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Issue No. 130 | 05 April 2002 |
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Lights Out on The Hill
Interview: Change Agent Industrial: Balancing the Books Unions: Breaking Out Politics: Pissing on the Light on the Hill History: Of Death and Taxes International: Now That's a Strike! Satire: Mugabe Voted Miss Zimbabwe: Denies Election Rigged Poetry: Flick Go The Branches Review: Red, Red Clydeside
The Soapbox Sport Week in Review Postcard
 Puplick's SermonChikka's LegacySocialists in the UKOrganising GloballyGrape DisappointmentUnion Resignations : Crisis or Opportunity?
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News Brogden's Worker Creds On The Line
The NSW Labor Council will this week ask the Opposition and minor parties holding the balance of power in the state Upper House to block a regulation to change the way psychological and psychiatric injury is assessed. Council secretary John Robertson says the new assessment scheme - PIRS - has been discredited by the medical and scientific community and make it impossible for victims of armed hold-ups and other acts of physical workplace violence to claim workers compensation. Unions want the previous assessment system, basing incapacity on the financial damage the worker incurred, to remain until a nationally accredited assessment system is put in place. The changes to assessment of psychological and psychiatric damage was one of the cost-saving measures in the Carr Government's workers compensation changes introduced last year, despite bitter union opposition. While the legislation was passed by the State Parliament late last year, several key aspects - including the assessment system - were left to be set by separate regulation. That regulation could be blocked by a majority vote in the Legislative Council. "We'll be asking the Opposition and the cross-benches to block the regulation when it comes before the Parliament on Tuesday," Robertson says. "To succeed we'll need the support of the new Opposition leader. He has the opportunity to send a message to workers that he will stand up for their interests rather than follow the Far Right agenda of bashing workers and their representatives at every opportunity. Hold-Up Victims Locked Out of Compo The Finance Sector Union says that since the new Act came into operation in NSW on January 1, 2002, there had been 28 reported armed robberies of banks in the state. These include: - a violent hold-up at ANZ Annandale on March 28 resulting in two staff members being taken to hospital. - two hold-ups at Westpac St Leonards (January 31 and February 13). At least one staff member is still off work. - the fourth attack in four years on the Westpac city bank on February 8, leaving three FSU members still under medical care. "While many of the injuries suffered by our members are yet to stabilize, we are now advised that none of the victims of these incidents or any of the other 24 hold-ups reported to date will satisfy the new criteria," FSU state secretary Geoff Derrick says. "This is a major issue for FSU members," Derrick says. "Without changes to the guidelines it is now apparent that victims of post-traumatic stress resulting from workplace violence will be denied fair compensation for their injuries."
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