WHS Standard In United Kingdom And Australia-Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The WHS Standard In The United Kingdom And Australia? Answer: Introduction: The paper compares between the performance of Occupational Health and Safety Standards, an HRM function in two countries. It also delves into the cultural differences between these two countries and their implication on the OHS practices. The study considers Britain and Australia as the two countries for the study. The paper opens with a section which gives the readers the basic ideas about Occupational health and safety standards and their importance. This sections also introduces the two country forming the basis of the comparison, the United Kingdom and Australia. This is followed by the grounds of comparison starting with the OHS laws in force. The next point of comparison is differences in OHS practices in Britain and Australia. This is followed by a comparison between the political and the industrial cultures prevailing in these two countries. Occupational health and Safety: Occupational health and Safety(OHS), Occupational safety and health(OSH) or Work Place Health and Safety (WHS) refers to multidisciplinary standard of safety measures which involves health and safety of the workers in the workplaces like factories and workshops. They aim to provide safe and healthy environments to the workers. The objectives of OHS are to reduce the accidents, injuries and fatalities in the offices. OHS encompasses workers, customers, employers and all the individuals who are impacted by the environment in the workplaces. Occupational health and safety is applicable in myriads of sectors like agriculture, mining and healthcare. The governments of almost all countries like the United Kingdom and Australia have made laws pertaining to OHS and necessitate the companies functioning within their jurisdiction to abide by them. OHS Standard in the UK and Australia-a comparison and contrast: The Laws in force: The foundation law enforcing health and safety in the United Kingdom is Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (Legislation.gov.uk. 2017). The Health and Safety Executive is the department that looks into the enforcement of the law (Hse.gov.uk. 2017). The foundation law enforcing occupational health and safety in Australia is the Fair Work Act 2008 (Legislation.gov.au. 2017). The Fair Work Ombudsmen educate people and enforce workplace laws. The body in Australia looking into workplace health and safety enforcement is Safe Work Australia. The other foundation law looking into accurate enforcement of WHS in Australia is Commonwealth Work Health and Safety Act 2011(Fair Work Ombudsman. 2017). Difference in OHS practices between Britain and Australia: The Health and Work Strategy of the United Kingdom covers the work related stress, muscular disorders and occupational lung diseases. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 in these three areas strive to ensure workplace safety and minimised accidents and fatalities. The priority of HSE in the area of work related stress is to reduce the number of ill health caused due to stress stemming from work. The committee seeks to improve management standards and engage the key stakeholders like governments and legal bodies. The proprieties of HSE in case of muscular disorder are to reduce the number of fatalities and muscle damage due to it in the workplaces. The body seeks to gain support of the stakeholders like governments, communities. The HSE aims to intervene activities involving high risks. The Health and Work Strategy aims to promote benefits to the employees, reduce the injuries and the resultant loss of productivity. The Health and Work Strategy, the United Kingdom while ensuring safety of workers from lung diseases, aims to improve the environments in the workplaces. The HSE tries to study and look into lung diseases like pollution. The HSE here conducts research on the lung ailments like asthma, legionella and monitor their impacts on the people. The Safe Work Act of Australia seeks to develop national policies to ensure workplace safety. The aim of the Act is to work according to a model approved by the Ministerial Council and embraces the codes of practice laid down by the Commonwealth laws pertaining to workers safety. The Model Codes of Practice under the Safe Work Australia are categorised into several groups each mentioning a specific types of accidents and their workplaces. For example, there are different codes of conduct for different types of injuries like confined spaces, construction and excavation sites which are exposed. A comparison between the OHS practices of the United Kingdom and Australia shows that the Health and Safety at Work look into three areas namely, work related stress, muscloskeletal problem and occupational lung diseases. It also shows that compared to the United Kingdom OHS, Australias safety laws encompasses multiple types of workplaces where accidents can occur like abrasive blasting, confined spaces and construction work. Thus it can be opined that the areas covered by the occupational health and safety acts in Australia are larger compared to the United Kingdom. Hence it can be inferred from the discussion that the work culture of the Australian OHS laws is higher. Political backgrounds and its effect on work culture: The difference in the political cultural scenario between Australia and Britain have deep impacts on the OHS practices prevailing in the two nations. Britain was an imperialistic power having colonies in various countries including Australia. The political culture in Britain is stable and facilitates industrialisation. This attracts migrants from various countries in search of obs including Australia. The British employers