The Guardian 7 June, 2006
Mineworkers’ deaths linked to AWAs
In February 2005 Tony Maher, President of the Mining Division of the CFMEU, issued the following warning of the danger to health and safety posed by the introduction of AWAs.
For some time now our union has been warning that the spread of AWAs in the Australian workforce will result in increased fatalities and greater risks to employees’ health and safety as individual contracts generate a culture of fear that compromises workplace safety.
Our warning has been proven correct with the recent release of the 550-page findings of the Ritter Inquiry into the deaths of three mineworkers in separate incidents at BHP Billiton’s Pilbara iron ore operations in WA in May last year.
The Inquiry found that there is a direct relationship between BHP Billiton’s pursuit of its anti-union industrial agenda and the serious deterioration in safety standards and practices at its operations. BHP Billiton’s individual contracts are being increasingly written in the blood of its workers.
The Ritter Inquiry findings were tabled in the WA Parliament on November 26 following months of investigations and hearings into health and safety systems and practices at BHP Billiton’s Pilbara operations. The Inquiry found that the overwhelming majority of submissions had concerns — some of them very serious — about the poor state of OHS (occupational health and safety) systems and practices at BHP operations.
Among a raft of criticisms, the Inquiry indicated that the introduction of individual contracts at BHP Billiton’s operations since November 1999 "is a factor which has impacted and continues to impact on the successful implementation of safety systems".
Our union’s submission to the Inquiry argued that BHP was deliberately marginalising award and union members and ignoring safety issues raised by these groups. Ritter’s Report confirmed the problems associated with this industrial approach.
Ritter also reinforced the positive role of unions in health and safety as an "agile and a powerful backstop to guard the safe working conditions of workers".
Professor Neil Gunningham, in his separate report, noted that "strikingly absent" from BHP Billiton’s own submission to the Inquiry is any serious examination of the role of unions. He further noted that BHP failed to respond to the issues raised about its industrial relations approach.
While the Ritter Inquiry was limited to investigating BHP Billiton’s Pilbara operations, the situation is at least as bad at other AWA operations. Our union has had numerous reports from mineworkers who work on AWAs that they are afraid to report unsafe conditions and practices for fear of management reprisals.
We’ve been told of mineworkers being so intimidated that they work in what they know are dangerous conditions. We also know of mineworkers on AWAs working with injuries that not only endanger themselves but their work mates as well.
The Ritter Report shows that management cannot be trusted with workers’ health and safety. It also shows the direct relationship between the spread of individual contracts and the deterioration of a safe working environment — a lesson that should sound alarm bells throughout the Australian workforce as the Howard Government intensifies its pursuit of AWAs at the expense of collective agreements.
Common Cause