Tag: industrial relations

How Workers’ Memorial Day should be treated

For the first time in many years, I will not be able to attend the local service for the Workers’ Memorial Day on 28 April 2009.  I will be attending the Safe Work Australia Awards in Canberra which, coincidentally, is on the same day.  I hope that the award ceremony includes a minute’s silence to remember those who have died at work.

Recently the San Francisco Labor Council passed a resolution in support of Workers’ Memorial Day.  It provided several good reasons why trade unionists and, I would say, OHS professionals, should support this day.  Below is part of the resolution

wmd-sf-0000000lyerWhereas, April 28, 2009 is an international day of commemoration for injured workers and workers killed on the job; and

Whereas, the elimination of all doctors at Ca-OSHA has threatened the health and safety protection of California’s 17 million workers; and

Whereas, the introduction of new technology such as biotech and nanotechnology without proper oversight can and has become a threat to workers and our communities; and

Whereas, the deregulation of workers compensation has harmed injured workers and their families in California and throughout the country; and

Whereas, many of these workers have been forced onto SSI, Disability Insurance and other state and local agencies to cover their healthcare costs which is cost-shifting; and

Whereas, senior workers in many industries have been forced into retirement due to their disabilities on the job and discrimination against them due to their disabilities and age including at the US Post Office and other industries; and

Whereas, all working people and their families whether working or injured are entitled to full healthcare,

Therefore be it resolved the San Francisco Labor Council endorses and supports a Workers Memorial Day event on April 28, 2009 in San Francisco at ILWU Local 34 and encourages it’s affiliates to publicize and participate in this California Coalition for Workers Memorial Day (CCWMD) 

It is a lesson for other unions and organisations that such a day does not deal with localised industrial relations disputes and can be a platform for improvement in the quality of life of workers by calling for 

  • increased enforcement and policy resources;
  • caution over emerging hazards;
  • reassessment of deregulation;
  • insurance and healthcare improvements; and
  • appealing early retirements due to illness and injury.

I urge OHS professionals to seek out your local commemorations and participate.  The more people attend, the more government will realise the seriousness of the issue.  More importantly, the services remind us why we entered this profession in the first place and, just maybe, how we have made a difference.

Kevin Jones

Australian trade unions hijack the World Day of Safety

Every year the ILO sponsors the World Day for Health and Safety At Work on 28 April 2009.  This day is a day of remembrance for most countries where people reflect on those who have died at work in the previous year.  Each year, these days are full of tears and grief, and motivation for safety professionals to work harder.

When handled well these are days of sorrow and dignity.  Sadly, occasionally,  these days are hijacked by the trade union movement in their industrial campaigns that only indirectly relate to workplace safety.

A couple of years ago, at the height of the union campaign to oust the Howard Government in Australia, the Victorian Trades Hall spokesperson, Brian Boyd, spoke passionately in support of the campaign.  His political calls did not relate to the memories of the dead workers who people were there to remember and mourn.

For 2009, the Construction Forestry, Mining and Energy Union has imposed their campaign against the Australia Building & Construction Commission on the World Day for Health and Safety At Work, or Workers’ Memorial Day, whichever matches one’s political leanings.  This demeans the original intention of the day and should be criticised.

The tenuousness of the ABCC campaign and safety is discussed elsewhere but it is inappropriate for the CFMEU Construction Division National Secretary, Dave Noonan, to link in a media statement the two issues:

“Each week on an Australian construction sites, statistics show that a worker will die. We cannot let this go on for another week let alone for another five years.  Construction workers and unions are today making a stand for safety. If that means we have to have stop work meetings for safety or refuse to cooperate with the ABCC, then that’s what we’ll do.”

It is believed that there are no restrictions for meetings to discuss OHS matters on construction sites but there are conditions for union right-of-entry on OHS matters as listed below.  The processes seem reasonable and are similar to the processes applied for several years in the Victorian jurisdiction.

It is disappointing to the OHS profession to link safety with a non-safety-related industrial campaign.  What is more disturbing is the misuse of a memorial day to dead workers for political ends.

