Page 2560 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 October 1992
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We can also lessen the impact of this legislation on small business by urging employers to contact their peak bodies and the occupational health and safety training course providers and to ask for a range of training program timetables to be made available. While some businesses may be able to cope with one staff member being away for a week, others may find this at most impossible, and at least inconvenient, and a training course over several weeks may be needed. As the demand for courses increases with the introduction of this legislation, small businesses involved should all be able to express, and have heard, their needs as to the timetabling of these courses.
I have not given much weight to the argument that some employers have their employees distributed over several venues. Most of these types of businesses would already be covered by the Act under the current provisions, and, even if the different sites produce different occupational health and safety concerns, the staff are still employed by the one employer. Their need for a safe workplace will still have to be met. In reality, I expect that the designated work groups will be established and representatives elected and trained, and then nothing more will happen in most businesses until the elected representative leaves and another is elected by the group, or an occupational health and safety problem is identified. It is then a matter for the elected representative to notify management and have the issue resolved.
What I feel the designated work group structure will do for small business is better identify both the employers' and the employees' responsibilities for workplace safety, for this issue brings into focus two important premises - the duty of care of the employer and the empowerment of employees. It is impossible to have the duty of care invested solely in one person; it must be shared. The best way to achieve this is by openly and responsibly conferring on workers the power to act when they feel that workplace safety is compromised.
I also wish to address employers' concerns over the unionisation of small business. I do not feel that this concern is valid. I believe that workers will not pay union fees unless they see a benefit for themselves in return for this cash investment from often low wages. With the backing of legislation such as the Occupational Health and Safety Act, most workers will have support for their concerns about workplace safety and procedures to follow if they feel aggrieved, with or without the involvement of particular unions.
Finally, I wish to speak on this matter from personal experience. Most members will be aware that before I was elected to this Assembly I held the position of Director of Weston Creek Community Service. As an employer in that role with a staff of 17 employees, I understand the issues involved in the adoption of this amending legislation. My fellow directors of the remaining regional community services were grappling with the consequences of the introduction of the occupational health and safety legislation in 1989. We discussed the formation of designated work groups, the election of occupational health and safety representatives, their training needs and time off from the workplace. As an employer of 17 staff myself, I could see no reason why my own workplace was not required to address these issues in the same way, according to legislative requirements. The empowerment of workplace employees is important for their own recognition of occupational health and safety issues. I believe that the passage of this amendment Bill will appropriately increase that right for approximately 750 workplaces and some 8,500 employees.
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