Unions lash out after Bleijie’s Friday night workplace board purge
The deputy premier has quietly removed all six union officials from two key workplace boards. Their replacements include LNP insiders and industry figures.
Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie has purged all union figures from two key Queensland government boards, in an act the labour movement says undermines the integrity of the bodies as the LNP embarks on reviews of workplace laws.
Bleijie announced overhauls of the state’s Work Health and Safety and WorkCover boards at 6pm on Friday, with new paid appointments including LNP stalwart Lawrence Springborg and Stafford byelection candidate Fiona Hammond.
What Bleijie did not announce was that six representatives from state unions had been removed from their roles, and no new union leaders had been added.
Queensland Council of Unions general secretary Jacqueline King said Bleijie’s move disregarded the independent worker voices on the statutory bodies that union representatives had provided “for generations”.
“Queensland workers should have zero confidence that these reviews will be conducted fairly or independently when the deputy premier has deliberately removed every representative of Queensland’s registered trade unions from the very bodies established to advise government on workplace safety and workers’ compensation,” King told this masthead in a statement.
“Silencing the voice of workers while expanding the influence of employer representatives fundamentally undermines the integrity of these advisory bodies.
“At the very time workers need a strong, independent voice at the table, the deputy premier has chosen to shut that voice out.”
Bleijie’s move follows a campaign launched by unions in April accusing the Crisafulli LNP of using a review of safety codes, along with one into the state’s broader industrial relations and workers compensation laws, to wind back workplace protections.
Even the former Newman LNP government, of which Bleijie was a member, appointed a union leader to the WorkCover Board – then police union president Ian Leavers.
Bleijie, in a statement to this masthead, described King’s idea of independence as “laughable”, given former Labor ministers Linda Lavarch and Anthony Lynham chaired the Work Health and Safety and WorkCover boards, respectively, under the former government.
“Her definition of independence is, as long as their Labor mates are in charge, all is well,” Bleijie said, adding that workers were “well represented on the Work Health and Safety Board”, to which Labor had also appointed CFMEU figure Kurt Pauls.
“The Crisafulli government is ensuring Queensland workers have adequate protections and fair conditions in their employment. Workers should be safe at their workplace and paid competitively.”
The union figures remo
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