What does Australia's ratification of ILO 187 mean for employers?

News that the Australian government has ratified Convention No. 187 to complete all 10 fundamental conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) may not shake the foundations of many businesses around the country. Truth is, work health and safety is a national hobby.

“Australia has one of the toughest – if not the toughest – set of work health and safety laws in the world,” Baker McKenzie partner Michael Michalandos told HRD. “New Zealand is probably a close second, but only because they have largely adopted our legislation.”

In many parts of the world, the ILO really matters. Workers in its 187 member states look to it to apply pressure to business and industry to achieve internationally recognised human and labour rights.

Convention No. 187 promotes nationwide policies, systems and programs to support a safe and healthy working environment, and prevent occupational injuries, diseases and deaths.

Continuing improvement for work health and safety

Australia can give itself a pat on the back because Safe Work Australia, established as an agency in 2009, satisfies the convention’s requirement for a national policy body for the development of work health and safety.

The convention stresses that employers need to pay attention to forecasting health and safety risks, with continuous monitoring, data collection and targets that define improvement.

“Work health and safety is not set-and-forget,” he said. “The reality is, as we saw during COVID, that health and safety risks change, and employers need to be adaptable and on the lookout.”

Australian employers have a good record for complying with work health and safety legislation, although smaller employers may not be as well resourced.

“It would be good if this ratification results in Safe Work Australia or a national body providing more practical guidance and support to small- and medium-sized employers,” Michalandos said.

If Australia has high standards in work health and safety, it doesn’t mean employers should be complacent.

“One of the conventions emphasises the need for continuing improvement in work health and safety, and that’s where employers often fall short in that they tend to be very reactive when dealing with work health and safety,” he said.

Hybrid work and psychological harm

The focus of the ILO conventions seems to be much more on physical risks, Michalandos said, “whereas we’ve moved on from that to psychological risks.”

The psychological harms that can be suffered at work are being measured in rulings about bullying, harassment, unreasonable job demands and poor support, among other issues.

“Employers are calling for more information as to what the expectations are in dealing with psychological health,” he said.

The pandemic showed that many employers were ill-equipped to deal with remote work.

“We saw a massive spike in psychological injuries, with employees working too many hours, not taking breaks and literally rolling off the bed, onto a laptop and working through, with managers not regularly picking up the phone to monitor work levels or understand work pressures,” Michalandos said.

Managing remote workers

If they haven’t already, employers should train managers in how to monitor and deal with a remote workforce.

“That means more regular contact and using the phone, not simply dealing with an issue over email where things get misinterpreted,” he said. “Managers need to ask about employees’ workload – ‘Is it too much or too little?’ – and take steps to ensure they take breaks.”

Managers also need to pay attention to morale in almost-vacant offices, he said, where workers can feel like lonely goldfish.

“Employers need to encourage a degree of social interaction and presence in the office,” he said. “Particularly if you’re a new employee turning up to an office where there aren’t people to support and train you – that has a psychological impact.”