The Builders Labourer’s Federation acknowledges with disgust the ever increasing rate of traumatic fatalities in the Australian Building and Construction Industry. In the financial year 2008-2009 there were 40 deaths.

The ABCC has shown its fangs yet again, treating our Australian construction workers as worthless criminals.

The words you expect to hear after trouble with the law are “You have the right to remain silent”, but in the case of Australian construction workers, this basic human right does not apply.

A number of incidents have occurred in Queensland and other parts of Australia in which serious injuries have resulted where the crane operator has left the crane’s cabin to sling their own loads or to supervise a trainee dogger.

In my last article I mentioned the slow start to the “Hilton” project in Surfers Paradise. Well it’s looking like a job again now and not a ghost town, with Brookfield Multiplex erecting their third tower crane on site last week.

The last couple of months have been spent negotiating E B A. Whilst this has been a long drawn out process we now appear to be making greater inroads with the majority of form workers, steel fixers and scaffolders signed up. We still have a bit of work to do with a couple of scaffolding and stressing companies and this will now take place under the new industrial relations legislation. Hopefully by the next journal, we will have the majority of employers in all sectors signed up.

The ABCC has abandoned its second-ever prosecution of the BLF. The ABCC’s hopeless case against BLF organiser Eddie Bland and delegate Greg Thomas was set for a 3 day trial in court in June. The cases were dismissed by the Court at the request of the ABCC within the first few hours of the trial on the first day after the BLF’s barrister questioned the ABCC’s main witness, Peter Wiggins, boss of Tri-Nat Enterprises t/a MPD Constructions. Wiggins answers were confused.

Bilfinger Berger power station at Dalby has finished on time and without a hitch thanks to building trade agreements. The job will start the next stage of development in April/June 2010. Across the road the Laing O’Rourke job has had nothing but problems, in my opinion these issues could be easily solved given the proper agreements. It just goes to show that having the right agreement on a job site keeps the workers happy and the job running smoothly.

The Builders Labourers Federation sadly advise of the passing of president and founder of The Queensland Asbestos Related Disease Support Society Shirley White. Shirley founded QAARDS in 1989 after her husband Reg developed asbestosis. She had led the society for nearly 20 years until just a few months ago, whilst simultaneously caring for Reg. QAARDS now has over 1,000 members and branches across Queensland.

I’m pleased to announce that our EBA negotiations are well underway and are progressing positively. During the beginning of the bargaining process most of the subbies I talked to were screaming poor and used the financial crisis as a scapegoat. Now the majority of sub- contractors have signed their EBA’s and there appears to be a lot more happy faces.

As Royce Kupsch has discussed in previous journals recent amendments to QLD’s Workplace Health and Safety Act have introduced a new tool in assisting workers to ensure that the health and safety of themselves and their fellow workers is not placed at risk; Provisional Improvement Notices (PINs).