Meddling with health and safety bill a disgrace

The Mari­time Uni­on has denounced the water­ing down of the Health and Safety Reform Bill as pan­der­ing to a greedy and irre­spons­ible minor­ity.

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Joe Fleet­wood says that changes to the Bill pro­posed in a Select Com­mit­tee report released today would under­mine its cent­ral pur­pose.

“These changes inter­fere with the entire pur­pose of the legis­la­tion, which is to ensure work­ers come home from their work safe and well.”

He says the lives of work­ing class New Zeal­anders were being put in jeop­ardy by med­dling with the legis­la­tion.

Mr Fleet­wood says it is essen­tial that work­ers have real input into health and safety on the job, and that all busi­nesses, wheth­er large or small, are held to the same stand­ards of provid­ing a safe work­place.

“We will con­tin­ue to fight for the lives and well­being of our mem­bers and all work­ers through the intro­duc­tion of mod­ern health and safety legis­la­tion.”

He says the mari­time industry includ­ing ports and ves­sels are dan­ger­ous work­places.

In recent years, there have been a sub­stan­tial num­ber of deaths and injur­ies in the industry.

Mr Fleet­wood says that both uni­ons and major busi­ness organ­isa­tions have sup­por­ted the Health and Safety Reform Bill through to this point, and to see this hard work under­mined at this stage was very bad.