Meddling with health and safety bill a disgrace

The Maritime Union has denounced the watering down of the Health and Safety Reform Bill as pandering to a greedy and irresponsible minority.

Maritime Union of New Zealand National Secretary Joe Fleetwood says that changes to the Bill proposed in a Select Committee report released today would undermine its central purpose.

“These changes interfere with the entire purpose of the legislation, which is to ensure workers come home from their work safe and well.”

He says the lives of working class New Zealanders were being put in jeopardy by meddling with the legislation.

Mr Fleetwood says it is essential that workers have real input into health and safety on the job, and that all businesses, whether large or small, are held to the same standards of providing a safe workplace.

“We will continue to fight for the lives and wellbeing of our members and all workers through the introduction of modern health and safety legislation.”

He says the maritime industry including ports and vessels are dangerous workplaces.

In recent years, there have been a substantial number of deaths and injuries in the industry.

Mr Fleetwood says that both unions and major business organisations have supported the Health and Safety Reform Bill through to this point, and to see this hard work undermined at this stage was very bad.