Kevin Jones

According to the website of the ABCC:

“1. A union official must have one of the following valid reasons to enter your site:

  • Investigate, on reasonable grounds, a suspected breach of the Workplace Relations Act 1996, a collective agreement, an award, an AWA or an order of the AIRC
  • Hold discussions with members or workers eligible to be members of the union
  • Perform inspections and functions under an OHS law *

If none of these reasons apply you have the right to refuse entry.”

Also

“Union officials must comply with your reasonable requests about:

  • The rooms or areas they may use on the site for holding discussions
  • The route they should take to access those rooms or areas
  • Occupational health and safety”

* Under the Workplace Relations Act 1996 union officials who enter a worksite for OHS purposes must hold a valid federal permit, produce that permit on request, exercise those rights during working hours and comply with reasonable OHS requirements.

The misuse of OHS in industrial relations campaigns

Workplace safety and industrial relations are undeniably tied together in terms of policy development, legislation and implementation.  This week the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) used the occupational safety record of the Australian construction industry to criticise the Australian Building & Construction Commission (ABCC).  

wilcoxreportmarch2009-coverIt should be stated here that SafetyAtWorkBlog does not support the ABCC.  The Commission is a travesty and a political construct of the conservative side of politics.  That the Rudd Labor government has allowed the Commission to persist is atrocious.  However, the ABCC was established because of the perception that the Australian building and construction industry was corrupt, regardless of the absence of evidence through the Cole Royal Commission.  Has the construction unions addressed this perception? No.

In the 3 April 2009 media statement issued by Dave Noonan, CFMEU Construction Division National Secretary, there are the following comments

“The right of construction workers to have a safe working environment is a glaring hole in the report. Justice Wilcox has skimmed over the issue of safety, which is a basic right of construction workers.

Safety was not part of the scope of the inquiry for Justice Wilcox.  Action may have been taken by the ABCC on union representatives who were on construction sites to discuss safety but it is the presence on the site and the way that presence was achieved that is the issue, not whether the site is safe or not.

“It is shameful that the two employers used to prop up arguments for the retention of the powers of the ABCC, BHP Billiton and John Holland, have had a worker die on site in the last fortnight,” said Dave Noonan.

SafetyAtWorkBlog has elsewhere mentioned the poor safety record of BHP Billiton and the campaign on worker safety by the unions against John Holland.  However, these two companies are operating within their legal rights even if one does not agree with their decisions.  The focus of attention should be given to the current government which has chosen to act slowly on the ABCC, an organisation the Australian Labor Party, in opposition, opposed.

The difficulty for the union movement is that the ALP requires the ongoing support of the Australian labour movement to provide it with membership and finance (not to mention a career path for the trade union secretaries).  The trade unions need the political influence of the ALP and are obliged to criticise politely but not too overtly.

“The 154 page report does not mention the safety record of the construction industry or the fact that one worker dies on average each week.”

Safety was outside Justice Wilcox’s terms of reference.

“The so called ‘industrial harmony’ brought about by the ABCC and heralded by Justice Wilcox comes at the expense of the lives of construction workers.  We have deteriorating safety on construction site across Australia. At the very time Justice Wilcox was finalising his report, BHP and John Holland had a construction worker killed on their project,” said Mr Noonan.

Noonan does not offer evidence of the link between the operation of the ABCC and “deteriorating safety”.  It is suspected that such research would indicate that the correlation is not that clear and that there are many other factors affecting safety management.

“Industrial harmony” is an unfair description as even totalitarian regimes can claim harmony.

“The report also fails to deal with breaches to International law by the building and construction laws. Australia has been criticised by the International Labor Organisation six times for undermining workers rights.”

This is again outside the inquiry’s scope.  The ILO criticism is valid but the capacity to change is not with Justice Wilcox or the ABCC but with Australia’s politicians, who should be the union’s real targets.

“Australia’s construction unions will continue with the campaign for rights on site, using the full strength of the union movement.”

