholders during this review,” Mr Carter said.
WorkCover CEO, Julia Davison, said the organisation would continue its urgent focus on better recovery rates and return to work outcomes.
“Our recent improvements combined with this crucial legislative reform will ensure our Scheme continues to support injured workers and delivers better value for employers in this State, by achieving earlier, safe return to work,” Ms Davison said.
Media contact: Danielle Martin, telephone 8233 2381 or 0418 295 324.
Background information on WorkCover
WorkCover is funded by employers to manage a balanced and financially sound system that rehabilitates, compensates and returns injured workers to safe workplaces and the community.
WorkCover began operations in 1987 and is constituted as a statutory authority under the WorkCover Corporation Act 1994 with a Board appointed by the Governor on the recommendation of the responsible Minister (now the Minister for Industrial Relations).
WorkCover is responsible for administering the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1986. WorkCover manages South Australia’s Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Scheme on behalf of about 65,000 employers, providing rehabilitation and compensation support for an estimated 500,000 employees (about 60 per cent of the state’s workforce).
In 2005-06, there were 22,930 claims incurred by workers employed by registered employers and 14,064 claims by workers employed by self-insurers (37,465 in total).
* 79 per cent of WorkCover claimants do not have any lost time from work (less than two weeks)
* 49 per cent of WorkCover claimants return to work within 1 month
* 71 per cent of WorkCover claimants return to work within 3 months
* Out of every 100 injured workers, 82 leave the Scheme within 12 months.
What is the unfunded liability?
In simple terms, the unfunded liability reflects the balance between the assets of WorkCover and the liabilities of WorkCover, including the actuary’s estimate of the claims liability of the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Scheme over 40 years.
The actuary uses complex calculations, based on a range of assumptions, to make an estimate of the value in current dollars of all the costs associated with current claims. This is an amount the actuary expects will be paid over the life of those claims, but is not payable today, tomorrow or even this year.
This estimate of the Scheme claims liability is then compared with WorkCover’s assets to arrive at our funding position.
Over time, WorkCover has collected substantial funds to meet the future costs of claims already incurred – currently the Scheme has more than $1.3 billion invested through an investment strategy that has out-performed most similar funds. |
Posted by Poster at 8:50 PM, 1/4/2007 |
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Plan to slash WorkCover bill by $1bn
By CRAIG BILDSTIEN
April 02, 2007 02:15am
Article from: The Advertiser
INJURED workers would save the financially troubled WorkCover $1 million if they went back to work just one day earlier.
And if five employees on benefits for more than three years returned to their jobs today, they would save another $1 million.
A WorkCover report prepared last November and released by the State Government last week does not specify over what period the savings would be made.
But in a frank assessment of its effectiveness, WorkCover has admitted there is "no direct, financial incentive" to influence injured workers to return to work.
An injured worker on average weekly earnings does not have the weekly benefit of $774 reduced until 12 months after the injury, when it drops to $637.
But WorkCover has revealed it wanted to cut the average weekly benefit by $35 immediately, reducing it to $739 - with a further $137 reduction after 13 weeks to $602.
It also wanted to reduce its generous maximum average weekly earnings figure of $1930 to encourage higher-paid workers to return to work early.
The WorkCover report reveals South Australian has the lowest return-to-work rate in Australia.
The number of injured still receiving workers' compensation benefits six months after their injury is more than double the national average - 46 per cent, compared with 20 per cent.
Twenty-eight per cent of those receiving benefits have been on compensation for more than three years and account for 45 per cent of the scheme's claims liability.
WorkCover's board fears its unfunded claims liability could blow out to $1 billion within months without drastic measures.
Industrial Relations Minister Michael Wright has declined to accept the board's recommendations pending a further public review by workers' compensation experts Alan Clayton and John Walsh, who have until November 30 to report back. Public Service Association general secretary Jan McMahon said yesterday her union would fight to ensure that workers' benefits were not cut.
SA Unions president Nick Thredgold pledged that he would "strive to ensure that any adjustments are not at the expense of injured workers".
