Tuesday 9th March 2021

WorkSafe Victoria to focus on stamping out workplace sexual harassment. 

WorkSafe Victoria has commenced a campaign today to raise awareness of sexual harassment in the workplace. The aim is to educate employers on their responsibilities and encourage workers to call out unacceptable behaviour. The campaign will run across digital, print, radio and social media channels for a month.

The Australian Human Rights Commission’s latest survey showed that one in three people had been sexually harassed at work in the past five years.

WorkSafe Health and Safety Executive Director Julie Nielsen said, ‘Let’s be very clear - a workplace where sexual harassment is tolerated is an unsafe workplace.’

WorkSafe’s ‘Let’s Be Very Clear’ campaign will focus on groups more likely to experience harassment. Aboriginal and Torrent Strait Islander workers, culturally and linguistically diverse and migrant workers, young workers, workers with a disability and workers who identify as LGBTQIA+.

For more information on this topic, visit the WorkSafe Vic website.

Customers may have to prove they have had the COVID jab. 

New guidance published by Safe Work Australia on Friday allows Businesses to require customers and visitors to prove they have been vaccinated against Covid-19 as a condition of entry.

According to Safe Work Australia, it is unlikely employers will be required by WHS law to make their staff get vaccinated. However, public health orders are yet to be determined.

Australia’s work health and safety regulator said, ‘although employers have a duty to eliminate or if not possible, minimise, so far as is reasonably practicable, the risk of exposure to Covid-19 in the workplace, that did not extend to requiring staff get vaccines.’

Safe Work Australia has stated, ‘it was unlikely that WHS laws require you to ask for proof of vaccination; however, you might still want to require this as a condition of entry to your premises.’

Australia’s Covid-19 vaccination policy states the vaccine is not mandatory, and individuals may choose not to vaccinate.

The Qantas chief executive, Alan Joyce, has agreed that vaccination is likely to become a travel requirement.

For the full story, head to The Guardian website.