Workplace Health and Safety in Australia - Coursework Example

WORKPLACE HEALTH AND SAFETY (Student name) (Instructor) (Course No) (Date) Introduction Occupational Health and Safety is a subject that is debated in several countries due to the increasingly important need to keep the employees safe in the working environments. The lack of safe working places for the employees can result in various financial and emotional problems to the affected employees as well as the organizations. Consequently, governments in most parts of the world have developed guidelines and regulations to ensure that workers are safe in the workplaces. This is especially due to the need to establish safe working places to reduce accidents and deaths that have occurred in the past (Freehills, 2011, p. 12). In Australia, the workplace requirements, as well as the guidelines that work within such places, are found within the Workplace Health and Safety Laws. The South Australian WHS laws require the people within the workplace environment to consult and participate in the management of the work place risk to ensure the health and safety of the employees and other people within the working environment. The WHS law comprises; the Work Health and Safety Act 2012 and the Work Health and Safety Regulations 2012. These are supported by the codes of practice that provide guidelines for the achievement of the set standards for health and safety within the working environments. The SafeWork SA is the regulator of the WHS laws in Australia. Originally in Australia, the health and safety of the workers was guided by the Occupational Health, Safety and Welfare Act 1986 and the Occupational Health, Safety and Regulations 2010. However, these provisions had various shortcomings, and in 2012, a new set of regulations called the Work, Health, and Safety laws were introduced and took effect in January 2013. The new Australian occupational health and safety legislation is important since it provides improved certainty, consistency and clarity across Australia, making it possible for the employees to understand the occupational health and safety duties. The Legal Framework The legal framework comprises the set of rules, regulations and the actors integral to the management of a given resource. One of the important compositions of the WHS is the Work, Health and Safety Act 2012, which ensures compliance with the required standards of health and safety. The main functions of the Work, Health and Safety Act 2012 are; protection of workers and other people involved from workplace health and safety problems through the reduction of workplace risks, encouraging the employee groups and employer institutions to take the necessary steps to improve workplace health and safety as well as the provision of effective workplace consultation and representation. Apart from the Act, the WHS law comprises the WHS regulations 2012 with the aim of promoting self-regulation and encouraging performance (Government of South Australia, 2012). The regulations provide detailed requirements for supporting the duties outlined in the WHS act. The regulations provide detailed information on issues such as the representation of workers, general risks and workplace, hazardous work, plant and structures, construction work and asbestos. Additionally, the WHS law comprises the codes of practice that encourage innovation. The codes of practice are the guides that help in the achievement of the required standards of health and safety outlined in the WHS act and WHS regulations 2012. The codes of practice are developed by Safe Work Australia as part of the WHS laws. The codes of conduct are based on the existing jurisdictions and are informed by public comments. There is the need for the codes of conduct to be approved within a particular jurisdiction to have effect in that jurisdiction. The other component of the WHS body of laws is the guides. Developed by Safe Work Australia, the guides help in the provision of information on the work, health and safety act and regulations thus help in ensuring compliance. The guides are published in the A-Z guidance material and help in ensuring that the requirements of the WHS act and regulations strictly adhere to (Small print Australia, 2014, p. 37). Other obligations of the WHS are retrieved from the privacy law, fair work act and the industrial awards and agreement laws. Work, Health and Safety Duties. The work, health and safety duties form an important part of the WHS law because it outlines the roles of key players in ensuring that high standards of health and safety are achieved within the working environments. Initially, the primary focus on the delivery of the WHS laws rested on the employers. However, following the increased changes in the work environment, the focus has shifted from employment to businesses as well as the employees. The most important duty bearers in the WHS legislation are the persons conducting businesses or undertakings (PCBU). Businesses are considered as firms that are run with the aim of making profits and have a certain level of organization, system, and continuity. Conversely, undertakings are described as firms that may have some level of organization but are not driven by the need to make profits. The persons conducting businesses or undertakings according to the WHS Act can be manufacturers, importers, suppliers, plant designers and installers (Dollard et al., 2014, p.39). The duties of the persons conducting businesses and undertakings as provided by the Act include; ensuring that the workers