The international influence of the Robens Report on occupational health and safety management (OHSM) is widely recognised. Its approach to self-regulation and advocacy of greater consultation between workers and employers, helped formulate regulatory strategies for health and safety at work that have been extensively adopted internationally in modern OHS legislation and encouraged by national regulatory agencies. In this paper an attempt is made to describe what this means in terms of structures, processes and orientations of joint arrangements for OHSM in workplaces and to analyse strengths and weaknesses in their application.