Transport unions demand place for workers in health and safety group

Trans­port work­ers have ques­tioned why work­ers have not been invited to join a new health and safety group being set up by the Min­is­ter of Labour.

Two of New Zeal­and’s lead­ing trans­port uni­ons, the Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and (MUNZ) and the Rail and Mari­time Trans­port Uni­on (RMTU), are demand­ing the Gov­ern­ment include work­er rep­res­ent­at­ives on the work­ing group com­pris­ing of CEO’s of big busi­ness and Gov­ern­ment agen­cies.

The Min­is­ter of Labour Kate Wilkin­son will meet with exec­ut­ives tomor­row to dis­cuss the form­a­tion of a “Chief Exec­ut­ives For­um on Health and Safety.”

Pro­vi­sion­al fig­ures show the Depart­ment of Labour has invest­ig­ated 55 work related deaths in the year to June.

Mari­time Uni­on Gen­er­al Sec­ret­ary Tre­vor Han­son says uni­ons sup­port all moves to reduce the num­ber of work­ers killed and hurt on the job, but says work­ers have a right to have their voices heard, not just man­agers.

“There’s one prob­lem here – this pro­posed group is miss­ing the people who get hurt and killed on the job, who are work­ers, gen­er­ally not chief exec­ut­ives or Gov­ern­ment agents.”

Mr Han­son says private busi­ness have a con­flict of interest because “down at the coal face” health and safety meas­ures were often seen as a drain on profits.

He says that uni­ons are the strongest advoc­ate for health and safety because they are made up of people who want to go home at night in one piece to see their fam­il­ies.

“The Min­is­ter is cor­rect when she says busi­ness exec­ut­ives are in a prime pos­i­tion to influ­ence atti­tudes and prac­tices. The only prob­lem is in our exper­i­ence this influ­ence has often been neg­at­ive as some com­pan­ies we have seen place profits over health and safety, espe­cially through con­tract­ing out and sim­il­ar prac­tices.”

Rail and Mari­time Uni­on Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Wayne But­son says that the heavy trans­port industry had suffered many deaths and injur­ies over the years.

“Work­ers in the heavy trans­port area, in rail and mari­time sec­tors, con­front this every­day and to ignore their exper­i­ence and input is not the cor­rect way to go. We don’t need anoth­er box tick­ing out­fit hav­ing a leis­urely dis­cus­sion on the health and safety of work­ers from an air-con­di­tioned board­room.”

Mr But­son says without the involve­ment of uni­ons, rep­res­ent­ing tens of thou­sands of work­ers, any health and safety ini­ti­at­ives will not suc­ceed.

“We are say­ing to the Min­is­ter – we want work­ers to be at the table giv­ing their views on decisions that will affect them. This will show the Gov­ern­ment has a genu­ine com­mit­ment to all New Zeal­anders and not just a select few.”

“If bosses could fix health and safety on their own then it would be fixed by now.”

Mr But­son says rail had a ter­rible record for safety, until a min­is­teri­al inquiry invest­ig­ated the prob­lem and recom­men­ded Man­age­ment and the uni­on had to work togeth­er to improve health and safety.

“We have done this and the stats have been com­pletely turned around.”