IR Reforms Will Silence Whitleblowers

An electrician who blew the whistle on the threat of deadly asbestos during the refurbishment of Sydney’s recently re-opened Hilton hotel has warned the action taken to protect safety could be illegal under the Howard governments planned workplace laws.

"If we lost the use of the state Industrial Relations Commission it would be a lot harder to get the result we achieved," says electrician Dean Storey, who was presented with a safety achievement award by Commerce Minister John Della-Bosca for his campaign to clean up the Hilton job.

"It would have been illegal for us to withdraw our labour on safety grounds."

Storey took on construction giant Leightons over their liability to pay workers for time lost on the job after WorkCover shut the site down while asbestos was removed.

Leightons had refused to cough up the cash, but Commissioner O'Neill of the NSW Industrial relations Commission found they had to pay up.

The win for the workers on the Hilton job set an important precedent in taking the onus for dealing with key safety issues off subcontractors and shifting it instead to principle contractors.

"It takes away the contractors being the meat in the sandwich,' says Geoff Prime from the ETU.

Storey was present at the Sky Channel hook up at Coogee on July 1 and addressed 600 workers about his experience at the Hilton refurbishment job and what the changes to workplace laws mean.

He's now active in passing on the word to workplaces across Sydney about what people are likely to lose under the IR Changes.

Feds to Clamp Down on Shareholder Activists

Meanwhile, changes flagged by the Howard Government to stamp out shareholder activism would obstruct people speaking out on issues such as the James Hardie scandal, according to union groups.

In recent years a number of unions in areas as diverse as mining, transport and banking have used company annual general meetings to pursue issues that affect employees.

The government is looking to raise the threshold for shareholders being able to place items on the agenda of annual general meetings from the 100 signatures currently required to having 5% of the company's capital value.

For a company such as Westpac that would mean having to own $1.7 billion worth of shares.

Geoff Derrick from the Financial Sector Union said the changes were part of a broader move to silence shareholder activism.

"Last year, when the FSU wanted to place issues on the agenda of the Westpac AGM, the meeting was coincidentally moved to Auckland," says Derrick.

All previous AGMs for the country's oldest bank had been held in Australia.
Unions NSW Secretary John Robertson threw down the challenge to big business to let their shareholders speak.

"When unions hold elections they are compelled to conduct a postal ballot.

"If it's good enough for unions it's good enough for corporate Australia."

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