International Symposium on Regulating OHS for Precarious Workers

The Deakin Graduate School of Business (DGSB), sponsored by Safe Work Australia, hosted an international symposium on Regulating Occupational Health and Safety for Precarious Workers on Friday 17 June 2011 at the Deakin Melbourne City Centre. Around 55 people from around Australia attended, including representatives from Federal and State government agencies, private sector employers, trade unions and academics.

The expansion of precarious employment (such as casuals and labour hire workers) has contributed to new workplace risks, challenging the effectiveness of traditional approaches to OHS regulation. A range of presenters spoke about the nature of these risks, and how governments had responded to date.

The DGSB was represented by Dr. Elsa Underhill who, along with Prof. Michael Quinlan (UNSW), presented recommendations for improving compliance in the labour hire industry, based upon research they conducted for the Queensland government in 2010. With such a high level of local and international expertise involved, the audience engaged in lively discussions about both the nature of emerging problems and processes for mitigating problems into the future.

Papers from the symposium will form a special issue of the international journal, Policy and Practice in Health and Safety (edited by Lippel, Quinlan and Underhill) to be published in November 2011. Presentations are available for download from the speakers website.

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