After a slow start to the 2009/2010 trainee intake due to scarcity of work, I am pleased to report that since the last journal we have exceeded our target for the year and have already started signing trainees for the 2010/2011 intake.

After a recent and very unfortunate dog attack on one of our trainers CSTC were left in need of assistance in supervising a small concrete pour. As is so often the case the call for assistance was answered by our BLF members and this time it was one of the industries young up and comers, Cameron Rae.

Training scholarships are progressing quite well at the start of 2010. We currently have 80 trainees undertaking Certificates Three in Scaffolding, Dogging, Rigging, Steel fixing, and Concreting. Our target is to have 100 trainees participating at any one time.

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.

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).