AWU National Secretary Paul Howes' opinion piece.

Life is cheap in China. It's cut price in India. And in Saudi Arabia, it's practically given away in the name of higher profits.

But in NSW, we place a very high premium on worker's lives. And it's a premium we - rightly - pay dearly for.

The reason for this is simple. We have world standard, best practice Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) laws.

The amazing rescue of 33 Chilean miners, trapped for 68 days more than 700m underground shone a light on the importance of strong workplace safety standards.

But even though we have one of the world's best OHS systems, it may come as a surprise to learn that on average 12 to 14 Australian miners die every year at work. For union officials, workplace deaths and injuries are an all too common occurrence. Not a week goes by without a report coming across my desk of a major safety breach occurring at an Australian Workers' Union (AWU) worksite. Sadly and unacceptably, many of those breaches will result in injury or death.

Most of these incidents are never reported in the media. Most families whose loved ones don't come home from work mourn in private. dealing with their grief in their own way.

For 125 years the AWU, and the union movement, have fought to ensure that workers are protected by the best workplace safety laws in the world.

And in NSW, we are fortunate to have the strongest occupational health and safety laws in the nation.

That's why I was pleased to see Premier Kristina Keneally say last week that she will defend those laws tooth and nail, to ensure that NSW workers are not left worse off in the move to a harmonised national health and safety framework.

Unions support moving to a national health and safety system but have always believed that workplace safety laws should be strengthened not weakened.

Kristina Keneally agrees with that.

Many employers seeking to weaken health and safety standards have protested the Premier's position, even going so far as to take out newspaper advertisements and have claimed that they support health and safety standards but don't want to see the best practice laws that exist in NSW extended to the rest of the country.

It's an odd position. Employers who treat their workers fairly and ensure safe workplaces have nothing to fear from the NSW law, which protects strong safety standards, but employers who cut corners and put the lives of their employees at risk should be penalised.

The NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell, who rarely stands for anything, has backed big business's call to weaken safety standards in this State. He wants to remove the right of unions to prosecute in the courts employers who breach workplace safety standards. In effect he wants to protect dodgy bosses who are more interested in saving money than saving lives.

Mark Lennon, the Secretary of Unions NSW, was right when he said last week that union-initiated prosecutions have been used sparingly. But where they have been pursued, as in the banking industry or against James Hardie, they have led to decisions that have forced employers to make significant improvements. Likewise, the reverse onus of proof has focused employers on their responsibility to provide safe workplaces. The law has worked to put the interests of worker safety first."

This is a position that all decent people seeking to protect the health and safety of employees at work should agree with.

NSW should be proud of the stance Premier Keneally has taken. She has stood up to the big end of town and to her own party and made it clear that her Government will not stand by and wind back laws protecting the lives of working people.

And of course, alarmist calls by employer organisations about the sky falling in when new safety laws are introduced is nothing new. It's their standard operating procedure.

Back in 1926, when the Labor Government introduced Workers Compensation, businesses at the time claimed that the economy would collapse and that no one would be employed.

The same outrageous claims have been made every time safety laws have been strengthened, and every time the Liberal Party has sided with their big-end-of-town mates to try and water down safety provisions.

The people of NSW shouldn't be fooled. Kristina Keneally is standing up for the laws that already exist in this State. They are laws which have saved lives and made workplaces safer and haven't had any negative effect on the economy.

And while we should have the same standards across the country, if we as an advanced nation in the 21st century, believe that people should be able to go to work each day without the fear of losing their lives or their limbs, then we should aspire to the best possible OHS laws.

Because while life might be cheap to some foreign Governments, it's priceless in Australia, and nowhere more so than in NSW.

It`s true that the lack of safety proceedures in many other countries is wrong.  Workplace Health And Safety regulations in Australia though, have gone too far the other way, they are now part of the "penalty system" for anyone who shows initiative for the country.

We need to concentrate more on how we can compete on the global market, and less on tearing down tall poppies to satisy inferioty complexes, envy, laziness, and greed.

His base?

Thanks Jas, it is pointless if we can`t earn a living eh?  Brutality is very hard to compete with, but we have to.

aikmann4 wrote on Oct 24^th, 2010 at 10:37am:


And a forum for tight fisted libbos winging about measly wage rises for the lowest income workers

I'd love to get a job in a circus but I'd rather just receive larger government benefits instead.

Green is the colour of envy. and losers.