Abstract
The NSW Occupational Health and Safety Act of 2000 provides guidelines for ensuring health, safety as well as welfare in workplaces in New South Wales. Employers, employees, manufacturers, designers, suppliers, suppliers, as well as, non-employees are supposed to adhere to occupational health and safety.
The report presents the roles of different groups involved in ensuring health, safety as well as welfare at the workplace, including those of non-employees.
Introduction
The provisions of the NSW Occupational Health and Safety Act stipulate all the general requirements for ensuring safety in all workplaces in NSW. The objective of the Act is to minimize the number of injuries as well as illnesses that occur in workplaces. It also aims at increasing Community awareness as regards occupational health as well as safety matters.
People’s roles regarding OH & S matters
The NSW Occupational Health and Safety Act of 2000 describes the roles and responsibilities of different categories involved in a workplace. The Act categorizes people involved in the workplace as those directly involved in the workplace such as employers and employees; those who provide tools and materials for work such as manufacturers, designers, suppliers as well as importers; and finally, those who own the places of work or own plants or substances for work.
Those directly involved in the workplace
Employer
According to the Act, employers have a duty of ensuring that the heath, safety as well as welfare of all employees involved in the workplace are provided with safe entry plus exit (New South Wales, n.d). They also have to provide safe equipment as well as systems of work.
They have to provide sufficient health and safety information as well as education and supervision as may be deemed necessary to guarantee employees safety and health while at work. Employers also have a duty to ensure safe plant as well as raw materials/substances to employees.
The employer has to ensure that all the premises owned by the organization or those that are under the control of the employer in which employees work are safe and do not pose any health risk. The employer must also make sure that the work as well as the working environment where employees carry out their duties poses no health or safety risk.
Finally, they have to provide adequate facilities so as to ensure the welfare of the organization’s workers at work.
Those who are self-employed are categorized as their own employers and therefore have to guarantee the health, safety as well as welfare of all people including those who are not their employees (New South Wales, n.d). They have to ensure that people who are not part of their employees are not exposed to any health or safety risk that may result from their conduct or work while at the workplace.
Employees
Employees on their part have to ensure that they take care of the safety as well as health of other people in their places of work (New South Wales, n.d). They have to ensure that those around their areas of work are not affected by the activities their engage in while performing their duties or by their negligence during the work process.
Again, employees have a duty to work co-operatively with their employers or any other person involved in ensuring that the provisions of the Act as regards health, safety as well as welfare matters are taken care of at the workplace (New South Wales, n.d).
Controllers of work premises, plant or substances
In this case the person includes any person who has absolute ownership of the premise, plant or substance (New South Wales, n.d). It also includes any person who has ownership of the premise, substance or plant through lease or contract.
The Act requires that any person who is in charge of premise(s) that people use as workplace, such as for business, trade as well as any undertaking, has to ensure that the premise(s) does not pose any health or safety risk (New South Wales, n.d). This implies that the person must provide safe entry to as well as exit of the place. This also applies to anybody in control of substance or plant that people use while at work.
Manufacturers, designers and suppliers
The Act requires any person or organization that designs, produces or distributes any substance or plant to be used by people at work to ensure that their products do not pose any health and safety risk to would be users (New South Wales, n.d). This implies that they have to supply necessary information regarding the use of the product or plant to the person who is supposed to use it. This provision also applies to those acquire the substance or plant for re-supply.
People who are not employees
People who are not employees not covered above are prohibited from deliberately or recklessly interfering with or misusing anything that is made available to guarantee the health, safety as well as welfare of those it is intended to (New South Wales, n.d).
Again, a person who is not an employee is also not expected to attempt to hinder or deliberately hinder any help given to an injured worker, whether through intimidation or negligence (New South Wales, n.d). Persons who are not employees are also not expected to deliberately cause health and safety risk to people at a workplace with an aim of disrupting work.
Conclusion
Occupational health and safety matters are essential in minimizing injuries and damages in workplaces. The Act therefore defines the roles of all those involved in ensuring health and safety in workplaces within New South Wales.
Reference
New South Wales. (n.d). Occupational Health and Safety Act 2000 No 40. Retrieved from https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/#/view/act/2000/40/whole