What's Happening in Hawthorn East, VIC…

Musculoskeletal injuries such as sprains and strains make up a lot of reported injuries in the printing industry. With that in mind, the Printing Industries Association of Australia is presenting one-day training programmes in various Australian cities during September and October. The first programme recently took place in Adelaide; the course turned out to be quite popular as employees and managers from 17 printing companies in the Adelaide area, which includes the suburb of Hawthorn, attended this free event.

The injury prevention programme identifies the main risks and educated those in attendance on how to minimize those risks and the chance of injury. The programme also provides printed and Internet resources created especially for doctors, rehabilitation therapists and other specialist who treat those printing services employees who have sustained injuries; it also gives them information on how to teach their clients ways to avoid a repeat of those injuries.. Those companies who attended were given training resources such as videos on how to perform tasks correctly, information on the risk certain machinery presents and information on how to avoid musculoskeletal injuries in the future. It is in the best interests of the printing companies to address these issues because “sprains and strains account for 38 per cent of time lost claims and 37.9 per cent of total printing workers compensation claims.” This time lost costs the company money.

The Printing Industries Association of Australia provides many such training courses and workshops throughout the year. Their mandate is to look out for the best interests of those working in the printing services and to advise companies on issues related to the industry.