By Bob Williams - Vice President & CBD Organiser

It has been quite an eventful time since the last journal and I am happy to report that the BLF was a part of the negotiating team for the Bremer 2 Power Station Agreement. This is the first power station agreement we have been party to in a very long time. I hope that this breakthrough will help us to be included in more of these project agreements, enabling us to represent our membership more fully than we have been able due to the proliferation of Greenfield agreements in this sector.

 
I would like to congratulate the workers on the Thiess 400 George Street project on their solidarity in the stance they took against Thiess and their attempt to set policy for the building industry with out any consultation with all the relevant stake holders.
 
What is he on about you ask? Well let me fill you in. Thiess had an idea to introduce a “Fitness for Duty Policy” a commendable initiative on face value. The problem with the policy was that it had no substance. Instead of producing a document that addressed the whole issue of fitness for duty and encompassed an education and awareness component, Thiess chose to focus on drug and alcohol testing with anyone testing over zero to be removed from site and not allowed back until they showed a zero reading. The workers found this to be excessive as well as invasive on what they did in their own time.
 
When we the union officials were informed of this by the workers (not Thiess) we requested a meeting with Thiess management where we informed them that the majority of the workers on their site were employed under a union EBA and there was a process to be followed in regard to consultation with all the relevant parties. Thiess’s response to this was to hold a meeting at their head office for the purpose of consultation. Let me tell you Thiess’s idea of consultation and mine are poles apart because Thiess proceeded to tell us that this was their policy and they would be implementing it with or without  the unions co-operation.
 
Additional to this we asked how they planned to manage fatigue as it was a component of fitness for duty and there were workers on their site doing excessive hours. Their response to this was that fatigue was the responsibility of the employer/sub contractor (WHAT A COP OUT). It seems Thiess have no problem taking the other aspects of fitness for duty management away from the subby but balks at fatigue management. It makes you wonder if fatigue management strategies would have too great an impact on productivity if run along the same lines as their drug and alcohol strategies.
 
So again I would like to congratulate the workers on the project for their stance against management to stop the introduction of this policy until proper consultation has been entered into and an outcome has been facilitated that all parties are comfortable with.
 
Foot note: The only people who were ever tested by Thiess (and this was on another project) were people NOT employed under a UNION EBA. Another good reason to be a member and a demonstration of why it pays to bargain as a collective.