Employee Participation in Health and Safety in the Australian Steel Industry, 1935-2006

Abstract

Occupational health and safety (OHS) representatives and committees are the principal form of employee participation mandated by legislation in AngloSaxon countries, and therefore have a strong base. However, their existence precedes legislation in some significant cases. This article undertakes a 70-year historical analysis of the effectiveness and operations of one significant example of pre-legislative OHS committees in an Australian steelworks. The study finds that effectiveness of the committees as a form of participation depended on a complex complementarity of variables, including relationship with unions, the nature of management commitment, the organizational industrial relations climate and the political and institutional macro environment, consistent with 'favourable conjunctures' theory.

Occupational Health and Safety Management in Organizations: A Review

“…288–289). These findings align with Markey and Patmore's (2011) 70‐year historical analysis of the effectiveness of employee participation in safety committees in an Australian steelworks, where despite significant limitations to effectiveness, major reductions in time‐lost injuries were achieved through a ‘top‐down’ approach based on leadership and engaging the whole workforce in OHS improvement.…”

Voicing their complaints? The silence of students working in retail and hospitality and sexual harassment from customers

“…As Harlos (2010) highlights, the presence of voice mechanisms does not necessarily mean that employees are able to use them to raise their workplace concerns effectively. Studies of voice have largely neglected the specific nature of workplace issues, with the possible exception of employee participation in occupational health and safety issues (Markey & Patmore 2011). Wilkinson et al's (2013) typology categorises types of voices in relation to the 'scope' of issues that are addressed, but they do not specifically address how the workplace issue affects the voice mechanism taken.…”

Leader–member exchange and industrial relations climate: mediating of participatory management in China

“…The first stream examines institutional perspectives on participatory management (see, for example, Haridimos ; Rachid ). The second stream focuses on the determinants of participatory management: the management support (O'Donoghue, Stanton and Bartram ), nature of management commitment (Markey and Patmore ), employees' prior experiences with participatory management (Marchington et al. , ), quality of leader–member exchange (Chen and Tjosvold ), and labour–management relations (Marchington et al.…”