Business SA president Rob Chapman criticised Mr Wright for delaying his decision, saying "we will have wasted another year" |
Posted by Reader at 7:11 AM, 2/4/2007 |
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Justice key to Compo Changes
Margaret Kelly (The Advertiser 30/4/07) wrote about the Legislative changes proposed by the WorkCover Board.
While Ms Kelly correctly interpreted several of the proposed changes, she failed to put them into their correct context, namely with consideration to the Board's recommendation to retain the provision that denies injured workers the right of redress using common law action.
While WorkCover has effectively trawled the legislation of other jurisdictions for minimum entitlements, it has ignored the fact that these lower entitlements are almost always offset by the right at common law.
There is no doubt WorkCover SA faces enormous challenges but unless it first accepts that the aetiology of the financial liability is found in management decisions and not the injured workers, any legislative change to deny workers their entitlements will only cause pain to those the Legislation was intended to support.
Phil Moir
Greenwith
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Posted by Anonymous at 8:38 PM, 2/5/2007 |
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MARGARET KELLY Covering all bases in compo review
The advertiser. Monday April 30th 2007
WORKCOVER is in the news again. The Minister for Industrial Relations, Michael Wright, has announced a review of the WorkCover Scheme, This review will consider proposals which, he says, will look to achieve a scheme that is fully funded, that is fair to workers, and enables the earliest possible return to work but also is affordable to business.
The most specific of the three objectives of the review is in respect of the average employer levy rate. The aim is to reduce this from 3 per cent to within a range of 2.25 per cent and 2.75 per cent by July 1, 2009. Neither of the other objectives are as specific, which tells me that that is the one that is most likely to occur. To reduce the average employer levy rate and to fully fund the scheme as soon as possible surely weakens the aim of fair financial support to injured workers.
The media release stated that the structure of the scheme administered by WorkCover had not been reassessed since its inception. However, Mr Wright, as minister, established the Stanley Review after the Labor Government came to power in 2002. The Stanley Review, conducted by the former president of the corkers Compensation Tribunal and the Industrial Court, Judge Brian Stanley, was delivered shortly before Christmas 2002 with the minister proposing to introduce legislative change in 2003.
Before that there were significant changes to the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act. Rights to common law claims were removed in 1992 and there was a major overhaul of dispute resolution in 1996.
We are now having another review. It remains to be seen what legislative changes will be made as a result. The proposals from the WorkCover Corporation, set out on the website of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, seem to have the primary aim of reducing the unfunded liability and reducing costs to employers.
Key to this are two measures. Firstly, the proposal to reduce initial income maintenance payments to injured workers by an immediate step-down in weekly payments to 95 per cent of average weekly earnings with a further step-down at 13 weeks to 75 per cent of average weekly earnings, to bring us more in line with interstate schemes, in particular, Victoria and Queensland. It is also proposed to cap the maximum average weekly earnings payable to $1190, to be indexed.
The other significant proposed change to weekly payments is for work capacity reviews to occur at the end of the second year after injury, to reflect the Victorian scheme. The assumption is that after two years there is no on-going entitlement to income maintenance unless a qualification can be established. The aim is to ensure early return to work, and report provides statistical evidence that the relative performance of South Australia in area of return to work is poor.
It is not all gloom and doom for injured workers. There are some increases proposed in the level of lump sum financial support to the seriously injured. Presumably this will be balanced by the application of a disability threshold similar to the Victorian scheme which must be achieved before any lump sum is payable. There is no proposal to reintroduce common law rights to claim negligence.
Changes are proposed to the dispute resolution system, including medical review panels to make final and binding decisions about medical questions.
I suspect that there will be legislative change as an outcome of this review because the level of the unfunded liability and the desire to reduce the employer levy rate makes the revision of the scheme an imperative. It is perhaps not a coincidence that the review was announced by the Industrial Relations Minister in company with the Treasurer.
Margaret Kelly Is president of the Law Society of South Australia.
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Posted by Reader at 10:02 PM, 2/5/2007 |
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Legislative changes proposed by the WorkCover Board.
The Advertiser "Editorial" 2/05/07
Margaret Kelly (The Advertiser 30/4/07) wrote about the Legislative changes proposed by the WorkCover Board.
