
Issue No 40		19 November 1999

News

Needle Stick Fears Spark Industrial Action

By Mark Hearn

Outdoor workers employed by Fairfield City have taken industrial to address the serious needle stick injury problem that they face every day on the job, particularly around Cabramatta, a centre of Sydney's heroin trade.


	Sticky Business

Over the last six years municipal toilet cleaner Jim Anderson has had eight needle stick injuries from discarded syringes dropped by Cabramatta's heroin users. And according to his employer, Fairfield City Council, it's all Jim's own fault.

Helpfully, Fairfield Council wrote to Jim earlier this year, and reminded him that 'you must avoid needle stick injuries whilst performing your duties'. The Council says he has had needle stick injuries 'sustained by yourself'. Like Jim runs around shoving himself into needles. Jim must comply with OH&S procedures, the letter warned, or face redeployment - and a reduction in income.

In all, Fairfield Council staff have filed 27 needle stick injury claims since 1996. So far, Jim has been lucky: tests have revealed that he has avoided hepatitis or HIV. Municipal Employees Union Organiser Sonja Terpstra says the Council's letter to Jim is "completely unacceptable. Jim's got a difficult job, with the enormous stress of dealing with the consequences of heroin use, and the excruciating wait for blood test results. The Council needs to be supportive of Jim, and not try to shift the responsibility to him, and threaten him with redeployment."

Jim didn't actually apply for a job as a human pin cushion. It's just that there is a syringe epidemic in Cabramatta, and Jim and his workmates have got the job of trying to clear them away. Perhaps before anyone notices that heroin is a problem way out of control. "Three times a week I empty the syringe boxes in the Council toilets", Jim says. "They're always full."

In just one fortnight Jim and his workmates collected 3,500 discarded syringes. From toilet blocks and window sills, gutters and trees, playgrounds and footpaths. OH&S procedures declare that Jim must use "long handle brushes, tongs, gloves and containers." Try using tongs to extract a syringe wedged in the s-bend of a toilet. And gloves aren't much use for a needle stick in the back of the leg, from a syringe poking out of a garbage bin.

Noel Thomas, the cleaners supervisor and MEU delegate says, "you've got to have your wits about you. You can't relax at all." Noel says the sheer quantity of needles to be collected each week would strain the most stringent safety strategy. Jim adds, "I spend hours each shift, just picking up needles".

The MEU wants positive action from Fairfield Council. The union wants recognition of the needle stick injury problem in the staff enterprise agreement. Sonja says "the Council's cleaners have been patient, but the problem has gone on too long. That's why they've been forced to take industrial action."

The MEU also wants Government action. General Secretary Brian Harris says "having one injecting room trial in Kings Cross is simply inadequate. The problem is much bigger than that. There is an urgent need for a permanent safe injecting room in Cabramatta, and to get the syringes off the streets and out of the playgrounds."

As Jim's fellow worker Alan Dickson adds, "a safe injecting room would encourage users off the streets. They'd have somewhere to go, and it would significantly reduce deaths."

There is an unsafe injecting room in the Cabramatta's main car park. It's the Council toilet block. Every day, a small van reverses into its dedicated parking spot next to the toilet, to begin another session of what used to be called the needle exchange program. They don't call it that anymore. When around 1,000 syringes are distributed every day, and about 60 - or 9 - are returned, it's not much of an exchange.

A battle-weary procession of users trudge towards the van. Young men and women. Gaunt mothers pushing baby strollers. They take their needles and go. Some of them don't go very far. Five times Jim has arrived to clean the toilet block to discover a dead human being, another overdose statistic. Cabramatta's Hughes Street car park is a centre of the local heroin trade, barely pausing when a Police car takes an occasional circuit.

Jim and his fellow council workers don't labour alone: the usual staffing shortfall is quietly made up by local residents collecting used needles while they're out walking the dog, and trying to preserve their community against the odds. As Noel Thomas observes, "there's some good people out there. You find they're usually in their sixties."

They may never give Jim the Order of Australia. After all, he's just an ordinary bloke, doing his job - a job most others would never do, for a problem many pretend does not effect them. But it would be nice if Jim had some sort of recognition, other than the insult that Fairfield City Council adds to injury. Blaming people like Jim simply increases the pool of victims and scapegoats. Meanwhile, out at Cabramatta, they need a solution. Now.

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Issue 40 contents

Interview: No Quick Fix
Online pioneer Marc Belanger explains why the Internet, on its own, will not save the union movement.

Unions: Organising With A Mission
Entries are beginning to trickle in for the Labor Council Organiser of the Year. With just two weeks to deadline, we look at the TWU's nominee.

History: Rhyme and Reason
Poems written by workers provide us with an insight into their experiences and also how they felt about their work and working conditions.

Health: The Food Police
Three times a day you take your life in your hands. How? When you sit down to eat a meal.

Politics: East Timor: Defeat or Victory for the Left?
John Passant's "Requiem for the Left" advances some rather extravagant charges regarding the left and East Timor.

International: Kiwi Unions Rebuild from Ground Up
After fifteen years as a right wing laboratory New Zealand is about to change tack. New NZCTU chief Paul Goulter outlines the challenge ahead.

Satire: Australian Democrats Revealed as Student Hoax
The Chaser has obtained an exclusive background report on the extraordinary story which reveals how and why Cheryl Kernot defected from the Democrats.

Review: The Best of the Best
Once again Channel Nine has out done itself with it�s new Ray Martin program �Simply the Best�.

Labour Review: What's New at the Information Centre
View the latest issue of Labour review, our resource for officials and students.

Deface a Face: 25,000 Teachers Can�t Be Wrong!
Angry teachers yesterday voted overwhelmingly for Education minister John Aquilina to take the mantle of this week�s face to deface.

» Contracts Fear as Teachers Sidelined

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» Hospital Crisis Looms as Nurses Set Deadline

» Pre-Fab Shelter Wins UN Support in East Timor

» Rail Authorities Back Down on Surveillance.

» Rio Tinto Black List Exposed at Blair Athol

» Needle Stick Fears Spark Industrial Action

» Round One to the Cleaners

» Telstra's Greed Puts Service at Risk

» Tragic Death Leads to Lift in Contractor Safety Standards

» Oldfield in the Pub