BY OWEN RICHARDS
SYDNEY — "Kill a dog — go to jail. Kill a worker — pay a fine", read a placard at an October 27 rally of building workers angered by the death of yet another young worker on a dangerous work site. The placard's slogan sums up the question in a lot of people's minds: Why should bosses get away with killing workers?
The case of 16-year-old Joel Exner, who died at work on October 15, has reignited the campaign by NSW construction unions to make industrial manslaughter a criminal offence. This would enable the jailing of employers whose negligence kills their workers.
The NSW industrial relations minister, Labor powerbroker John Della Bosca, has continued to reject the unions' demand for the legislation, saying in a press conference on October 27 that "the government is committed to the view... that the current common law in relation to manslaughter is adequate in respect to the legal framework."
Exner, who had only been on the job for three days, fell 15 metres from a storage-shed roof at an Eastern Creek construction site. Exner's death could have been prevented if the company had provided a safety harness, which is required by law. A safety harness costs a mere $40.
Exner's death has reminded many unionists of recent similar workplace deaths. Five-hundred delegates at an October 22 joint meeting of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), the Communications, Plumbing and Electrical Union (CEPU) and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), heard from union activists who made the connection between the tragedy and the February 2000 death of Dean McGoldrick.
Seventeen-year-old McGoldrick died as a result of "no scaffolding, no harness and no supervision", according to CFMEU NSW secretary Andrew Ferguson. Despite a $20,000 fine being set, the Tamworth employer responsible for McGoldrick's death has paid only $1800 to McGoldrick's family.
McGoldrick, like Exner, was also a young, inexperienced worker. He had only worked with the Advanced Roofing company for 11 days. Likewise, the company failed to provide a safety harness.
Other union activists remember the tragic death in 1996 of young union organiser Mark Allen. Allen was known as an energetic and inspiring activist in the Western Australian CFMEU's building division. He died while visiting a work site to inspect its safety conditions.
Green Left Weekly spoke to carpenter and CFMEU delegate Gary McCarthy, who recalled the incident:
"I was a personal friend of Mark Allen, killed on a building site in Perth on September 6, 1996.
"He and another organiser, John Lennox visited a work site where they were demolishing the old Perth bus terminal. Mark and John went on site as organisers. The demolishing company was found to have no industrial compliancy, or Occupational Health and Safety compliancy.
"The workers were on top of the terminal burning asbestos. There was no fall protection, no safe access, no scaffolding. Cash-in-hand was rampant. It was a non-union, no super, no workers' comp site — a totally bodgy company with a previous record of fatalities. Despite this, the Richard Court government awarded it a number of state contracts.
"So John Lennox and Mark Allen went on-site to organise a meeting, and Mark Allen scaled three levels up the ladders of the bus shelter site. He was up there to bring the workers down for a meeting to discuss the terrible safety conditions. He fell roughly 18 metres through a penetration. He died before the ambulance arrived, in John Lennox's arms."
It is frightening to find that accurate statistics on workplace death and injury in Australia are almost impossible to find. The federal department of industrial relations uses the number of fatalities for which workers' compensation is paid: around 220 a year, with 15.2 workers in every 1000 injured badly enough to take more than three months off.
But these figures are just the tip of the iceberg, as they exclude incidents not taken through the federal WorkCover system. On its web site, the national Occupational Health and Safety Commission warns that the "only relaible figures, national or state, available" come from its studeis of work-related traumatic fatalities, the most recent of which looked at 1989-1992. It found 440 workers were killed each year — nearly twice the national road toll.
CFMEU organiser Duncan McLaren, a painter by trade, discussed with Green Left Weekly some of the ways bosses "cut corners" to save money:
"Generally speaking, bosses have a disincentive to comply with safety regulations because of the costs involved. Anywhere and everywhere there are opportunities to cut corners, and bosses take them. It's as common as muck. And of course this directly jeopardises life and limb.
"In the construction industry, scaffolding is the big problem. Employers use lots of mixed components, which is against the law. Shonky operators put up bad scaffolding. It's our view in the CFMEU that they think that if they take the risk they could save up to $100,000, or $150,000. And if a worker dies, they will only pay $20,000 in compensation."
Recent structural trends in employment are also increasing the dangers for workers. Rampant casualisation, contract work and shift work have made the unionisation of workers exceedingly difficult, especially in construction, manufacturing and on the waterfront.
Says McLaren: "Workers know when something they are doing is dangerous, but they do it anyway to avoid losing their job. Casualisation just increases this danger. A casual worker knows that if they refuse to do something they won't get another call from that employer."
Lack of unionisation links the Exner and Allen cases, according to McCarthy. "On both sites, there was little or no union representation. Deaths happen when workers aren't in safe working environment. That was the case at Eastern Creek. None of the subcontractors there were compliant with the occupational health and safety requirements."
A well-unionised work site can take control of working and safety conditions. Workers must be able to stop work — with no loss in pay — if they feel their safety is threatened in any way. And all safety controls must be set collectively by the workers themselves.
Says McCarthy,"I believe in workers control. Sites need good, strong safety committees. Where I work, we control the safety conditions on site. But of course, not all sites are like ours. It varies from site to site."
According to McCarthy, the Exner death was just the latest incident to enrage building workers: "With more fatalities there will be more stoppages — and industry-wide stoppages."
The campaign is continuing. "The Building Trades Group (BTG) of unions, including the plumbers, the CFMEU, the ETU, and the AMWU, are campaigning to pressure the NSW Labor government to introduce tougher laws on bosses. We all have a duty to correct this situation. We need to get into the ears of the younger workers. We also need stronger delegate structures."
"We have high hopes for the campaign", said McLaren. "We won't back off until we win, until we get better protection under law for our members.
"We've been attacked as wanting to see all bosses in jail. But the truth is, we don't want a single boss in jail; because one jailed boss means one dead worker, and that's just not acceptable."
[The CFMEU has organised a benefit concert to provide financial help for the Exner family and to help fund the industrial manslaughter campaign. The concert will be held at the Gaelic Club on November 23. Artists performing are Martin Doherti (Irish folk), Dennis Kevans (Australia's poet lorikeet), Sydney rock band the Urban Guerrillas, hip-hop outfit Ends & Means, Long Weekend (Melbourne country-folk-rock act) and Panda (acoustic rock). Entry is $10.]
From Green Left Weekly, November 12, 2003.
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