While Ms Kelly correctly interpreted several of the proposed changes, she failed to put them into their correct context, namely with consideration to the Board's recommendation to retain the provision that denies injured workers the right of redress using common law action.
While WorkCover has effectively trawled the legislation of other jurisdictions for minimum entitlements, it has ignored the fact that these lower entitlements are almost always offset by the right at common law.
There is no doubt WorkCover SA faces enormous challenges but unless it first accepts that the aetiology of the financial liability is found in management decisions and not the injured workers, any legislative change to deny workers their entitlements will only cause pain to those the Legislation was intended to support.
Phil Moir
Greenwith
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Posted by Reader at 10:06 PM, 2/5/2007 |
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Compo revolt by employers business demands cuts
From the Advertiser page 1 Adelaide Tuesday May 15, 2007
Compo revolt by employers
Business demands cost cuts
EXCLUSIVE
PAUL STARICK
CHIEF REPORTER
EMPLOYERS today will launch a mass campaign to pressure the State Government to overhaul WorkCover, warning the nation's worst-performing compensation scheme is damaging the state economy.
In an unprecedented attack on state Labor, Business SA is urging more than 60,000 employers to lobby MPs until the scheme is changed to cut costs and return more injured workers to jobs.
Warning WorkCover's unfunded liability will reach $1 billion within six weeks, employers say a compo "culture... has built up over a long period of time" in South Australia.
Business SA is highly critical of the State Government's decision in March to shelve the WorkCover board's reform plans and, instead, call for another review.
We are calling for bold legislative change to South Australia's workers' compensation scheme, and this campaign will be ongoing until such legislative change is effected.
Business SA chairman Rob Chapman, also BankSA's managing director, today will release a 40-page report branding Work-Cover "the worst-performing of all the states" yet "the most expensive for businesses in the nation".
The report's recommendations include cutting off payments to injured workers after 104 weeks, based on their capacity to work, rather than continuing benefits until age 65.
"We are calling for bold legislative change to South Australia's workers' compensation scheme, and this campaign will be ongoing until such legislative change is effected," Mr Chapman will say at the launch of the report.
"We are calling for a fair compensation and rehabilitation scheme for injured workers, that facilitates a timely return to work and is affordable to the business community."
Other recommended changes include cutting compensation payments after 13 weeks to 75 per cent of pre-injury earnings, and cutting the maximum weekly benefit from 200 per cent to 125 per cent of the state's average weekly earnings.
These reflect the WorkCover board's recommendations to the Government last November, which included cutting weekly payments and capping entitlements to medical expenses.
But the Government is delaying change, with Industrial Relations Minister Michael Wright saying the WorkCover board's proposed "sweeping changes" would have "major social and economic impacts on the state".
"These proposals and others, such as those by Business SA, must be fully assessed and require extensive consultation with interested parties," he told The Advertiser yesterday.
Mr Wright cited support from WorkCover chairman Bruce Carter for the review, which Business SA
says means a new regime could not start before July next year.
Opposition Leader Martin Hamilton-Smith has accused Labor of "a cynical exercise to avoid the truth" by avoiding change during a federal election year.
Mr Hamilton-Smith said Labor's national senior vice-president, Premier Mike Rann, was resisting necessary cuts to worker ben-efits to avoid undermining federal Labor's industrial relations campaign.
He called for Mr Wright to resign immediately or be sacked, saying he had "watched impassively" for the past five years as WorkCover's unfunded liability climbed from $6million to nearly $1billion.
"This is another dis-graceful case of gross mismanagement by a Labor government reminiscent of their State Bank disaster of the 1990s," Mr Hamilton-Smith said. The Business SA report finds that WorkCover has the nation's highest rate of injured workers getting weekly payments (42per cent), AUSTRALIA'S
highest average cost per compensation claim ($12,069).
WORKERS getting the nation's highest number of days of paid compensation (64).
The nation's highest ratio of injured workers who do not
return to work in the first six months of their claim. The nation's highest cost to business, with an average three per cent levy. The Business SA report contains 14 recommendations to overhaul WorkCover, which has not had significant legislative change since 1986, despite radical changes to interstate schemes.
