NEWS & CAMPAIGNS
Vibrant campuses are important to the educational experience but they can’t come at the expense of the health and welfare of the staff.
One of the things that comes from a pandemic that has lasted two years is that there is plenty of time to think about, and plan for, if and when your employees will return to in-person work. You would think that, sometime during that period, someone other than the Union would have given some thought to how to keep staff and students safe on campuses, and what employer obligations are to their staff. Shamefully, employers appear to have either not given that a thought or have ignored their obligations to staff in a blind rush to return to 'vibrant campuses.' Vibrant campuses are important to the educational experience but they can’t come at the expense of the health and welfare of the staff.
Gabe Gooding National Assistant Secretary
Almost uniformly across the board we have seen universities fail the most basic test, and their most basic obligations under work health and
HEALTH & SAFETY
Return to work, but only when it's safe safety laws across the country. And it’s not like it’s a hard concept – when considering a change to working arrangements that may impact on the health and safety of employees universities need to consult with them. That’s BEFORE they announce the decision, not after; and it’s definitely not token consultation. Universities will need to: supply employees with an assessment of the risks and how the university intends to manage the risks; provide all relevant information to allow employees to respond; put in place reasonably practicable measures to control the risk; and ensure employees have an opportunity to contribute to those decisions. Proper risk assessments that detail hazard and risk, rate the risk and the consequences, and apply proportionate control measures – and that do not concern themselves with items of no relevance to health and safety such as student satisfaction, or reputational risk – are as rare as hen’s teeth (in fact I haven’t seen one but I’m prepared to concede that there may be one out there). Those that have not been prompted by union intervention are even rarer. continued overpage...
vol. 3 no. 1
•
nteu.org.au/sentry
3
