CSIRO is a big organisation with a large national footprint and staff often encounter a wide range of complex health and safety issues across diverse workplace settings.
Recently, Staff Association organisers have been busy working with union delegates and Health and Safety Representatives to ensure safety concerns are heard and management is held accountable to keep CSIRO people safe.
Australian legislation provides for an independent and democratic staff voice on workplace health and safety issues through role of Health and Safety Representatives (HSRs).
HSRs independently represent their local Designated Work Group with the health and safety concerns and interests of their colleagues. The role facilitates workplace communication and consultation and provides a crucial link between employers and employees.
Workplace laws allow for HSRs to be trained so they can effectively fulfil their role and properly invoke their legal powers to represent employees and enforce employer compliance with health and safety standards and regulations.
Recently, HSRs have been working with union delegates and organisers to ensure staff safety in Darwin, Geelong and Western Australia.
In the process of refurbishment and laboratory relocation works at CSIRO’s Darwin site, staff raised a range of health and safety concerns with their local, independent Health and Safety representative.
These concerns included a lack of consultation, unplanned packing and movement of laboratory materials, asbestos management, specimen damage risks, and heightened psychosocial hazards for staff already experiencing organisational change resulting in potential redundancy.
With assistance from the Staff Association, these concerns were raised with CSIRO via email, Donesafe reporting, and direct engagement with site leadership, CBIS and HSE; which included a request to pause construction work until legally enforceable consultation obligations were met.
As a result, federal workplace safety regulator Comcare attended the site to review concerns and ensure compliance obligations with the building refurbishment are met.
Located within Geelong’s Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness (ACDP), the Small Animal Facilities (SAF) team have been dealing with several psychosocial hazards in the workplace for the better part of twelve months.
Backed up by Staff Association workplace delegates, local HSR and members have been campaigning to raise awareness of these psychosocial risks and persuade site management to consider these conerns seriously and resolve the issues.
Following further recent staff changes, the Staff Association has written to ACDP management requesting an urgent meeting to address the SAF team’s ongoing concerns of unsafe staffing levels, workload issues and psychosocial risks.
Working in Heat is a health and safety risk that many CSIRO staff have to deal with in the field. There’s a wealth of knowledge about effective strategies for working in hot and humid conditions across research units in CSIRO, and many HSRs have made important contributions to making this work safer.
Recently in Western Australia, a HSR and active union member identified gaps in the processes and policies for Working in Heat. During field trips in the north of the state, it was reported that staff were directed to work long hours in extreme heat, with some staff developing heat stress symptoms.
As a result, the local HSR spoke up about these problems during the recent trip, lodged a Donesafe incident report and then worked to improve the risk assessment and bring attention to the importance of safe working conditions; including the procurement of a heat gauge which was capable of measuring both temperature and humidity and gave a warning when conditions reached a critical level.
The HSR ensured the WHS issues of working in heat were raised and concerns properly acknowledged by CSIRO management; the HSR put forward several recommendations support the health and safety of staff while working in heat.
Your HSRs hold an active, independent and integral role in keeping CSIRO staff safe at work.
If you have any health and safety concerns or would like to know more about the Staff Association via our Safety First Network, please email us, contact your local HSR, workplace delegate, or union organiser.