Tim Vollmer
October 15 marked the first anniversary of the death of Joel Exner, the 16-year-old who fell 15 metres to his death on his third day of work. Joel's death highlighted the need for tougher laws to bring an end to the hundreds of deaths that occur in Australian workplaces each year.
Australand building sites across Sydney closed for 24 hours and a memorial service took place at Eastern Creek. More than a thousand Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) members stopped work as a mark of respect for Joel. Around 500 gathered with Joel's friends, family and other community members to unveil a lasting memorial near where he fell to his death — not only to remind future generations of the terrible tragedy of his death, but also to symbolise the fight for tough industrial manslaughter laws that will jail bosses who kill workers.
CFMEU NSW secretary Andrew Ferguson said: "Workers and their families should expect to arrive home from work each day in one piece, and if the negligence and greed of bosses who put profits before their workers' lives causes your death, your family should have a right to justice, and the boss should pay for their negligence.
"Too many Australians still die at work, with one fatality every two days. This is unacceptable, and the CFMEU refuses to stand by and watch as workers continue to die, and families continue to be torn apart, all for the sake of corporate profits."
Joel's mother Sue Baxter still finds it hard to cope with the loss of her son, and is angry at the low price assigned by the government to human life because of its continued refusal to pass industrial manslaughter laws to protect workers' lives.
"It is impossible to express the pain that comes from losing a child. It is even harder when your child's life was tragically ended in his prime, while his whole future lay ahead of him, all because of the cost cutting of a negligent boss who put money before the lives of his employees", she said.
Baxter thanked the CFMEU for its support and its "campaign to make building sites safer so that other mothers and fathers don't need to go through this horrible experience". She explained, "One year on, we still haven't received justice for Joel, and the government still hasn't learnt anything from our pain and suffering. If a driver is negligent and kills someone, that's a crime, but for some reason they are still refusing to create industrial manslaughter laws so that bosses who are negligent, and kill innocent workers like my son, can be jailed for it."
[Tim Vollmer is the media officer for the construction and general division of the NSW branch of the CFMEU.]
From Green Left Weekly, October 20, 2004.
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