Introduction
Health and safety of the employers deserve the right to belong to the top list of priorities that employers should always consider in hiring new employees, and in retaining old, regular ones. One of the main problems with this is the fact that despite its importance, a lot of employers, even seasoned human resource managers, tend to overlook this aspect of employee management. There are several acts or laws that provide protection for workers even if they are at work, doing their job. Two Acts that center on provisions related to Occupational Health and Safety, particularly the New South Wales Occupational Health and Safety Act of 2000, and the Work, Health and Safety Act of 2011 will be discussed, and compared and contrasted.
NSW Occupational Health and Safety Act of 2000
“An Act to secure the health, safety, and welfare of persons at work; to repeal the Occupational Health and Safety Act of 1983; and for other purposes” .
The NSW Occupational Health and Safety Act of 2000 is a bill that was first agreed upon and ratified on the 2nd of June, year 2000. The processing for this case was quite fast, at least when we try to compare it to the average time it takes for other bills to make their way to the senate and to finally be approved and recognized as a law. As the name implies, the NSW Occupational Health and Safety Act of 2000 is an amendment to a previous act, which was the Occupational Health and Safety Act of 1983.
Many people did not like how the latter turned out to be not so helpful for people and at the same time, policymakers noticed some dramatic changes with the way how human resources are being managed and how they become exposed to a multitude of environmental as well as occupational threats from time to time. And so, it has finally been decided to repeal the old act and replace it with a new one, ideally with something that would be more applicable to the typical working environment in the 21st century. Although this bill was ratified in 2000, its commencement and enforcement in New South Wales did not start until midway in 2001. This, however, is a normal legislation process.
One of the biggest changes that took place when this new bill was officially placed in list of policies that will govern the country, particularly those who have jobs that possess a certain level of risk (e.g. an individual who works as a miner in an asbestos extraction and refining site or a nurse that works in the hospital where a lot of communicable diseases such as flu and tuberculosis could easily spread, etc.), is the inclusion of new provisions that requires employers to take the matter regarding their employees’ health, welfare, and safety a lot more seriously . The details regarding this matter have been made more specific; something that the previous occupational health and safety act failed to cover. And so as a result the 1983 version of this act was concluded to have been filled with bugs or loopholes. A lot of employers could still get away with not providing the type of care that their employees need in terms of health and welfare—two things that usually get compromised during long working hours or in simple manners of working with health hazardous materials. Under this new and revamped version of the 1983 act, a more specific set of guidelines have been provided so that everyone may have something to refer to during local and national court proceedings—for more serious cases that affect a larger scale of employee population or issues that require not only legal but also public attention.
Compared to other acts passed that are also related to occupational health and safety, this act requires various ministries or state departments to work together in arriving at arbitrary decisions and guidelines that both employees and their employers most especially, should adhere to. Over the years that the NSW OHS Act of 2000 has been implemented, a lot of standards and new good habits when it comes to the management and addressing of issues related to OHS has been set, which I believe are nothing but good things. The approval of the codes of practice of every provision indicated in the Act for example, is the responsibility of the Minister for finances and services; all sections of the Act that are related to mining workplace and occupational issues such as in the asbestos mining fields that we used as an example a while ago, and in coal fields, both of which pose occupational health hazards and even threats to whoever works there. These are so far the biggest changes that I believe would cause the greatest impact in the field of occupational health and safety, at least greater than the impact that the 1983 version of this act caused. But then again, in the case of NSW OHS Act of 2000, much can still be improved.
Work, Health and Safety Act of 2011
The Work, Health and Safety Act of 2011, is an act that relates to work health and safety and for other related purposes . This is by far the most current and recent amendment to the Acts in Australia that govern occupational health and safety. Despite the huge improvements that the NSW Occupational Health and Safety Act of 2000 caused in terms of employee management and standardization of employment policies, we cannot deny that much has been changed in the past 10 years and so to make the provisions in the already a decade old OHS Act of 2000 still applicable and of course, useful, today, revisions have to be done in a way that all who face health and other hazards at work would benefit and be assured of their rights.
One of the biggest changes that took place in this most recent amendment to the OHS Act of 2000 is the clear demarcation of what practices are reasonable and what are not. The Section 19 of the Act under the heading Primary Duty of Care states that “a person conducting a business or undertaking must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers engaged, or caused to be engaged by the person, and workers whose activities in carrying out work are influenced or directed by the person, while workers are at work in the business or undertaking.” This section may be too general but it is relatively one of the strongest points of the Act that can also serve as an assurance to the employees that their employers are obliged to take care of their occupational-health related concerns as stated by the law and that they have the rights to press on this claim. This is not an entire change because this provision is the soul of all Occupational Health and Safety laws, even the most outdated ones. It is just that every year or decade if you will, the working or occupational environment of workers across various industries and fields change and every time their working environment experience new changes, new threats, particularly on their health arise. One of the best and proven ways how the government can handle these issues is through the enactment of laws like the WHS Act of 2011.
Potential Problems that Could Arise
It has been two years since the Workplace Health and Safety Act of 2011 has been implemented. In the same manner, the world is still going through a lot of changes, economically, and practically in every way, which is thanks to globalization and the unlimited and unimpeded flow of information from one point to another, which clearly has not been very possible before . Working environments and thus occupational threats evolve at an equally fast pace and so it would only be logical for the advantages of the WHS Act of 2011 to wear out and for some of its provisions to become inapplicable to the employees of the future. In that case, it would not offer the kind of rights and protection that it currently offers the employees and employers of today. I believe the matter of outdated-ness is really the main problem here. Fortunately, this can be easily addressed by conducting regular review of the Act, focusing on issues like whether it still proves to be useful and applicable to the common occupational scenarios of the current era or otherwise.
Also, the fact that not all employees tend to receive the same treatment when it comes to the honoring of their rights as stipulated in the various amendments to the occupational health and safety acts since it was first ratified, should be considered. All details in the latest revisions to the case should be equally enforced among all Australian employees. The Act should have teeth. Employers who violate the law should be reprimanded and penalized according to the provisions of the Work Health and Safety Act of 2011. Otherwise, no matter how many revisions and amendments authorities may do to improve the current Act, the law would still be useless, and the entire purpose of the act would be defeated. In summary, the Act should be religiously and regularly updated so that it would fit the changes in the workers’ occupational environment since the year it was last amended and the act should have teeth; that is, all employers and employees should adhere to the provisions and standards set by it. Policy makers make it a point that this act should not be just a guideline but more of a regulatory or a set of standards that every stakeholders are obliged to follow.
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