Three major employers have claimed, in their latest performance reports, that they have improved health and safety by inviting contractors and customers on safety walks, restructuring OHS systems, and offering health and wellbeing initiatives, such as skin screening.
Rio Tinto's safety performance in 2013 was "disappointing", its latest sustainability report shows, but the global mining and metals company explains how one site transformed its safety performance, and what it's doing to reduce exposure to noise.
Fines for halting construction work for "dubious" safety reasons could increase, while foreign firms could be granted provisional accreditation to bypass the FSC's "onerous" safety requirements, under recommendations contained in a new Productivity Commission report.
Workers who spend most of their working hours sitting down aren't compensating for this by increasing their physical activity during non-work hours, increasing the risk of their work performance being impaired, UK researchers say.
An effective return-to-work process hinges on cooperation between injured workers' GPs and employer-appointed occupational physicians (OPs), but do the former doctors trust the latter?
The link between obesity and work absences is well established, but a German study has found lost-productivity costs associated with obesity are "formidable", with obese employees taking 88 per cent more sick days than "normal-weight" workers.
Employers are being urged to look beyond "soft" risk management barriers to prevent the interaction of light vehicles and heavy machinery at worksites, after a mine worker's ute was crushed by a 100-tonne dozer.