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Eye Protection
Bill to "water down" workers rights*
18 August 2005
The right of 250,000 employees in federal government departments to seek help from unions on health and safety issues is to be watered down, the ACTU has said.
Amendments to the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Bill were due to be introduced late last night. The bill has previously been rejected by the Senate three times, but is set to become law under the government's full control of the Senate.
ACTU president Sharan Burrow said the bill would cut union representatives from their traditional role in workplace safety. "The government's changes to health and safety laws will allow employers to control the election of workplace health and safety representatives and make it harder for employees to be represented by unions in health and safety issues for their workplace," Ms Burrow said.
She said research showed workplaces where unions were active were safer workplaces.
"Surveys have shown that unionised workplaces are three times as likely to have a health and safety committee, and twice as likely to have undertaken a health and safety audit in the last 12 months," she said.
"Making it harder for commonwealth employees to get union assistance on OHS (Occupational Health and Safety) issues could lead to lower health and safety standards for federal police, people working in the defence forces, scientists, researchers, technicians, employment advisers and other staff in government departments and agencies."
Ms Burrow said there was clearly an ideological motivation behind the changes. "There is no need to change the system," she said.
"By any practical measure the current commonwealth health and safety system has been effective in protecting employees and inexpensive compared to similar compensation schemes."
She said the current commonwealth OHS laws had delivered the best safety record in Australia with almost 30 per cent fewer injuries that result in a week or more compensation compared to NSW and 24 per cent fewer than Queensland.
"In addition, workers' compensation premiums for the commonwealth are much lower than those paid by the states." Ms Burrow said.
"NSW premiums are three times the cost of the commonwealth and in WA, Victoria and SA, they are more than twice the cost."
* Article sourced from www.news.com.au website.
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