This is no more than what the union movement was established for.  The union movement needs to remind itself that it is a member organisation and that worker rights are not necessarily the same as union rights.  Not all union activity benefits its members.

“Workers rights to a safe workplace and equality before the law are core Labor principles. Construction workers, their unions and 10,000 working Australian’s will continue to campaign for rights on site, so all Australian worker [sic] are equal before the law,” said Mr Noonan 

There are two issues here that Noonan has lumped together – workplace safety and worker equality.  Regardless of union action or union presence, every Australian worker has the right to a safe and healthy work environment.  Equality is harder to achieve but just as much a human right.

Above, the perception of corruption in the construction industry was mentioned.  The exploitation of OHS in an industrial campaign against John Holland and the ABCC is unfair and insulting and may indicate that the union movement is not gaining traction on the industrial campaign.

It may just be that the media statement from the CFMEU is an expression of frustration and disappointment with the government that the union movement campaigned hard to bring to power and who is not providing the expected return on investment.

The union movement in Australia needs to realise that the industrial relations environment, like the upcoming OHS legislation, cannot be wound back but that a new future is possible.  There is no vision in Noonan’s media statement only a complaint that the Rudd government is breaking its promise and, in the general populace,  noone outside the union movement seems to care.

Kevin Jones

UPDATE ON ABCC – 6 April 2009

The Australian Greens issued a statement in early April 2009 questioning the government’s choice to retain industrial relations rules introduced by the previous, conservative, government.

Senator Rachel Siewert said

“We do not, however, support his recommendations for the separate division within the Fair Work Ombudsman to retain compulsory interrogation powers and the ability to deny workers their right to silence.”

“There is no justification to continue this discrimination against building workers. The building industry must be regulated just like any other industry – in a fair and just manner that balances the needs of productivity and the economy with the health, safety and democratic rights of workers.” 

April 28 – Workers’ Memorial Day

memorial-poster-2009This annual event seems to receive more attention in Europe than elsewhere although over the years several Australian capital cities have erected workers’ memorial stones.  It is usually here that ceremonies occur.

I always attend these services in my own right as it helps to keep me grounded as I wade through risk assessments, policies, consultations, and other safety ephemera.

One of the chilling parts of the service is always the reading of those who have died over the previous twelve months.  This has echoes of the 9/11 recital each year but for the worker memorial there is a new set of names each year and a new set of families and a new round of grieving.

Please check your local town and city activities lists and attend this year’s event.

In support, the UK’s Hazards magazine has produced a simple but effective poster that can be downloaded.

Kevin Jones


Role of OHS Inspectors

There have been several incidents recently that illustrate the unenviable pressures on inspectors and Australian OHS regulators.

The Tasmanian Coroner found that the mining inspectorate of Workplace Standards Tasmania was “inadequate” and incapable of  “of carrying out its core function of inspecting and enforcing best safety practices within the mining industry.”  Two inspectors for that State’s mining sector- a sector that in 2007/08 was 621 mining leases strong, according to the Annual Report of Mineral Resources Tasmania.

The construction union (CFMEU) in Victoria was highly critical of WorkSafe Victoria following a scaffolding collapse in a main street of the suburb, Prahran.  A similar event occurred in Sydney a couple of days later.

However, OHS legislation clearly states the employer is responsible for safety in workplaces, as WorkSafe reiterated in a press statement.  TV an press reports did not quote the construction union official criticising the construction company or project manager for having the scaffold collapse on their worksite.

(The CFMEU provides a scaffolding checklist on its website.)

In the scaffolding situation a union criticising the OHS regulator is a peculiar distraction from the obvious failure of the organisation that has control of the worksite, the employer.  In the Beaconsfield case, the distraction is just as effective and allows the employer to feel that less attention, less criticism, equates to the incident or the fatality being considered of a lesser significance.