The report says the proposed changes would "allow for a net reduction in the amount of compensation paid" and "create, the necessary incentive for return to work". SA Unions secretary Janet Giles accused business of wanting to "punish workers who are injured by denying them rightful support". "It's bad enough that workers are injured in the first place, without compounding their grief by ripping off their compensation and framing them as the cause of problems instead of the victims," she said.
Business SA chief Peter Vaughan and SA Unions chief Janet Giles are WorkCover board members. |
Posted by Reader at 9:57 PM, 15/5/2007 |
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Government must act on WorkCover
Government must act on WorkCover.
The Advertiser editorial 15/05/2007
EMPLOYERS have run out of patience with the state's outdated workers compensation scheme.
Their dismay at State Government inaction is more than appropriate.
The scheme's unfunded liability is heading for the $1 billion mark - a deeply troubling figure that might be reached within six weeks.
Employers pay the nation's highest levies for a scheme that has Australia's worst results in getting injured workers back to work. WorkCover is broken and needs to be fixed.
Realising this, the WorkCover board last year decided to take action.
A report calling for a radical overhaul was presented to the Government in November. The board's proposed changes included cuts to workers' entitlements, such as reducing weekly income maintenance payments and capping entitlements to medical expenses.
The Government initially tried to bury its head in the sand, then dodged the issue.
Mike Rann...must fear the electoral consequences of changes to WorkCover.
In March, Industrial Relations Minister Michael Wright announced another review of the scheme.
Business SA, which is campaigning for swift and deep reforms, says this means change will not take effect until mid-2008.
It seems Premier Mike Rann doesn't want to offend either the unions or his Labor mates by making necessary changes to WorkCover in a federal election year.
These changes involve cutting entitlements to rein in the scheme's costs - obviously necessary when unfunded liabilities are soaring ever higher.
Yet Mr Rann must fear the electoral consequences of these obvious changes, when federal Labor's flawed industrial relations policy rests on improving worker - and union -entitlements.
WorkCover is an unsustainable scheme damaging the state's economy and tailing injured workers by encouraging a compo culture rather than helping people back into jobs. The necessary changes are obvious and long overdue.
The Government simply lacks the political courage to implement them.
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Posted by reader at 10:03 PM, 15/5/2007 |
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WorkCover lump-sum payout plea
CRAIG BILDSTIEN
May 25, 2007 02:15am
Article from: The Advertiser
WORKCOVER is being urged to offer more and higher lump-sum payouts to injured workers to cut ballooning claims liability.
An injured worker said he and hundreds of others have been "trapped" on weekly benefits for more than three years because of a "poor policy decision to stop paying reasonable redemptions".
WorkCover figures show the number of injured workers receiving compensation for more than three years has risen from 1126 in 1999 to 2765 in 2006.
The number of payouts removing injured workers from the scheme climbed back to 1435 last year from 496 in 2004, coinciding with WorkCover's decision to make Employers Mutual as its sole claims agent.
WorkCover in March revealed its unfunded liability had increased to $722.7 million, from $694 million in mid-2006, and warned the figure could hit $1 billion by next month. Injured workers, receiving weekly payments for more than three years, represent 28 per cent of all claims but account for 45 per cent of liability.
A claimant said many would readily take "fair and reasonable" lump-sum payouts but they were not on offer.
Opposition industrial relations spokesman Mitch Williams said "reasonable" payouts were the only way WorkCover could get long-term injured workers off its books.
Industrial Relations Minister Michael Wright has appointed independent experts Alan Clayton and John Walsh to conduct a second inquiry and report back by November 30.
A WorkCover spokeswoman said: "We are firmly of the view that WorkCover's financial position will only improve if the scheme achieves better return-to-work rates . . . without the use of redemption where capacity for work exists."
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Posted by Matt R. at 10:47 PM, 30/5/2007 |
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Why didn't Mr Bruce Carter resign?
Extract from the Advertiser Thurs May 31 2007.
Silence over Key Workcover query.