consider the Australian employees inferior and exploit them. This sense of political superiority among the British against the Australian migrant workers leads to exploit of the later. They are often forced to work under unhealthy and unsafe working environment. The British employers use racism to exploit the migrant employees owing the erstwhile political superiority of Britain over most of the nations in the world. The anti-migrant work culture in Britain breaches the United Kingdom is Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. This proves that the OHS in Britain i s not in full practice and requires action from the Health and Safety Executive (Ft.com. 2017). Australia was politically under Britain and her workforce faced exploitation in the hands of the British employers. The country today is a political stable democracy and this has favoured industrialisation. The nation like Britain attracts a huge number of migrants from all over the world. Reports show that the employers in Australia force their workforces to work under unsafe and unhealthy conditions like their British counterparts. The migrants are mostly made to work on construction sites and other dangerous places of work (Smith et al. 2015). This exploitative work culture of Australia has posed serious threats to occupational health and safety. It is even attracted intervention from the Fair Work Ombudsman and criticism from the media. This comparison shows that though Britain and Australia have different political backgrounds, both the countries practice exploitation on workers and the occupational health and safety laws in force (Oll-Espluga et al. 2015). Industrial culture: There exists a strong difference between the dominant industries in the United Kingdom and Australia which account for the difference in industrial culture and OHS between these two countries. The service industry is the dominant industry in the United Kingdom which allows minimum physical exploitation of employees. The other important industries in the country are manufacturing, tourism and defence. It can be pointed that these industrious are less hazardous and have safer working environment. It can also be pointed out that the industries in the United come under the purview of the European Union which enforces safer working conditions. The factories in the United have shown good working practices where the employers provide healthier working conditions. The employers even provide safety trainings to their employees which have helped to curd accidents (Eurofound.europa.eu. 2017). Compared to the industrial structure of Britain dominated by service industry, Australias industry is dominated by mining and energy. These industries are extremely hazardous and employ large number of labourers who have to do dangerous tasks. This leaves scopes for exploitation of the workers in the hands of the mine owners(Yazdani et al. 2015). The Australian employers have been known to exploit their migrant employees. This hostile work culture in the industries of Australia has attracted enforcement of strong legal actions from the government. This comparison between the industrial cultures of Britain and Australia shows that the former has healthier industrial work culture than the latter. This also shows that the industrial culture of Britain allows greater degree of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) (MacIntyre et al. 2014). Conclusion: The discussion reveals a number of strong between Britain and Australia in the areas of OHS and culture related to it. Australia has a more detailed legal framework to ensure workplace safety. Britain too has a very apparently strong OHS framework. However, both the nations exploit their migrant workers and violate their respective OHS laws in force. However, the comparison on the basis of industrial culture revealed that the industrial culture of Australia is more hazardous in nature due to its dominant mining sector. The study proves a culture has a great on the standards of occupational health and safety standards. References: Eurofound.europa.eu. 2017. Place of work and working conditions UK | Eurofound. [online] Available at: https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/comparative-information/national-contributions/united-kingdom/place-of-work-and-working-conditions-uk [Accessed 11 Aug. 2017]. Fair Work Ombudsman. 2017. Welcome to the Fair Work Ombudsman website. [online] Available at: https://www.fairwork.gov.au/about-us [Accessed 11 Aug. 2017] Ft.com. 2017. 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Respiratory protection for healthcare workers treating Ebola virus disease (EVD): Are facemasks sufficient to meet occupational health and safety obligations?.International journal of nursing studies,51(11), pp.1421-1426. Oll-Espluga, L., Vergara-Duarte, M., Belvis, F., Menndez-Fuster, M., Jdar, P. and Benach, J., 2015. What is the impact on occupational health and safety when workers know they have safety representatives?.Safety science,74, pp.55-58. Safe Work Australia. 2017. Model Codes of Practice. [online] Available at: https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/resources_publications/model-codes-of-practice [Accessed 11 Aug. 2017].. Smith, P.M., Saunders, R., Lifshen, M., Black, O., Lay, M., Breslin, F.C., LaMontagne, A.D. and Tompa, E., 2015. The development of a conceptual model and self-reported measure of occupational health and safety vulnerability.Accident Analysis Prevention,82, pp.234-243. Yazdani, A., Neumann, P., Imbeau, D., Bigelow, P., Pagell, M., Theberge, N., Hilbrecht, M. and Wells, R., 2015. How compatible are participatory ergonomics programs with occupational health and safety management systems?.Scandinavian journal of work, environment health,41(2), pp.111