Empowering workplace safety advocacy

The Australian Council of Trade Unions is the peak body for Australian unions, made up of 38 affiliated unions who together represent almost 2 million workers and their families.They provide a single representative union voice to the government and employers.Since its creation in 1927, the ACTU has spearheaded some of the most fundamental workplace and social struggles in Australia’s history.

The ACTU needed to develop an understanding of workplace health and safety concerns to conduct advocacy and produce the Work Shouldn’t Hurt report. Work Shouldn’t Hurt is an annual, quantitative, longitudinal tracking program for Work Health and Safety (WHS)/ Occupational Health and Safety (OHS), conducted by the ACTU Centre for Work Health and Safety and the ACTU Insights Team.

The team at Evolved assisted the ACTU in developing a survey design and easy-to-use live dashboard solution via the HumanListening platform. This then enables the ACTU Insights Team to develop the Work Shouldn’t Hurt report each year employing insights from the program.

The 2022 report was released in February 2023, including the following key insights: “In 2022, the annual Work Shouldn’t Hurt Survey found that more than one in four workers in Australia been injured or made sick due to work in the previous 12 months.Even more concerning, 38 per cent of workers are reporting that they literally couldn’t afford to be away from work – likely a sign of the cost-of-living pressures workers have suffered.” This collaboration with the team at Evolved enables the ACTU to conduct important advocacy work on behalf of workers to ensure greater workplace health and safety. The program has been active since 2021 and is a critical insights tool for the ACTU, alongside our broader work with the organisation.