Two more deaths at work
TWO young Victorian workers have died in the past 24 hours.
It is reported in the Age yesterday that “A 24-year-old Wangaratta man was hit by concrete as he cleaned out a concrete pump hose yesterday, and a 21-year-old plumber died in hospital on Monday night after receiving an electric shock while working at Stawell in western Victoria last Friday.
Michael Birt from WorkSafe Victoria says 28 people have been killed on the job this year, 11 since October. ”Safety issues are being ignored and it is killing workers. ” Mr Birt said.
Yet Government’s do not do enough on OHS. Here is a re-written version of my concern on OHS ‘harmonisation’.
First PM Rudd 7/11/09.
“Let this be a warning to all in corporate Australia that when it comes to your responsibilities for the safety of your workers, nothing, nothing should ever allow that to occupy a second place. It should be the first responsibility of every company. Companies cannot ignore their duty of care to their workers. The Government that I lead will do everything in our physical power to ensure that that is the case in the future.”
But as is usual this is Rudd “spin”.
Unions have a proud history of campaigning for workplace health and safety and enforcing prevention practices. Two teenagers died recently insulating homes. The ACTU led protests (see this blog).
Public policy is strengthened with union principles that place ‘health and safety of workers as a priority before profits, property and management prerogative’.
The union submissions to WorkSafe from the ACTU, Unions NSW and unions and OHS professionals reveal how existing state OHS standards will be trashed.
This is in the draft Model Safety bill. DPM Gillard’s national OHS ‘harmonisation’ of State based OHS laws
Howard started this ‘harmonisation’. His spin was to cut red tape for national corporations, not to improve OHS to protect workers. ‘Harmonisation’ has become the lowest common denominator with second-rate health and safety changes.
Unions show in detailed, evidence-based arguments, how the draft Model Safety bill undermines existing OHS legal rights. The worst performing employers will be able to avoid OHS obligations. See posts on this blog.
Unionists are entitled to rely upon repeated COAG assurances of no watering-down. The ACTU believes national OHS laws should not result in a compromise or reduction of protections or standards for workers in any existing State jurisdiction.
http://www.rightsatwork.com.au/ohscampaign
Corporate lawyers for those employers injuring, maiming, causing ill health or killing for profit, will get a myriad of new legal loopholes. A national OHS system is to be established, but allowing employers to not comply with existing States’ based OHS Acts.
These State OHS laws have stood the test of 25 years, supported by employers and unions. State Liberal Premiers did not water them down.
Unions expose hundreds of details for the worse. Here are a few.
Take victims like Bernie Banton. The draft Model denies his union or his labour lawyers the right to prosecute his companies’ OHS breaches – Hardies goes free.
Democratically elected worker health and safety representatives like Bernie Banton will have their existing powers to implement prevention programmes and to stop unsafe work reduced.
Bernie Banton’s union organiser will have so many legal loopholes to follow that right of entry is denied. Health and safety organisers will be denied response to imminent risks.
Loopholes abound such as “so far as is reasonably practicable” on the employers’ duty to consult on OHS. The obligation is and should remain absolute.
The draft stresses ‘Safety’. ‘Health’ is downgraded. Rather than protect the future health of workers with workplace health risks eliminated, the future is that of Bernie Banton’s workplace where Directors deny and cover up health risks and can kill in the pursuit of profits.
DPM Gillard cites increased penalties, but wealthy corporations can still easily pay such fines. Bernie Banton would be angry that there is no attempt to put behind bars directors responsible for deaths at work. Read Matt Peacock’s Killer Company James Hardie Exposed.
The impact at law of the onus of proof proposed favours the corporation or government, which has enormous legal resources. The draft Model reverses the rule that the employer has the responsibility for a healthy and safe workplace and bears the onus. It is a retrograde step. Compliance against employers in breach has to be strengthened, not weakened.
The draft Bill removes the long held union rights to protect members’ OHS interests. It does not even meet ILO obligations for employers and unions to jointly set OHS standards.
This Model Act does not attempt to strike a balance between an employer’s and worker’s rights and obligations. It does not protect or improve workers’ rights. It even champions employer rights to the detriment of good workplace OHS for employees.
The details of the draft Bill are so bad it is like an OHS version of parts of WorkChoices!
State Labor leaders are not challenging the watering down of their own State OHS provisions because they are threatened with withdrawal of Federal funds unless they comply.
Despite many employers, academics, and OHS specialists supporting the unions’ case for strengthened national OHS laws, the DPM stands put with support from employer lobbyists.
In fact, stronger OHS laws are needed – the more so with the capitalist crisis. In a Victorian Trades Hall Council survey 77% of survey respondents said that the global crisis had caused deterioration in OHS standards. Companies are taking short cuts in order to reduce costs. They are avoiding OHS obligations and will do so even more if the legal standards are weakened.
In this capital accumulation upturn, the drive for the exploitation of workers’ labour-power will increase in the pursuit of profit recovery, again putting OHS standards at risk.
Unions say ‘No to Second-Rate OHS’. It is prudent to remain with existing State systems until ‘best practice’ standards are developed nationally with union agreement in 2010.
It is wise counsel for DPM Gillard to use discretion not to proceed in December with this Model. But the ALP is likely to push it through and sell-out workers’ OHS rights at work.
Report on 24/11/2009.
yraw voting-badge