are engaged and can effectively deliver as per the scope of work, provide and retain a safe working environment that is free from health and safety risks, provide and maintain safe working systems as well as structures, provide information, training and supervision of work place safety requirements, provision of adequate facilities for the health and safety of workers while at work and ensuring that the health and safety of the workers are periodically monitored to reduce chances of health problems and injuries to the workers (Australian Capital Territory, 2016, p. 10-27). Another set of people who are important in ensuring workplace safety are the employees or workers of a firm or organization. The WHS Act describes a worker as a person who carries out work in any capacity for a person conducting a business or an undertaking. These include; trainees, employees, out workers, contractors, volunteers, and subcontractors. The duties of the workers provided in the act are; taking care of their health and safety, ensuring that their actions do not affect the health and safety of other workers, complying with reasonable instructions given by the employers and complying with the policies and procedures that promote work place health and safety. Apart from the workers and the persons conducting businesses and undertakings, the other WHS duty bearers are the officers. Among the duties of the officers are; ensuring that the PCBUs comply with the obligations provided by the Act, acquire and update the knowledge of work health and safety matters within the workplace, gain an understanding of the nature of work within an organization as well as the risks associated with such operations and ensuring that the persons conducting businesses or undertakings have suitable channels for receiving and communicating information on risks and timely reporting to reduce chances of sickness and injury in the workplace (Foster, 2016, p. 35). Role of Safe Work Australia Safe Work Australia is the Australian regulatory body for the WHS laws. Established under the Safe Work Australia Act 2008, the main role of the agency is the development of policies to improve the health and safety as well as the workers’ compensation across Australia. Its operations as an independent Australian Government statutory agency began in 2009 and is jointly funded by the commonwealth, state and territory governments (Ruschena, Travers and Borthwick, 2014, p. 10-33). Moreover, the agency operates under the corporate plan, and the operational plan agreed on by the Select Council on Workplace Relations on an yearly basis. Safe Work Australia performs a number of functions to ensure that both individuals and organization comply with the guidelines for ensuring workplace health and safety. One such action is the setting of strategic enforcement priorities. Safe Work Australia sets strategic priorities for their compliance activities that are regulated both nationally and locally. This guarantees a consistency in the regulation of workplace health and safety practices and that emerging national concerns are well addressed. Another way through which Safe Work Australia ensures compliance is through monitoring of the activities of organizations. The monitoring of compliance with the work health and safety standards and laws is done through auditing and carrying out inspections. The agency deploys inspectors in the workplaces to conduct inspections and audits and determine the level of compliance to the WHS laws in such places. Through thee, the agency is able to identify the cases on non -compliance and prosecute the offenders according to the requirements of the law. Furthermore, Safe Work Australia attempts to ensure compliance with the WHS laws by facilitating education and training on matters pertaining to workplace health and safety. Ensuring education and training of the people in the workplace is important as it helps all the duty bearers to know their roles as provided in the WHS Act 2012 and the consequences of breaching such legislations. Consequently, all the workers will strive to work within the set guidelines hence compliance. Conclusion With regards to the above discussion, it is evident that the obligations regarding occupational health and safety in Australia are provided by the Work, Health and Safety laws. As part of promoting organizational image, it is important for the management of organizations to ensure strict adherence to these rules both by the employers and the workers within the organizations to reduce chances of workplace injuries and deaths. References Australian Capital Territory. (2016). Work, Health and Safety Act 2012. The ACT Parliamentary Counsel, p. 10-27. Dollard, M. F., Shimazu, A., Bin Nordin, R., Brough, P., & Tuckey, M. R. (2014). Psychosocial Factors at Work in the Asia Pacific. Dordrecht Springer. Netherlands, p. 39. Foster, N. (2016). Workplace health and safety law in Australia, 2nd edition. LexisNexis Butterworths, p. 35. Freehills. (2011). Planning work health and safety. North Ryde, N.S.W., CCH Australia, p. 17. Government of South Australia (2012).Work, Health and Safety Regulations 2012. Safe Work Australia p. 4-21. Ruschena, L., Travers, M., & Borthwick, K. (2014). WHS. Melbourne, Cengage Learning Australia, p. 10-33. Safe Work Australia (2012). Australian Work Health and Safety Strategy 2012-2022: Healthy, Safe and Productive Working Lives. Safe Work Publishers, Australia, p. 3-45. Small print Australia. (2014). HLTWHS300A Contribute to WHS processes. Australia Small print, p. 37. Read More