I’ve heard that a newsagent is facing a workplace claim for shoulder injury from a newspaper delivery. driver. The newsagency is located in a state where overweight newspapers is a known problem. If the threatened claim eventuates I’d expect to see the matter quickly escalate to include an industry wide review of practices.
The challenge with this issue is accountability. While the proposed case I heard of would be against the newsagent as the employer, I’d expect the publisher to be involved somehow since they create the fat newspapers and know of the OH&S challenges these create.
Publishers make money from the advertising which drives the weight. Newsagents are on a fixed income no matter what size the paper and this is where inequity in the current arrangements start.
While the case may settle before going any further, there will be others. This is a hot issue among newsagents and people who work for newsagents.
All I can say is good luck mate. When I had some serious problems with injury to myself caused by inserting sunday newspapers the publisher basically told me that how I did my business was my affair and I needed to manage my work practices to deal with whatever they threw at the trade.
Mark, if the truth be shown, take away the advertising from newspapers and you reduce the paper by half its size. Magazines are similar. My partner and I love to read a wide variety of material and are yet to find a magazine or paper without an ad. No publication exists that I know of. They are all dependent on the advertising paying for their printing and other costs and not taking the size of it into play. Perhaps a thought for the real players in this industry and that is the workers who are displaying their products for sale and moving it onto the shelves to do so. Get them out from behind their desks and into the real world and see things from a different perspective and maybe there can be a change. While greed for money from ads continue there is little chance for improvements. Publishers will push their profits up with ads while making their publications “bigger and better” and having them packed into bundles too big for easy handling. I don’t understand why the newsagent is to blame.
John,
If the complaint proceeds it has to be against the employer, the newsagent. The newsagent would need to try and join the publisher in the matter. I would think that the prospect of this might make it all go away before it starts. No one wants the issue out in the open.
mark