Construction workers strike over workplace deaths

BY JOHN NEBAUER

ADELAIDE — Five hundred construction workers marched on the offices of state workplace relations minister Robert Lawson here on March 8, angry that five of their colleagues have been killed on Adelaide building sites already this year.

The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union's state secretary, Martin O'Malley, told Green Left Weekly that the deaths could have been avoided with more rigorous site inspections.

"The problem is a lack of resolve on the part of the government to ensure safe working conditions", he said. "In order to get companies to fix unsafe sites you have to prosecute them, but government policy is to go softly-softly and avoid prosecutions."

Between August 1999 and December 2000, there was only one successful prosecution in South Australia for breaches of workplace safety laws.

Union demands included doubling the number of inspectors, on-the-spot fines for breaches and for union officials to be empowered to police standards and prosecute employers.

From GLW issue 440