The ACTU is urging workers to take advantage of new laws by electing safety representatives and says it is a myth workplaces can be shut down due to concocted safety claims.
Nationally harmonised occupational health and safety laws came into force in most parts of Australia on the weekend.
A ''Speak Up'' campaign has been launched to ensure workers understand their rights, including the right elect their own occupational health and safety representatives.
ACTU assistant secretary Michael Borowick said it was against the law for employers to interfere with the work of health and safety representatives or to prevent them properly representing their workmates.
''It's not compulsory to have [a safety representative] but where workers want to organise themselves along those lines - or the employer for that matter - the facility's there,'' Mr Borowick said.
''There's no compulsion to it.''
Health and safety representatives had limited powers to issue directives when workers were in danger.
''If in your workplace a window blew out and there was a possibility of a worker falling out of a window the health and safety rep - once trained - could issue a directive that people working close to the hole in the window or the floor shouldn't work in that area,'' he said.
''You couldn't send the whole building home or down by the beach - only those who are directly affected.''
Victoria and Western Australia are yet to agree to harmonise workplace safety laws. The proposal is still before the South Australian and Tasmanian parliaments.
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