There were lots of questions about WorkCover's rapidly deteriorating financial position yesterday but not the one that's been bugging many observers. Industrial Relations Minister Michael Wright appointed a new, high-powered board in 2003 with riding instructions to fix its raft of problems. He installed high-profile liquidator Bruce Carter as chairman to head the rescue mission, along with eight other heavyweights including outspoken Business SA chief executive Peter Vaughan. Mr Carter has more than 25 years experience in corporate recovery and insolvency and has helped save Harris Scarfe, Balfours, the National Wine Centre and the Basketball Association of SA.
Last November, after an exhaustive review, Mr Carter handed the Government the board's remedy for winding back WorkCover's ballooning unfunded liability, high employer levies and improving its low retum-to-work rates.
Mr Wright sat on it until the end of March, when his response was to announce that he had commissioned yet another inquiry to review his own board's recommendations.
The question on everyone's lips in the business world is why didn't Mr Carter resign?
And now, given Business SA's strident criticisms of WorkCover in its pre-Budget submission, can the peak employer body continue to sanction Mr Vaughan staying on as a director?
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Posted by Posted by Looking for a new chairman at 12:47 PM, 31/5/2007 |
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Untitled Comment
SA jockeys covered by workers compensation from today
Friday, 01 June, 2007
Content provided to you by AAP.
ADELAIDE, June 1 AAP - South Australian jockeys are covered by workers compensation laws for the first time.
A law change takes effect from today ensuring jockeys are employed under a contract of service while undertaking horse riding activities, Racing Minister Michael Wright said today.
"Until now, jockeys in this state did not have access to workers compensation," Mr Wright said.
"The changes bring us in line with other states and ensure all jockeys in South Australia have access to compensation in the event of a work related injury."
Mr Wright said jockeys were now covered during training horses, at barrier trials and at race meetings.
© 2006 AAP | Disclaimer
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Posted by Anonymous at 5:57 PM, 1/6/2007 |
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Untitled Comment
Full Day Hansard Transcript (Legislative Assembly, 31 May 2007, Proof)
< H2>Proof
Extract from NSW Legislative Assembly Hansard and Papers Thursday, 31 May 2007 (Proof).
WORKPLACE SAFETY
The Hon. AMANDA FAZIO: My question is addressed to the Minister for Industrial Relations. Will the Minister inform the House about New South Wales efforts to ensure that employers are clear about their workplace safety responsibilities?
The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: I thank the Hon. Amanda Fazio for her question and acknowledge her ongoing interest in occupational health and safety matters.
The Commonwealth Government's recent legislative changes to allow national companies to bypass state workplace safety laws is a concerning development.
New South Wales has made considerable efforts to resolve the confusion created by the Commonwealth's unhelpful entry into this important area of responsibility. I wrote to the previous Commonwealth industrial relations Minister, Kevin Andrews, in December last year pointing out that a safety gap was emerging created by holes in the Commonwealth legislation. I have received no reply. I wrote to the Minister's successor, Joe Hockey, in January this year and again in February.
New South Wales has outlined simple and commonsense workplace scenarios that expose the inadequacy of the Commonwealth's new laws, including situations where workers are not covered by any safety laws at all. I have yet to receive a satisfactory reply that addresses the practical problems now faced by employers and employees. Commonwealth officials have been advising employers that, first, the Commonwealth will not have exclusive jurisdiction over the entire site of a national self-insurer; second, the Commonwealth has no power either to advise or to enforce in respect of subcontractors and their employees on a site controlled by a national self-insurer; third, subcontractors and their employees remain covered by New South Wales law; and, fourth, in spite of this, New South Wales WorkCover inspectors have no legal power to enter a workplace controlled by a national self-insurer. That means that a significant category of employees will not be covered by any safety compliance laws given the Commonwealth's bloody-minded attitude to this problem.
New South Wales of course rejects this advice and the approach suggested. It would lock out state workplace safety inspectors or require them to gain consent from the controller of the premises. This clearly undermines the requirement of the Council of Australian Governments that there be no reduction in safety standards in the course of harmonisation. The impact of the Commonwealth's advice to employers is to leave some New South Wales workers, particularly subcontractors and their employees, unprotected by any workplace safety laws.
