MSPH Events

12noon – 1pm, Wed 19th November 2008
Room 515, Level 5, 207 Bouverie Street, Carlton

Name: Tessa Keegel
Title: Are workers who are precariously employed less likely to participate in occupational health and safety?

This seminar will consider associations between precarious employment and worker participation in occupational health and safety (OHS) within a workforce which is shifting from permanent full time work to other more insecure forms of employment.

Involvement of workers in OHS is a key component in establishing and maintaining workplaces which are free from injury and disease. There are ethical and practical arguments for OHS worker participation. Ethically, workers should have the right to refuse tasks which pose an imminent threat to their health and well-being, and practically workers can contribute first hand experience of working with existing hazards, and offer experience-based solutions. These arguments have been increasingly recognized by legislators with the result that Australian workers are legally entitled to meaningful participation in activities such as consultation regarding identification or assessment of occupational risks and proposing changes to substances used at the workplace. At the same time that a worker’s right to participate has been recognized, there has been a move in the Australian workforce from permanent full time work to more casualized forms of employment.

The seminar will present an overview of Victorian OHS legislation in relation to worker participation. After providing a brief policy context, population-based data from the Victorian Job Stress Survey will be used to describe the working conditions and characteristics of people who are engaged in OHS worker participation.  Policy implications of the study will be discussed, particularly with respect to precarious employment.

Tessa Keegel is a PhD student in the Centre for Health and Society, the McCaughey Centre, VicHealth Centre for the Promotion of Mental health and Community Wellbeing, and the Centre for MEGA Epidemiology.

Please contact Amy McKernan (mcka@unimelb.edu.au or 8344 9101)  for more information.