A major review of studies covering more than 270,000 police personnel, including from Australia, has found police are at greater risk of poor mental health and risky drinking than previously thought, highlighting the importance of stigma-reduction strategies and continuous rather than reactive "psychoeducation".
Workplace policies and programs that drive home the broad safety repercussions of turning up to work with a hangover, and impaired coordination, are far more likely to reduce risky drinking behaviours than warnings on the impact of alcohol on individuals' health, a study of NSW workers suggests.
A Fair Work Commission full bench has stressed that employers must communicate changes to their drug and alcohol policies, including through training and timely warnings, in upholding the reinstatement of a safety-critical worker who tested positive for cannabis.
A regulator has been blocked from re-opening a case, recently dismissed by the High Court, against a worker who was awarded lump sum payments for injuries caused by opioid medication.
A worker sacked for misusing pain medication has been given another chance to overturn his dismissal, after arguing it was wrong to presume his employer did not need to take a rehabilitative approach to his case in the absence of an admission of guilt by him.
Employers have been urged to consider workplace interventions to improve the health of workers with prescription opioid use disorder, who require significantly more sick leave than those with other types of injuries and illnesses.
A worker has unsuccessfully argued that his injury from an intoxicated fall was work-related because he was self-medicating with alcohol to cope with pain from earlier work injuries.
A lack of consultation and the absence of pressing safety needs have blocked a national transport company's decision to change its blood alcohol limit for certain drivers from the same as general law to zero.
Employers have a legal duty to identify and manage reasonably foreseeable workplace psychological hazards, and protect workers from unsafely high work demands and bullying, a SafeWork NSW director told a forum on mental health in the legal industry today.
Exclusion sanctions imposed on businesses that commit WHS breaches could be extended under a Federal Government plan to improve the safety and efficiency of the building industry.