The Commonwealth has so far ignored the problems. I have written again to the Commonwealth Minister requesting that a meeting of the Workplace Relations Ministers Council be held prior to the end of June. It has been eight months since the council last met in September 2006, and there are important workplace issues to be resolved—not the least of which is the resolution of the Australian Safety and Compensation Council that Ministers meet, consider and endorse its business plan for the next financial year. The Commonwealth Minister was quoted in the Australian Financial Review as saying that that is "unnecessary", despite his own council asking Ministers to do so.
The Commonwealth Government consistently refuses to work with the states, preferring an arrogant and bullying approach despite evidence that this does not work. The Workplace Relations Ministers Council has met on more than 70 occasions over the past century, as governments dealt cooperatively with Australia's shared industrial relations powers. The Howard Government, however, cancelled, rescheduled and avoided meetings for a year and a half while it devised in secret its failed WorkChoices laws—laws that are now accepted as being so bad that the Commonwealth refuses even to speak their name. They are a bit like the character out of the Harry Potter books. Now much modified, WorkChoices remains unbalanced, unfair and unacceptable to the majority of Australians. Yet Joe Hockey is pursuing the same blind, arrogant approach to workplace safety, leading to more extremist laws that do not work. I await the Commonwealth's reply to my request for genuine dialogue on this very important issue.
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Posted by Anonymous at 6:00 PM, 1/6/2007 |
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Unfair compo scheme isn't working
Michael Duffy
September 23, 2006
IN THE workers' compensation scheme for NSW, the rule of law is not operating properly. There is not adequate predictability, consistency or protection from the decisions of government.
Several hundred of the biggest employers are outside the scheme because they insure themselves. Those companies left are being preyed upon by WorkCover, the State Government agency responsible for the scheme. Small businesses have no realistic avenue of appeal against the decisions of WorkCover and the insurance companies, which to many of those affected appear arbitrary.
The biggest issue is how a business decides whether a self-employed worker is an employee or a contractor. This matters because if a worker is defined as an employee, the employer has to pay workers' compensation premiums for them, which can be considerable: for example, in the case of bricklayers it adds 12.5 per cent to the wages bill.
In 2003 the Government changed the definition on which this distinction is based. There was a big increase in the number of audits to check that employers were defining enough workers as employees (and therefore paying insurance premiums for them). Audit numbers rose from 2300 in 2001-02 to 20,000 in 2005-06.
Audits are arranged by the insurance companies that operate the scheme according to policy determined by WorkCover, which says that in 2005-06 audits identified $51 million in underpaid premiums.
They also identified $18 million in overpaid premiums, which was refunded to employers. This is nice, but it's further evidence of the genuine confusion that surrounds the question of definition.
David and June Gibson ran a bricklaying business in Narara on the Central Coast. Before the change they'd had several audits, which had found they were doing the right thing. In 2004 they had an audit which looked at the seven years to 2003 and decided they'd been incorrectly defining some workers as independent contractors rather than employees. All of a sudden, they were up for back payment of extra premiums plus a hefty late payment fee. The bill was $52,000 and they were given 28 days to pay.
The Gibsons appealed to WorkCover. Because they refused to pay the money while the appeal was going on, they were denied a "certificate of currency" from their insurer, which they needed to get work. They have had to close their company.
Distinctions made between employees and contractors can be inconsistent. The Gibsons are aware of cases where the same self-employed men have been defined as employees in the audit of one employer and independent contractors in an audit of another.
WorkCover appears to have too much discretion. The Gibsons say that as their protests mounted, in conversations with WorkCover officials they were offered reduced bills of $20,000 and then $10,000, which they refused to accept. They were given no explanation of why the amount had come down.
WorkCover declined to comment on the case because it is unresolved.
Bob Lalor also lives on the Central Coast, where he runs a road transport business. After being audited, he was hit with a bill for $38,000. He paid $7500 in legal fees to protest to the insurer, and the bill was withdrawn. He says he wasn't told why the decision was reversed, or whether he should now change his payment procedures.
