Browsing: Injury prevention | Page 155

Chemicals that are hazardous to employees' reproductive health are common in workplaces, but a lack of awareness on individual and organisational levels means people continue to be exposed to them, an occupational health researcher says.

• SWA reforms enable international collaboration;
  
• Qld promotes new Wiring Rules and issues fatality alert; and
  
• Anti-violence Bill defeated in Tas, but PTSD laws flagged.

CEOs are being urged to invest heavily in employee mental wellbeing, after a "world-first" psychological safety survey found that many workers believe their mistakes are "held against" them.

Mining operations will be blocked or shut down if their "dust abatement" plans are inadequate or they have poor dust-monitoring records, under recommendations from a damning inquiry into the "re-identification" of black lung disease.

White-collar workers with chronic lower back pain sit more asymmetrically than their healthy colleagues, but this asymmetry is significantly reduced when they assume "neutral" sitting postures, researchers have found.

An OHS regulator has agreed, in a settlement with manufacturers, to remove the word "required" from its policy on operator protective devices for quad bikes, but says this won't "hinder" its powers of enforcement.

• Inquiry demands better safety and flexibility for older workers;
  
• Employers urged to make online "safety promise", and act on it; and
  
• Two in three respondents want workplace health programs.

Queensland has committed to introducing the new WHS offence of "negligence causing death" based on an interim recommendation from an ongoing audit. It has also passed laws removing the overlap between WHS and dam safety regulations.

Workers who perform tasks requiring them to elevate their arms beyond 90 degrees are significantly more likely to undergo surgery for subacromial impingement syndrome (SIS), European researchers have found.

Workers exposed to hot and humid conditions should be tested for dehydration and permitted to take regular rest breaks, a regulator has advised after a machine operator lost consciousness and died.