AWAs Poison NT Workers

The uranium poisoning of up to 120 Northern Territory mineworkers has been sheeted home to the use of AWAs.

Workers at the Rio-Tinto owned Ranger uranium mine showered and drank water containing 400 times the legal limit of uranium in March this year.

"Falling safety standards can be linked to AWAs," says Didge McDonald from the Northern Territory Labor Council. "The aggressive anti-union policy of the operator ERA means that worker involvement on OH&S is negligible.

"OH&S is more punitive than co-operative, which flies in the face of all modern practice.

"Their ideological industrial agenda has lead to potentially 120 workers being poisoned."

Mine operator Energy Resources Australia (ERA) has been aggressively using AWAs leaving just a handful of employees at ranger on a union-negotiated Enterprise Bargaining Agreement.

Safety continues to be an issue at the mine despite the release of a damning scientific report into the uranium leak.

"We recently had the near death of a contractor at the mine with a guy crushed by a hatch on an Ore Hopper,'" says McDonald. "He was lucky that the plant was in such poor shape that when he was crushed the wall gave way."

McDonald says that territory unions are calling for major changes to mine safety legislation and for the enforcement role to be taken out of the existing government department and given to NT WorkSafe.

Unions have been critical of the NT Mining Management Act and the lack of an effective enforcement regime by both territory and Federal Governments.

"The underlying principle of the act is self-regulation," says McDonald. "Both enforcement agencies are close to the employers."

McDonald was also critical of the extensive use of contractors in the top end mining industry, claiming it was setting up a 'two tiered' workforce with two levels of safety.

Unions are eagerly anticipating the findings of a soon to be released NT Government report into the Ranger Mine.

To discuss this and many other interesting OH & S topics visit our discussion boards at http://unionsafe.labor.net.au/shoptalk/

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Last modified: Tuesday, 15-Nov-2005 20:37:34 EST