Victorian Trades Hall Council. The voice of Victorian workers since 1856.Victorian Trades Hall Council. The voice of Victorian workers since 1856.

Trades Hall commemorates International Workers’ Memorial Day

10.30am, Friday April 28, 2006
Trades Hall, corner of Victoria and Lygon Streets, Carlton

Trades Hall to call for better workplace safety on International Workers’ Memorial Day

The Victorian Trades Hall Council will commemorate International Workers’ Memorial Day on Friday 28 April and call for greater protection for worker safety.
In Victoria, 19 workers died at work in the past 12 months. The toll since January this year is 10.  Last calendar year there were 18, down from 29 in 2004 and 27 in 2003. In addition, there are 32,000 Workcover claims lodged each year.
VTHC Secretary, Brian Boyd, said today, “In the current industrial climate generated by John Howard’s draconian I.R. laws it is more important than ever to stand up for safe workplaces”.
“We know we have a big fight on our hands with the federal government’s agenda to get rid of unions from Australian workplaces. This will weaken safeguards for workers and increase the likelihood of workplace injury and death.”
The international theme for the day is Union workplaces are safer workplaces.  In Australia, unionised workplaces are three times as likely to have a health and safety committee, and twice as likely to have undergone a management occupational health and safety audit, according to a Workplace Industrial Relations Survey by the Department of Workplace Relations and Small Business. Even the World Bank reports that there is a 95% probability of a government health and safety inspection if the union is present in the workplace, versus 16% if there is no union.
On International Workers’ Memorial Day we remember the more than 2 million workers around the world who die, the more than 1.2 million who are injured, and the more than 160 million who become ill each year due to unsafe, unhealthy, or unsustainable work and workplaces. 
The VTHC and the Industrial Deaths Support and Advocacy (IDSA) will hold a commemoration service at the Workers’ Memorial.

Speakers:

Brian Boyd (VTHC),
John Lenders (Victorian Minister for WorkCover),
Sharan Burrow (ACTU),
Peter Marshall (UFU),
Jack May (Industrial Deaths Support & Advocacy),
Pat Webster (Asbestos Diseases Society).

For comment and further information, please contact
VTHC OHS Unit Renata Mussolino on 9659 3571
www.vthc.org.au


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