A report by Safe Work Australia revealed that three-quarters of the costs of workplace injuries and diseases is borne by the injured workers themselves, including loss of current and future income and non-compensated medical expenses.
It is workers, not employers, who overwhelmingly bear the costs of workplace injuries
Unacceptable cost of workplace injuries and diseases is sapping 5% from economic growth
The report by Safe Work Australia revealed that three-quarters of the costs of workplace injuries and diseases is borne by the injured workers themselves, including loss of current and future income and non-compensated medical expenses.
ACTU President Ged Kearney said the cost of $60.6 billion for workplace injuries and diseases in the 2008-9 financial year was far too high.
“We think we are a clever country but it isn’t so smart to forgo almost 5% of our nation’s GDP on the cost of preventable workplace injury and illness,” Ms Kearney said.
Twenty-one per cent of the cost is borne by the community and the rest (5%) is borne by employers.
The Safe Work Australia Report details that the workplace injury costs to employers includes loss of productivity from absent workers, recruitment and retraining costs and fines and penalties from breaches of work health and safety regulations.
“There are some valuable insights from this report. Employers could get a $3 billion boost to productivity by preventing workplace accidents and incidents. Given that the majority of the cost of injuries is borne by workers, all governments need to look closely at these figures when they consider the adequacy of workers’ compensation payments.”
Safe Work Australia has also released figures on work related deaths for 2009-10. In 2009-10 337 people died in Australia from a work-related traumatic injury.
“Australia records a traumatic workplace death at the rate of almost one per day, which is an appalling figure . Every single one of these deaths is a tragedy,” Ms Kearney said.
“The effect of these deaths on families, communities and workplaces cannot be measured. Workplace deaths are not the collateral damage of progress. We need to clean up our act.”
It is horrifying that 42 deaths were of bystanders not directly involved in the work processes that ultimately killed them. Fifteen of these deaths were on children under 15 years of age.
Ms Kearney encouraged workers to become involved in making their workplace safer by electing health and safety representatives joining their workplace health and safety committee, and by seeking advice from their union.
Workers can get more information at safeatwork.org.au
Also see worksafe victoria in net loss because of poor investment!
Sourced by our wonderful contributor @Trinny61, with thanks 
[Source: http://www.actu.org.au/media/]
Shortlink: http://aworkcovervictimsdiary.com/?p=7625
So, insurers are the ones getting all the benefits from the system? It seems obvious to everyone except government ministers. Mr Pearce, may be forgetting something.
Employers suffer from near-sightedness on this issue to be sure. Then injured workers are subjected to hostile insurers – both employers and insurers have their eyes on the prize, which is profits. Prevention is better than cure and employers need to be held to account, however, first port of call in changing the system in the near future (and stopping further damage to injured workers) is to shine a very bright light on what is driving insurers (who are acting on behalf of WorkCover). It isn’t about helping injured workers that is for sure – it’s all about the prize of profiting at the expense of injured workers. That’s the simple reality, in my opinion.
Federal industrial and OHS laws need to address the failures of employers in the area of prevention.
Here are THE facts and that is that insurers have all the perks – not injured workers.What more evidence do they need?
Hi Fact
They do don’t they! That is exactly how I read the report – sure, many employers are failing – but the insurers are really making a killing off the system. They are virtually guaranteed to prosper from the misfortune and misery of injured workers.
Cheers
John Mc