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Reframing workplace psychosocial hazards as an industrial relations area would help organisations improve their risk mitigation and management, researchers say.

In a psychosocial hazard themed issue of the international Journal of Industrial Relations, IR researchers from a range of Australian universities write that the management of workplace health and safety and industrial relations has become increasingly "siloed" in Australia since the 1970s.

To date, they argue that most research and regulation on psychosocial workplace hazards has originated from the work health and safety field, with little involvement from industrial commissions or industrial relations practitioners.

The researchers, led by Alexis Vassiley from Edith Cowan University, note that the "sharp demarcation" between OHS and IR began in the 1970s, when "Australian unions focussed increasingly on WHS, campaigning for physical hazards to be mitigated, as well as for meal and rest breaks"...