WorkCover stoppage gains broad support
By Bronwen Beechey
MELBOURNE — In what promises to be the largest union stop-work and rally since the huge protests against the Kennett government's industrial relations laws in 1992, workers will be rallying on October 29 in opposition to proposed cuts to the WorkCover scheme. A general strike was announced by the Victorian Trades Hall Council several days after a rally of several thousand construction workers on October 14.
Unions taking part in the stop-work include the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and Transport Workers Union. Public servants, nurses and other health workers, textile, child-care and garbage workers will also be joining the strike.
The waterfront, government projects such as the City Link freeway (a notorious site of industrial accidents), commercial building sites and hundreds of factories will be closed. WorkCover inspectors will take the day off, and even the Police Association has endorsed the rally.
Martin Kingham, state secretary of the CFMEU, described the strike as an "exciting" development.
"Our union has felt pretty much alone in fighting the legislation over the last couple of years, and has been calling for a broader campaign", he told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳. "Now for the first time we're seeing a cohesive approach from the mainstream unions. This could be the most comprehensive union campaign since the Clarrie O'Shea dispute."
According to Kingham, the main reason for this is pressure from union ranks on their leaderships. "It's quite different from previous campaigns, where the leadership have had to motivate the rank and file."
Kingham said that unions have committed to a centrally coordinated campaign up to the last week in November, when the WorkCover changes will be debated in parliament. Planned actions include "flying gangs" of union activists visiting work sites to highlight health and safety issues, pickets of Coalition MPs' offices and information stalls at shopping centres and railway stations.
Protecting employers
The proposed changes to WorkCover include abolishing the right of workers who are seriously injured through negligence to sue their employers. A member of the public injured while passing a building site could take the employer to court, but a worker injured on the same building site could not.
Presently the maximum amount available under common law is approximately $1 million. The proposed maximum amount of permanent impairment compensation is $300,000 and a worker would have to be assessed as 100% permanently impaired to get it.
Many workers now entitled to lump sum payments will be excluded from claiming for permanent impairment because a threshold has been introduced of 10% permanent impairment.
A worker suffering three ruptured discs could receive $10,000 under the current system, but under the new proposals would get nothing. A worker with 10% hearing loss would be eligible to receive $6500 now; under the new proposals, even 25% hearing loss will get nothing.
According to Victorian WorkCover Authority figures, there were 33,898 claims for workplace injury in 1995-96, compared to 29,891 in 1994-95.
According to the VTHC, these figures greatly understate the reality. Injured workers have to be off work for over 10 days before they can lodge a claim, and many injured workers don't claim for fear of losing their jobs or being discriminated against when seeking employment.
Workplace-related deaths average 100 per year. This figure includes only "immediate traumatic deaths" — those within 48 hours of the injury. This excludes many deaths due to causes such as exposure to chemicals or toxic substances. The real number of deaths per year has been estimated as closer to 500.
Under the proposed changes, families of workers seriously injured or killed will suffer. Although death benefits will be increased from $150,000 to $300,000, they will be paid on a monthly basis rather than as a lump sum, thus precluding the payment of social security benefits.
Nationwide attacks
These attacks are part of a pattern of attacks on workers' rights around the country. Both Labor and Liberal state governments have brought in legislation making it harder for injured workers to receive compensation.
Workers in NSW lost their right to sue under common law in 1987, when the Labor government of Barry Unsworth "reformed" the workers' compensation system.
Last December, the Carr Labor government passed its own package of WorkCover "reforms", including 25% cuts to lump sum payments, the establishment of medical panels to assess incapacity, a $16,200 cut to maximum payments for pain and suffering and the right of insurance companies to stop payment of benefits after two years.
Federal industrial relations minister Peter Reith's amendments to the Commonwealth Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act are to be debated in the Senate's current sitting. Comcare, the Commonwealth and ACT government insurer, will be able to subject injured workers to investigation to determine whether their private life has contributed to a work-related illness or injury.
In WA, changes to workers' compensation last year included giving employers the right to sue workers for damage to equipment sustained when they injured themselves.
In general, the union movement's response to these attacks has been half-hearted, consisting of urging workers to support the ALP or, if ALP governments are responsible, to express concern about the extent of the cuts but do nothing to oppose them.
In NSW, the only industrial action was taken by the miners, who went on a four-day strike to force the upper house to exempt them from the changes.
The response of the national leadership of the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) to the Comcare changes has been to ask members to send a clip-off note to Democrat senators urging them to oppose the changes. Only the ACT branch of the CPSU has mounted a serious campaign to oppose the amendments.
Welcome change
The action in Victoria comes as a welcome change. However, many union activists have bitter memories of the VTHC's campaign against Kennett's industrial relations changes, where the strategy was to allow workers to express their anger by attending big public rallies, but mounting no serious ongoing campaign and advising a strategy of "vote Labor next time".
It is likely that Kennett will try to tough it out and force the legislation through, perhaps with some minor amendments. If the legislation passes, the VTHC strategy is to encourage unions to put pressure on individual employers to take out private insurance as a "workplace trauma cover" to cover lump sum payments.
"This is only likely to be taken up by the more powerful unions, leaving less organised workers at the mercy of unscrupulous employers and their insurers", said Dave Mizon, a National Union of Workers shop steward at the Kemcor petrochemical plant and a Democratic Socialist Party candidate in the 1996 state elections.
"To defeat Kennett, the unions need to stop relying on the ALP. Unions should be organising a broadly based political campaign with other community groups against all the attacks being carried out on working people."