Howard strips OHS Rights from Workers : Melbourne Indymedia

Howard strips OHS Rights from Workers
17/11/2006

The Howard Government has forced through changes to give employers more control of Occupational Health and Safety in workplaces covered by the Commonwealth OHS Act.

Public and private sector employers covered by the Commonwealth OHS Act will no longer be legally required to include unions in OHS consultations and arrangements.

AMWU Occupational Health and Safety Coordinator, Phil Hazelton said that the first two attempts to pass such laws in 2000 and 2002 failed but were finally passed by the Liberal/National Senate majority in October.

“The changes mean that employers will control the elections of workers health and safety representatives, can delay those elections for up to 6 months, don’t need to negotiate with unions on OHS issues and agreements in workplaces, and can change designated work groups through agreement with the health and safety representative only.

“The changes to the OHS laws fit the Howard government’s philosophy of employer self regulation of OHS and fly in the face of clear Australian and international research showing union organised workplaces are safer workplaces,” Hazelton said.

AMWU National Secretary Doug Cameron said that the changes to Commonwealth OHS laws were like the rest of the Howard government’s IR laws.

“They’re designed to take the power away from workers and their unions and give it to the bosses.”

The new laws will take effect in 2007.

Contact Person: Doug Cameron
Contact Email: amwu2@amwu.asn.au

Sleep pods may be coming to work

November 20, 2006 - 5:44PM

Looking for somewhere to lie down during some of those long afternoons at work?

If you can drag yourself away from the task at hand, and if the boss allows it, a snooze-pod siesta could be just the ticket.

Sydney business MetroNaps has designed what it hopes will be a popular answer to the fatigue and mid-afternoon energy dip that overtakes many workers.

It's a two-metre-long, 122-centimetre-wide sleeping pod that could make a catnap the next big thing in the Sydney office scene.

The stand-alone units use gel-coated fibreglass visors to block out 65 per cent of light and sound.

After 20 minutes, they apply a gentle mix of vibration and increased light as a wake-up call.

MetroNaps director Alex Silva says if the trials and sales are successful, the next 24 months could see the snooze pod become "as common as photocopiers".

He also believes they could lead to the establishment of specialist sleep shops, where people would buy a pass to use the pods as they do a solarium or health spa.

"Our (initial) focus is on places that have employees who work long, erratic hours," Mr Silva said.

"We're targeting mental fatigue as well as physical fatigue."

Businesses are currently able to lease the pods for $900 a month, and will soon be able to sign off on 12 or 24 month plans.

Mr Silva said Procter and Gamble, Estee Lauder and Saatchi and Saatchi are among the international companies to show an interest in the product, while Australian IT marketing and research firm Clear Blue Day has trialled the pod for two weeks in its Sydney office.

"The feedback we got from the staff was very positive," said Clear BLue Day office manager Tara Lloyd.

"In the environment we work in it was quite good because people are staring at screens for nine hours straight.

"It provided downtime because you didn't have to do anything with your eyes except close them.

"Everyone felt that productivity had increased and they did feel refreshed."

Mr Silva said the sleep pod was not about increasing or decreasing the amount of time people work, but "improving their quality of work and then their quality of life".

"Because there's nowhere to (catch a nap) it's almost frowned upon," he said.

"Work is becoming more intense and our bodies are just not coping with it. They're not designed to work for that amount of time without a short break."

Ohhhhhhh no poor little workers.. they really need somebody to look after them because they're so helpless and little and tiny..

and the way things are heading they'll be too tired to keep slaving away for the man...

Its important to trust the Unions, workers, and just do as they instruct you. Don't try and think - you'll only hurt your menial sub-educated brains.

Let the good folks of the AMWU do your thinking for you... sure it might LOOK like they're in bed with Australian governments, and a part of the system that perpetuates corporate Australia rather than pulling it down. But they're the best hope you've got. It's the best we can do.

Support the unions now and be secure in the knowledge you can keep working for the man, making vast profits in return for a profit, get worn out, old, and die in moderate squalor.

Why change the system when you can get inside it? The unions have done just this, and now union members spend much of their time in the same rooms as their corporate masters, wearing ties and suits and tongues all ready for giving the analingal pleasures that make them so valuable to the executives.

More of the same is the best we downtrodden non corporates can expect, but the unions are ready to fight for the status quo, for productivity, for servitude, for corporate profits, for global industry, for free trade.....

yawn. None of what the Government's doing now would have been possible without the COMPLIANCE of the workers, mediated by fawning union shysters.