On April 28 each year, unions, workers and their families and friends, in over 100 countries gather to remember the men, women and children who were killed or injured at work, or became sick from exposure to hazardous substances; were tortured, imprisoned, murdered or oppressed because of their trade union activities; and suffered degradation, pollution or destruction.
In Australia, every year around 440 workers are killed in work-related accidents (that equates to more than 8 per week). Diseases such as cancer and asbestos related illnesses cause an estimated 2,300 additional deaths per year (or 44 a week). Road accidents in Australia claim about 30 lives per week. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, more than 15 serious injuries occur every hour (or 1 injury every 4 minutes).
Worldwide, there are at least 1.3 million worker deaths per year. This is nearly double the number of deaths due to war, 12,000 of those are children. Over 160 million new injuries and work related diseases are reported each year. International trade unions estimate that each year over 200 trade unionists are killed or “disappear”, 8,500 are arrested, 3,000 injured and almost 20,000 are fired for trying to improve basic working conditions.
On construction sites around Australia, construction workers will stop for a minute’s silence to remember their work mates. Our construction industry is one of the toughest industries to work in and statistics show that one construction worker is killed per week in Australia. Hundreds more are injured.
The International Day of Mourning Service will be held at 12.30pm for 12.45pm on Wednesday 28 April 2010 at Reflection Park, Little Pier Street, Darling Harbour (between the Novotel Rockford Hotel on Darling Harbour and the Sydney Entertainment Centre). For further details or to RSVP, please contact Robyn Griffith on 02 9881 5916.
The International Labour Organization has found the Rudd Government’s construction industry laws breach international labour standards by targeting workers, and their right to belong to unions, for prosecution in an unfair way.
In a report handed down last month, the ILO made a new ruling strongly criticising the role of Government Inspectors in the ABCC (Australian Building and Construction Commissioner) for abandoning their traditional role – which is protecting workers and enforcing legal entitlements. The ILO is the United Nations international body responsible for protecting basic worker rights and is made up of representatives from governments, employers and workers.
In its most recent report the ILO Committee of Experts found: the prosecution of workers should not be the primary duty of ABCC inspectors, that should be the protection of workers; the ABCC is biased in chasing workers not employers; the policy of prosecuting workers was made worse by the fact that the laws under which the cases were brought have themselves been repeatedly found to be in breach of fundamental labour standards; and prosecution of workers by ABCC inspectors prejudices the authority and impartiality needed between inspectors, employers and workers.
According to CFMEU Construction National Secretary Dave Noonan, the ILO has called into question the role of the ABCC and its inspectors who have been active in a policy of prosecuting workers and unions. “The ILO has directly criticised the work of the ABCC and exposed its practice of prosecuting workers as a breach of international labour standards. These laws and the ABCC put the interests of big developers ahead of the rights of ordinary workers. New construction legislation due to be debated by the Senate will not meet ILO standards, leaving the Rudd Government internationally humiliated and embarrassed by its record on workers’ rights.”
According to the ABCC annual report 2006-2007: 73 per cent of investigations were of trade unions, 11 per cent of investigations were of employers, not a single employer has been prosecuted by the ABCC for failure to pay minimum lawful entitlements, only 4 employers were referred to statutory agencies for breaches, and the overwhelming majority of individuals called to secret interrogations were workers as opposed to management representatives.
The building and construction laws have now been criticised seven times by the ILO for undermining workers’ rights to participate in collective action and to be represented by their union. Mr Noonan concluded, “Every construction worker out there knows that ABCC investigators continue to harass and intimidate workers on construction sites. You cannot be selective about respecting international laws. The Prime Minister puts himself forward as someone who believes in international law, as well as someone who stands up for workers’ rights. Getting rid of these unfair laws would show he is sincere on both counts.”
Family First believes Australians work to live, they do not live to work. Parents in the paid workforce are parents first and workers second. Achieving a work/family balance is a real challenge and too often family time is sacrificed for work demands. Family First voted against WorkChoices because it removed guarantees for basic workplace conditions and made families worse off. It is important that workers are treated fairly and feel secure in their jobs and that they are guaranteed conditions such as overtime and meal breaks.
Family First believes we need to strike the right balance between the needs of employers and employees. Most employers and employees do the right thing but we need strong protections for those who seek to abuse the system.
Family First introduced legislation to ensure all workers who have to work on public holidays would be guaranteed a minimum of another day off paid at time and a half; that all workers would get an unpaid meal break of at least 30 minutes after five hours; that all workers would receive overtime at a minimum rate of time and a half, and that all workers would be guaranteed penalty rates at a minimum of time and a half for working anti-family hours as well as their full redundancy entitlements.
Family First successfully amended WorkChoices to double the protection period for workers’ redundancy pay to two years. This followed the Tristar fiasco where workers allege they are being kept on the payroll with nothing to do as Tristar tries to slash its redundancy bill from $4.5million to $1 million.
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