Health and wellbeing

October is National Safe Work Month; a time to commit to building a safe and healthy workplace, according to Master Plumbers OHS and Risk Manager Zane Martin.

The definition of safety is far more than keeping our plumbers physically safe. It is also about keeping them free from psychological harm. No plumbing job should be unsafe, and no death or injury onsite or in the office is acceptable. A safe and healthy workplace benefits everyone. In October each year, Safe Work Australia asks businesses, employers, and workers across Australia to join National Safe Work Month and commit to building safe and healthy workplaces. A safe workplace starts with safe foundations, which are the policies and procedures that cover a business’ ways of working and responsibilities. Safe Work Australia developed a single set of work health and safety (WHS laws) for jurisdictions to implement across Australia. These are known as ‘model’ laws. Each state and territory, and the Commonwealth, has its own WHS laws, including an Act, regulations, and codes of practice. The model laws have been implemented since early 2012 in a similar fashion across Australia with Western Australia being the last State to do so on 31 March 2022. Victoria remains the exception, where the laws weren’t adopted wholly as drafted but many of the principles have been incorporated instead. Substantial differences remain in some areas where the Victorian legislation actually requires a higher degree of vigilance and compliance than the model laws. These centre around notification procedures, duties to consult (in particular around the obligations of HSRs), the formation and activities of HSR Committees, issue resolution (including default procedures being mandated in the Regulations in Vic). In Victoria there are also a significant number of prescriptive compliance codes and codes of practice that operate to be the minimum standard in Construction in Victoria. We have found that most often the Victorian codes represent the highest standard of compliance across the country, but this changes all the time. The important thing to remember is if you are working across state borders always ensure your policies and procedures refer to the laws and codes of practice in that state.

How safe is your workplace?

Duties of a Person Conducting a Business or Undertakings (PCBU)

A PCBU has a primary duty to ensure the health and safety of workers and others who may be affected by the carrying out of work. A person can have more than one duty under the model WHS laws. For example, a self-employed person may be simultaneously a PCBU and a worker. A person is not a PCBU where they are engaged solely as a worker or officer of the business or undertaking. Whether a person conducts a business or undertaking is a fact to be determined in each case.

What is an OHSMS?

An OHSMS is a coordinated and systematic approach to managing health and safety risks. OHSMSs help organisations to continually improve their safety performance and compliance to health and safety legislation and standards. In doing so, they establish safer working environments that protect people at work by eliminating, or better managing, health, and safety hazards. It includes:

• helping create safer work environments

• reducing injuries and injury-related costs • improving business opportunities – many companies have preferential purchasing policies that favour purchasing products or services from companies with an OHSMS

• providing measurable systems that can verify OHS performance • demonstrating that the organisation is meeting legal requirements. Research shows that there are clear links between good OHS management systems and long-term business efficiency. For more information, contact Zane Martin on 0425 770 013 to get a no obligation assessment of your current OHS systems. Zane is a highly-experienced Licenced Plumber and a qualified Work Health and Safety Advisor.

---Why should

plumbers care about R U OK? Day?

Those working in the construction industry, including plumbers, are 50% more likely to take their own lives. Male construction workers aged 15-24 are more than twice as likely to take their own lives, compared with the general population. September 8 2022, is R U OK? Day, a national day of action when we remind Australians that every day is the day to ask, ‘are you OK?’. On this day, and every day, we need to start meaningful conversations whenever we spot the signs that someone is struggling. Bluehats was designed by industry, for industry as a peer-to-peer support network providing education, training and support to workers on a site-by-site basis. Incolink and their partners Worksafe Victoria and Cbus Super refreshed the Bluehats training model in 2021 to deliver both on site and digitally.