Health & safety committees protect you

THEY HELP PROTECT YOU

DOES your workplace have a health & safety committee?

Under section 75 of the Workplace Health and Safety Act of 2012 workers have the right to request establishment of a health & safety committee. This means that bosses and workers must come together to discuss safety issues. The committees established under the Act are ‘required to meet at least once every 3 months and any other time on request of half or more of the committee.’ Bosses can't reject a request to establish a committee if the request comes from a health & safety representative or 5 or more workers at the workplace. Big fines apply if committees aren't established with 2 months of the request being made. Health & safety committee members are to be given reasonable time to work on safety matters, and it's always paid time. Your boss should approve this and it's not normally a trigger for overtime. There are substantial fines if bosses don’t allow committee members time to work on safety matters. Committee members must be given or have access to all relevant information relating to hazards, including associated risks, at the workplace and the health and safety concerns of workers at a workplace. This may include being able to see all incident reports which relate to safety events including workplace injuries. Health & safety reps have powers under the act, but health & safety committees don’t have to just include HSRs - anyone can be appointed to a committee. Where an injury is involved the boss mustn't disclose the identity of the worker to the committee members. This is to comply with the privacy obligations and fines are included under the Act if they do name the injured worker. Remember, if there's any health and safety issue in a workplace, and the issue isn’t raised, there’s a fair chance it’ll never be addressed. Any member who wants more info about having a health & safety committee in the workplace can simply contact us at HACSUassist via assist@hacsu. org.au or 1300 880 032.