Victorian Trades Hall Council. The voice of Victorian workers since 1856.Victorian Trades Hall Council. The voice of Victorian workers since 1856.

Victorian OHS Reps Conference 24 October 2007 – Great Success

By Brian Boyd, VTHC Secretary

The VTHC Annual HSR’s Conference held at the Convention Centre on 24 October continues to be the largest OHS Rep meeting in the world and was another great success this eyar..

Under the theme “OHS – Unfinished Business” the all-day Conference addressed many issues affecting how to achieve the best OHS standards possible.

Ann Taylor, VTHC President , opened the conference and VTHC Secretary, Brian Boyd and John Merritt Director of Worksafe also apoke.

Brian Boyd told the conference:

“There is no acceptable number of deaths; there is no good reason to finish the day worse than how you started; accidents do not happen; accidents should not be part of life in the workplace; no one sets out to hurt themselves and workers wouldn’t be stressed unless there was something causing them stress in the first place. 

“Lets be clear on a couple of things, workers have a right to a safe and healthy work environment, a safe way of doing work; workers have a right to have a say in their own health, safety and welfare; workers have a right to be represented on any matter that affects them.

“Better terms and conditions are best achieved by working together collectively.”

The Charter of OHS, Compensation and Rehabilitation Rights was distributed to every Health and Safety Rep.
OHS Reps at the Conference were asked to take back into their respective workplaces the material and information learnt so as to spread the OHS message as widely as possible.
For a full list of speakers and their presentations go to the OHS Reps website.
The annual OHS Week (22-26 October 2007) has again been another worthwhile exercise for all Victorian workplaces.

Sponsored by the Victorian WorkCover authority (WorkSafe) there were a range of events, meeting  and forums across Melbourne and regional Victoria.

One highlight was VWA OHS Annual Awards night (23/10) that saw Tarek Souied (Woolworth) win the OHS Rep of the year out of several finalists


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