In late 2004 June Gibson printed some flyers advertising an anti-WorkCover protest meeting and handed them out at local pubs where subcontractors socialise. She hired a room for 40 people at Gosford RSL. On the night, lots of people poured in. "I thought they were there for the chook raffle," she says. In the end they had more than 100 people, and went on to form the Small Business Reform Group (www.sbrg.net). It has 300 members, and June says she gets calls from other people seeking advice every day.
Warwick Ryan, a partner at Central Coast Business Lawyers, thinks definitional uncertainty suits WorkCover, as small businesses lack the resources or knowledge to challenge findings. The appeal process is woeful. The first appeal has to be to WorkCover itself. This involves a conflict of interest, because the agency is responsible for the financial health of the state's bloated workers' compensation system. (As an indicator, Ryan points out that workers' compensation premiums in construction are only half as much in Queensland as in NSW.) The next level of appeal is not the relatively cheap Administrative Decisions Tribunal (used, for instance, in appeals involving payroll tax) but the Supreme Court. The outcome is uncertain, and a losing appeal costs more than $100,000.
Gary Brack, the head of the industry association Employers First, says employers are being "denied natural justice due to the high level of unpredictability and uncertainty".
The politics of this are tough. The Government wants to encourage small business, which likes independent contractors, but the unions are keen to define as many workers as possible as employees and therefore potential union members. The Commerce Minister, John Della Bosca, established a panel to come up with a better way of telling the difference between the two types of worker. The panel had representatives from employers and unions, and was unable to agree.
WorkCover is introducing a number of changes that could help the thousands of employers caught in this quagmire, such as an online questionnaire that will provide non-binding advice on how to define individual workers. But for many small businesses in recent years, the system has been a deeply unfair disaster. |
Posted by Michale Duffy at 10:40 PM, 2/6/2007 |
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Spate of work place injuries
SA: Spate of worker injuries raises concerns
Friday, 08 June, 2007
Content provided to you by AAP.
ADELAIDE, June 8 AAP - Workplace officials say a spate of industrial accidents in South Australia in recent days should serve as a wake-up call for employers.
Five people were injured in workplace mishaps in the past week, prompting SafeWork SA executive director Michele Patterson to call on all workplaces to increase safety checks.
Among the incidents, a 17-year-old labourer was struck by an excavator in the Barossa Valley, a sub-contractor was seriously injured in a 10-metre fall on an Adelaide demolition site, two men were injured in suburban West Croydon when paint and thinner vapours ignited, and a 19-year-old man caught his hand in a dough machine at a bakery in the Riverland.
Ms Patterson said it was particularly worrying that all the incidents were avoidable.
"Workplace safety isn't a luxury when time allows," she said.
"It must be front and centre when planning any day's work and we remind employers of their legal obligations to ensure the safety of their workers, clients and the general public."
Ms Patterson said the incidents of the past week were still under investigation, so she could not comment on specifics.
But she urged all employers and their staff to revisit and update their safety plans.
"Just because a safety incident hasn't happened at a workplace, that doesn't mean it will never happen," Ms Patterson said.
"Often we have had to prosecute employers with otherwise good safety records because they allowed complacency to dominate their attitude to workplace safety with tragic results."
© 2006 AAP | Disclaimer
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Posted by Anonymous at 5:07 PM, 8/6/2007 |
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Wake-up to workplace safety
From The independent Weekly News
Workplace officials say a spate of industrial accidents in South Australia in recent days should serve as a wake-up call for employers. Five people were injured in workplace mishaps in the past week, prompting SafeWork SA executive director Michele Patterson to call on all workplaces to increase safety checks. Among the incidents, a 17-year-old labourer was struck by an excavator in the Barossa Valley, a sub-contractor was seriously injured in a 10-metre fall on a demolition site and a 19-year-old man caught his hand in a dough machine at a bakery. Patterson said all the incidents were avoidable. "Workplace safety isn't a luxury when time allows," she said. "It must be front and centre when planning any day's work and we remind employers of their legal obligations to ensure the safety of their workers, clients and the general public."--AAP
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Posted by Reader at 11:04 PM, 8/6/2007 |
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Untitled Comment
| http://www.gazette.vic.gov.au/Gazettes2007/GG2007P001.pdf |
Posted by Anonymous at 3:14 PM, 14/6/2007 |
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Sounds familiar EML/WorkCover
By Jade Bilowol
June 14, 2007 01:04pm
WORKPLACE psychopaths are common in major businesses and are ruining the lives of their colleagues, an expert has warned.
