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Issue No. 148 | 16 August 2002 |
Peak Performance
Interview: Labor Law Unions: Critical Conditions Bad Boss: Shifting The Load History: Peeking Out Safety: Flying High Corporate: Salaries High, Performance Low International: War on the US Wharves Review: And the Signs Said... Poetry: Tony Don't Preach Satire: Latham Dumps Rodney Rude as Speech Writer
Qantas Dressed Down Over Uniform Backflip Virgin Threatens Delegate Over Net Use Email Protection Hits Firewall Victorian System Needs Reform: AIRC Qld Public Sector Battle Heats Up Community Workers Eye Canberra Show Down Lift Techs Face Redundancy Lock Out Council Workers Win Picnic Day Fight School Support Staff Demand Recongition Black Chicks Talk At Refuge Fundraiser Colombian Left MP Applying For Asylum
Politics The Soapbox The Locker Room Bosswatch Human Rights
Another Capitalist Party? Justice For All? Kill the Photos! Right Wing Lackies
Labor Council of NSW |
News Cole Snubs Injured Worker
Furious, at being invalided out of an industry he had served for 20 years without any compensation, Gillespie decided to spill the beans on �systematic and widespread corruption� amongst steel fixing companies. He presented at the Royal Commission, in Goulburn St, Sydney, on Friday, July 12, armed with names, addresses and dates. Gillespie told Workers Online he was interviewed, on site, by commission investigator, Andrew Russell. "I had information about tax evasion, workers compensation fraud and other corruption I had experienced, first hand," Gillespie said. "But it goes right across the industry and costs taxpayers millions of dollars every year. "I went to the commission to tell them how they could wipe it out and clean up the industry. It's something I've thought about a lot since I was put on the scrap heap by employers who didn't pay workers comp levies. "But they weren't interested at all. They told me they were only really interested in corrupt union officials." Gillespie says steel fixing could be cleaned up in a matter of months. On every major site, he says, principal contractors keep meticulous records to cover themselves. Workers from all sub-contractors go through site inductions and, most times, have to sign-in every day they are on site. The fix the commission didn't want to know about would see authorities: - gather up the induction forms to identify the steel fixers - cross check the daily numbers against the head counts done by the builder - inspect the steel fixer's books and, Gillespie says, you will find "without fail" that the figures don't tally - cross reference your findings against the sub contractor's records and "you still won't find any records most of these blokes". - finally, check the steel fixer's claimed employees against how much steel he has placed, according to the contract.
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