Spike in City Hall injuries

Report reveals increase in staff incidents

STAFF injuries at Geelong Council increased last financial year, with incidents of the most serious injuries quadrupling and staff becoming increasingly dissatisfied at work.

The City of Greater Geelong 2018-19 Annual Report revealed workplace injuries and incidents had increased in quantity and severity over the 12-month period.

The injury stats prompted the union for council workers to slam the city’s lax response to bullying and culture concerns and demand immediate action to rein in the figures.

A total of 80 ‘lost time injuries’ were recorded in 2018/19, more than quadrupling the 17 recorded incidents in the report’s most serious category from the previous year.

Lost time injuries are recorded as those resulting in the loss of one or more shifts.

The council report attributed the increased lost time injury rate to an increase in reported injuries and “a change in definition to align with the Australian Standard”.

Reported medical incidents also jumped from four to 12 in the most recent financial year, with minor incidents jumping from 351 to 439, and near-misses plummeting from 196 to 65.

Council noted the definitions of minor incidents and near-misses were also updated, resulting in some changes to recorded data. In total the city recorded 593 injuries and incidents in 2018-19, with the total figure increasing for the fifth consecutive year.

Council executive manager of people and culture Kaarina Phyland yesterday said the city has many initiatives under way to further protect the health and safety of its people.

“The definition of a lost time injury (LTI) used at the City of Greater Geelong was changed on July 1, 2018,” Ms Phyland said. “The definition had previously recorded only LTIs that resulted in a Work-Cover claim. The 2018-19 figure now includes injuries resulting in the loss of one shift or more.”

However, Australian Services Union branch secretary Lisa Darmanin took council to task over the injury stats, blaming cultural issues at the city for the continued increase of worker incidents and injuries.

“The ASU had been raising serious issues of workplace health and safety including bullying at the City of Greater Geelong, and the results reported today bear out our concern,” Ms Darmanin said. “These results aren’t just a wakeup call for the city — they demand immediate action.

“Nobody should be injured at work but at the City of Greater Geelong 80 injuries led to workers being unable to put in a full day’s work. This is just unacceptable. “Things need to change.” Despite ongoing concerns over a culture of bullying at the City of Greater Geelong, the council gave itself a tick of approval for “continuing to transform our workplace culture” under its four-year council plan priorities.

Yesterday, Ms Phyland acknowledged the drop in employee satisfaction and engagement.

“To address this, we have commenced the Working Better Together program, which over the past five weeks has provided all of our staff with the opportunity to talk about our culture,” she said.

Earlier this year Geelong chief executive Martin Cutter announced he would review the processes for dealing with bullying and harassment at the City of Greater Geelong, after a long list of organisations and individuals raised concerns of an ongoing culture of bullying.

In June the Geelong Advertiser revealed internal emails from Mr Cutter admitting to a “long” list of bullying investigations at City Hall from recent years.

The council has repeatedly refused to reveal how many bullying complaints it had received from staff since January last year.