Today marks 44 years since Australia’s worst industrial accident. On 15 October 1970 at 11:50am, a span of Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge, which was under construction at the time, collapsed, killing 35 workers.
That disaster is a powerful reminder of the importance of workplace safety. Young men arrived for work, yet never arrived home that night.
The span consisted of two steel sections, each weighing 2,000 tonnes. They were jacked into place, but did not align correctly. In an attempt to remove a bulge in the steel, ten 8-tonne blocks were placed on the span.
The bulge remained. Chief engineer Jack Hindshaw ordered boilermaker Barney Butters and his trades assistant Des Gibson to remove bolts in order to eliminate the problem. The pair was instructed to tighten them until they snapped. The metal workers' union site organiser, Jim O’Neill, reflected years later: “This action was without any consultation with the unions, the safety committee, or the workforce. If we had known we would never have agreed to this procedure.
O’Neill recalled that “the steel was turning blue, the rust was spitting off, and there was a groaning noise”. Then tragedy struck. “With a loud bang the span broke and came down. The disaster happened. Thirty-five of our workmates including the crew removing the bolts were killed in a tangled mess of steel.”
Bob Setka, father of John Setka, current Victorian secretary of the construction division of the CFMEU, assisted his injured workmates and was the last man rescued following the collapse.
John Cummins, who later became the last Victorian secretary of the Builders Labourers’ Federation, and then president of the construction division of the CFMEU, worked on the West Gate project as a scaffolder.
At the 2004 West Gate Bridge Memorial service, Cummins was the keynote speaker. He said: “We think there is a correlation between safe workplaces and organised workplaces. We think that is one of the unmistakable lessons that have come out of the construction of the West Gate … Leaving job safety to others, or taking it for granted, are recipes for injuries and worse. And this is not going to be tolerated by any of us.”
Cummins went on to become a legend of the trade union movement. Others who worked on the bridge included Paddy Donnelly, who became an organiser with the BLF; Pat Preston, who became the safety officer at the CFMEU; and Tommy Watson who was Victorian secretary of FEDFA (crane drivers), and then assistant secretary of the CFMEU following amalgamation.

Marcus Harrington

The lesson of the West Gate disaster? Organise

At the Toll Distribution Centre in Somerton, located in the solid working class northern suburbs of Melbourne, bullying and intimidation tactics by Toll management were revealed in a recent survey conducted by the site’s occupational health and safety representatives.
The workers at the Somerton Distribution Centre, members of the National Union of Workers, service Coles supermarket stores across Victoria. In June 2012, the NUW members at Somerton waged a heroic two week strike, fighting for justice with other Coles distribution centres around Australia.
In February, the workplace union delegates took up another fight, this time in defence of casual workers at the Coles shed. Toll management, in a pathetic example of human relations, sent a threatening text message to these casual workers.
The text read: “We require you to work. If you are unavailable to work, you will need to speak with HR and explain your circumstances. Pls reply YES. If you are unavailable, pls reply NO AND THE REASON, and contact will be arranged with HR. Pls DO NOT ignore this text. Texts ignored will result in no further shifts being sent.”
Currently, more than one-third of Australian workers are in insecure, precarious employment. The National Union of Workers is leading the fight back against casualisation, ensuring dignity, respect and permanent, secure jobs are reinstated into workplaces.
In early May, results were released of a survey relating to the treatment of Toll Somerton workers. The Toll Somerton OHS survey was conducted by the site safety representatives. It gave workers the opportunity to voice concerns about management bullying and harassment.
Seventy-three percent of respondents said that they had experienced harassment or bullying while performing their warehouse duties. Seventy-two percent felt that they had been pressured into meeting pick rate targets. Most workers surveyed stated that management bullying left them humiliated.
Container rates, not hourly rate
Just a few container lengths from the Melbourne Toll shipping yard where <a href="http://redflag.org.au/article/mua-members-stage-safety-sit-toll">MUA member Anthony Attard was killed in May</a>, Toll operates a warehouse in which a majority of workers are believed to be employed through a labour hire company.
Reportedly, these casualised workers are on piece rates. One worker says that this is creating an unsafe workplace and an individualised environment: “We don’t receive an hourly rate; we are paid by how many containers we unload in a day. This causes workers to take short cuts and work unsafely, just so they can get a shift the next day.”
International struggle
In 2012, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union produced a report, Toll Group: An Inside Look at Toll’s Exploitation of Workers in the US. The Teamsters investigated low wages and poor working conditions inside Toll facilities in the United States. At one site in California, Toll had provided only dirty portable toilets for workers to use as bathrooms, did not provide drinking water and did not provide sheltered areas for workers to take breaks or eat their meals.
At the Somerton site, workers say that management often come onto the warehouse floor in groups of two and three to question and intimidate workers who they consider have not met their “pick rate”. But, as the workers point out, the enterprise agreement does not provide for pick rates. Nor did the company seek this in the latest round of negotiations.
Toll Holdings mission statement in relation to safety states: “Embedded in our Toll values is the belief that all injuries are preventable and everyone has the right to go home safely.”
Anthony Attard should have had that same basic right. Every worker has the right to go home safely and in the same condition they started work that day.