And they are often rewarded for their ruthless behaviour because they appear smart and creative but are really manipulative bullies who steal ideas, according to Sydney-based psychotherapist and author John Clarke.
Dr Clarke, who has penned two books about workplace psychopaths and will speak at the state government-sponsored Queensland Safety Show in Brisbane next week, today said up to three per cent of the Australian population was psychopathic.
"I would say that in every major company there would be at least one," Dr Clarke said.
"Psychopaths are very comfortable in successful corporations because they are actually rewarded for their behaviour.
"In business you are encouraged to make money for the company and if you appear to be doing whatever it takes to make money, you are often promoted.
"They are seen as rising employees who are full of energy and creativity."
But behind the facade, such workers were "ego-centric, grandiose, pathological liars with a lack of conscience, remorse and guilt", Dr Clarke said.
"I think the workplace psychopath is actually more dangerous than the violent criminal psychopath, because the workplace psycho is smart, charismatic, charming and much less likely to get caught," he said.
Dr Clarke said victims were miserable, suffered depression, anxiety and panic attacks and feared going to work.
"Psychopaths isolate their victims through cutting them out of the lines of communication and then destroy them," he said.
"I know of several situations where employees have committed suicide because these people felt there was no other alternative.
"You are at work, you think about it, then you go home and think about it and question if it's something to do with you.
"You think about all the different scenarios until work is all you think about and at this stage it's destroying your life."
Dr Clarke said employees could protect themselves through education, communication or ultimately leaving their workplace.
"If you know what they do, you are less likely to be sucked in and communication in the workplace makes you feel less isolated," he said.
"But you need to evaluate your situation and, if you can't change it, you need to evaluate the costs for your mental health versus finding a new position elsewhere."
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Posted by Reader at 10:30 AM, 15/6/2007 |
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" WorkCover is a mess "
Unions attack WorkCover
Article from: The Advertiser
MICHAEL OWEN, POLITICAL REPORTER
June 15, 2007 01:30pm
UNIONS have accused the WorkCover Corporation and Business SA of "mischievously misrepresenting" WorkCover's financial situation to try and cut workers' entitlements.
SA Unions today released a discussion paper it commissioned by UniSA workers' compensation expert Kevin Purse.
Dr Purse this morning criticised the management of the WorkCover Corporation and said an overhaul of the executive and the board was an option the Government should consider.
"The management approach is fundamentally flawed," he told reporters.
"We need to set that right and if that doesn't occur, the prospects of the scheme aren't particularly great."
But he stopped short of attacking Industrial Relations Minister Michael Wright, saying the executive and the board of WorkCover had to shoulder most of the blame for its problems.
"They're the ones charged with the responsibility for the management of the scheme," he said.
"What the Government should be doing is stepping in and saying `you need to return to core business"'.
The discussion paper is a "precursor" to the State Government's WorkCover inquiry, SA Unions president Nick Thredgold said.
"Dr Purse has examined WorkCover without fear or favour and cut through the hysteria and misinformation generated by self-interested parties such as Business SA," he said.
As reported by The Advertiser last month, Business SA is urging more than 60,000 employers to lobby MPs until the scheme is changed to cut costs and return more injured workers to jobs.
Mr Thredgold said among key points of the discussion paper were:
DEBATE about WorkCover's financial situation has been distorted by a simplistic preoccupation with the scheme's unfunded liability.
WORKCOVER'S "excellent" investment performance has been ignored, which means its liabilities have been seriously overstated.
A MORE accurate and statistically robust assessment of performance would reduce the scheme's unfunded liability by $300 million.
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