Miller Award For Safety's High Achievers

The NSW Workplace Safety Council’s Lifetime Achievement Award has been renamed the Brian Miller Lifetime Safety Achievement Award, after one of the labour movement’s most respected safety campaigners.

CFMEU Safety Coordinator Brian Miller was awarded the inaugural award last year at the first ever safety conference to be hosted by NSW Labor Council. Brian's name is synonymous with safety and stories about his lifetime of campaigning on behalf of workers is the stuff from which legends are made.

Born in Kensington, Sydney, Brian first started working on building sites in the 1950s, at a time some of the first multi-story projects, including the AMP and MLC buildings and the Sydney Opera House, were being built.

It was often a case of new techniques, new dangers to address and combined with the bad attitude towards safety held by many employers, Brian saw first hand the devastating effects of poor OHS standards at work.

Coming to prominence in the 1960s, Brian was an active union member who could always be relied upon to come out fighting on behalf of his fellow workers. Brian's driving concern was that men and women throughout Australia should not die while working to feed their families. He was also a strong support to those who did lose loved ones on the job.

In 1973 be became a full-time BWIU organiser. He helped establish the first workers' safety committee, organised a safety blitz in the Liverpool area - and so his career as a tireless watchdog of worker safety was launched.

Over the years Brian's achievements in the field have become almost as legendary as his passion for the cause. Secretary of the CFMEU NSW Branch Andrew Ferguson says Brian has made his finest contribution to the area of safety.

"Who knows how many workers would have lost their lives had it not been for Brian? The building industry is still a dangerous place, but Brian's tireless work - agitating, educating and organising - has made it considerably less dangerous than it was before he started," Andrew says.

Mentoring young unionists so they too can carry on his legacy, Brian has ensured the benefits of his commitment will never be lost. He is also famed for allegedly being able to talk under water with marbles in his mouth or, in the words of another colleague, under wet cement.

The Brian Miller Lifetime Safety Achievement Award will be presented at Labor Council's next safety conference on Friday 24 October.

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Last modified: Tuesday, 15-Nov-2005 20:37:33 EST