Repeat OHS offender in Queensland fined $120k after two more incidents; WorkCover NSW investigating industrial estate death; Comcare leads by example with workplace move; and New Western Australian Resources Safety boss appointed.
Employers have been advised to educate shift workers on cardiovascular problems to stop early manifestations of disease, after a Canadian study of more than two million people found shift work is linked to heart attacks and strokes.
"Funky" initiatives involving yoga and herbal tea have been a key part of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's successful health and wellbeing program.
Shift work and obesity have been linked to low back pain (LBP), which increases absence rates and costs the Australian economy $9 billion a year in direct and indirect costs, an Australian study has found.
A spate of work-related suicides and rising stress rates have prompted the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and other international bodies, to call on employers to continue investing heavily in OHS, for both ethical and economic reasons.
Employers can combat workplace stress by implementing a three-tiered stress-intervention strategy, according to senior Canadian organisational psychologist, Dr Kevin Kelloway.
Workplace "wellbeing" programs could be more tightly controlled, and industrial-manslaughter provisions added to the Work Health and Safety Act, under initiatives flagged in a draft ACTU policy paper.