The days of government certification for scaffolding, boilers & Pressure vessels, and a raft of other work items disappeared almost twenty years ago in many Australian States.  One of the reasons this occurred was that regulators realised that by certifying something, by granting official approval, the regulator took on some of the responsibility for the work item.  Most regulators, with government support, realised that it was in their interest to re-emphasise the employers’ legislative obligations that had existed in law for some time.

One does not need to physically visit worksites to encourage “best practice”.  No inspectorate would expect every workplace to be visited by inspectors but high-risk workplaces, such as mines, may have this expectation.  

It seems increasingly popular for the OHS inspectorate to be called in early on high hazard organisations (HHO) projects. (HHO is a concept most recently discussed by Jan Hayes and discussed elsewhere in the works of  Professor Andrew Hopkins)  This enables projects to meet high safety standards in the planning stage.

OHS regulators have a delicate balancing act between consultation and enforcement.  This is a balance that is constantly being tweaked as political, economic and social pressures fluctuate.  The process is not helped b y fingers being pointed in the wrong directions.

Kevin Jones

[NOTE:Professor Michael Quinlan  of  UNSW, Middlesex University and University of Sydney) will be a keynote speaker at the upcoming   Safety in Action 2009 Conference on 2 April 2009 concerning the results of a five-year research report into what OHS Inspectors do and the implications for employers and safety professionals.]

Safety Awards

Awards for safety have always been an odd beast.  Any award is an acknowledgement for effort and should be valued but frequently eligibility and the judging criteria are not clear.

Last year WorkCover NSW released this criteria in the booklet that they produced about the award finalists and winners.  This provided the winners with a clear indication of why they won, not just the fact that they did win.

Anyone who doubts that a lot of effort goes into nominating for these awards should be reminded of the dance that Joe Jurisic made across the stage years ago in Victoria or the long kiss that one of the award winners shared on stage in New South Wales last year.

The awards are important and are valued. However an assessment process that is not open and accountable calls into question this value.

Today the Construction Forestry Mining & Energy Union released a statement “celebrating” the disqualification of John Holland Rail from the Safe Work Australia Awards.  The statement reads

“John Holland Rail Pty Ltd was listed among nine finalists for one of Australia’s premier national awards for workplace safety, the Safe Work Australia Awards. But Federal Court proceedings against John Holland Pty Ltd over the death of an employee on a Queensland site last year meant the company was disqualified at the last minute.

Mark McCallum, 34, died after being run over by machinery while working at the Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal in north Queensland, when his foot became trapped under wooden scaffolding planks while moving precast concrete decks.”

The inclusion of John  Holland Rail did always seem peculiar.

The rest of the media release covers the ongoing dissatisfaction of the trade union with the legally legitimate business decision for John Holland to move to the Federal  workers’ compensation system

Award Ceremonies

The question about safety award ceremonies should also be reconsidered in the light of the move to a nationally harmonised system of OHS regulation.

Over the years, many of the State awards nights have become huge and glamourous affairs with well over 1000 attendees.  They are also costly affairs that have a remarkably short shelf life.  It will be very interesting to see which OHS regulatory agency will cut back on their awards expenditure first in this economic climate that questions the duplication of events.

It was also odd that such a small country like Australia had so many safety award processes.  State awards are principally a marketing tool to promote the local OHS agency with the added benefit of being able to talk about safety in a positive, preventative light rather than through fatalities and the annual counting of the dead.  Interestingly the 2009 national awards ceremony is scheduled for World Day for Health and Safety at Work on 28 April 2009 – a day the union movement commemorates as International Workers Memorial Day.

Safety awards tend to generate very little media attention, partly because the media is unsure of which awards they should cover – State or National.  Award winners are lucky to get a paragraph in the next edition of a daily newspaper.  Local media attention is better as local business makes good and the direct benefit to the community is easier to see.

Running such events are always a balance between cost and benefits that should be reviewed each year.  Let’s see if the OHS regulators review the awards on both a state and federal level so that there will be a future for such events that we can all support and value.

[It may be useful to note that the CFMEU has received several OHS awards over the years.  I seem to recollect one award for a safety colouring book over a decade ago in Victoria]

Kevin Jones

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