Poor safety taking its Toll

Workers at Heinz’s Golden Circle factory in Mill Park, a suburb in Melbourne’s north, have been in a pitched battle with the US-owned canning and fruit juice company.
The workers – members of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) – began an indefinite strike on 20 February in response to the factory’s imminent closure and treatment of outgoing employees.
The plant’s 100 workers were dealt a severe blow in October, when Heinz management told workers – some of whom have given 25 years of service – that the Golden Circle operations would be relocated to Queensland.
Tony, one of the AMWU members working at the site, along with others on the 24-hour picket line, were irate at Heinz’s treatment of them. “They have decided that they are not making enough profit, so they are going to move things to Queensland to increase their profits, and kill our livelihoods.”
The workers are resigned to the fact that the factory is in its twilight, but mounted a fight for a fair redundancy package that sufficiently recognises their service.
Fifty workers have already been notified that their labour will no longer be required from mid-March. The remaining 50 face an uncertain future in a period of rising casualisation. This amounts to another 100 permanent manufacturing jobs lost in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, an area devastated by the manufacturing downturn in Victoria.
Adding insult to injury, Heinz Golden Circle has vindictively refused to release prior to closure those soon to be displaced workers who have found new jobs. “A lot of people have found work, and Heinz are refusing to let them go, so those members have actually lost jobs in the process”, Tony said.
A key claim for picketers was a demand that the company provide an additional payment to workers who engage in training and education to assist their transition into alternative employment. Pathetically, Heinz offered to place the workers in a government-funded program. “It was basically token gestures”, Tony said of the company’s offer.
In the midst of the manufacturing crisis, growing rates of casualisation and insecure forms of employment – affecting an estimated 40 percent of Australian workers – the Golden Circle workers fear for their prospects once the Mill Park operation closes its doors.
Tragically, they have lost two of their comrades since the October announcement that production would cease. The late AMWU members’ workmates said both passed away due to stress-related illnesses. The Mill Park workers continued the fight for justice in their memory; they all deserved better.
Workers returned to the factory on 28 February after securing a new one-year deal. The agreement will also bind any company that operates out of the Mill Park plant after Heinz vacates in April.
The workers won a three percent wage increase backdated to 10 January. The increase will also apply to redundancy payments of four weeks’ pay for each year of service. Importantly, the agreement provides that casual workers will also receive redundancy payments of one week’s wage for each year of service, calculated from the first day of their employment. Originally, the company planned to pay casual workers a redundancy benefit only after five years’ service.

The lesson of the West Gate disaster? Organise

Poor safety taking its Toll

Golden Circle – Giving workers the rough end of the pineapple

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