Browsing: Health and mental wellbeing | Page 175

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.

Most flu victims are putting their workmates at risk; and Safety alerts issued after three deaths and other incidents.

"Explicit" OHS commitment needed for Government tenders; Workplace cultures improved with suicide-prevention strategies; and Q-COMP and WorkSafe ACT awards open today.

Global hazardous chemicals system takes effect under model laws; Queensland employer fined for maintenance failure after death; Free Tasmanian service to boost worker health and productivity; and Western Australia's veteran Mines Minister announces retirement.

In an important decision, Fair Work Australia has questioned whether it was "really the intention" of a RailCorp enterprise agreement to compensate a worker for a 13-hour medical examination - which he slept through.