01:33 pm, Friday 7 September, 2012

A state-owned energy company has decided not to appeal a Fair Work Australia decision against urine testing for drug use.

A report from ninemsn says that the NSW energy company has advised their staff that they are welcoming the ruling and will not lodge further appeals. The company will instead utilise saliva-based testing.

United Services Union (USU) energy manager Scott McNamara said the company’s decision is a victory for the workers and could set a precedent for other companies in the country.

“Other industries and unions are likely to review this decision and look at ways they can implement a more transparent, fair and reasonable testing regime in the form of oral swab testing,” said Mr McNamara in a statement.

SafetyCulture reported in August that Fair Work Australia upheld its decision prohibiting the company from conducting urine tests on its workers stating that urine drug tests would be “unjust and unreasonable” because these tests could provide positive results from drug use days earlier.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, a spokeswoman from the company confirmed that they would accept the FWA ruling but is concerned that other industries will have safer drug and alcohol testing than the energy company.

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03:01 pm, Thursday 16 August, 2012

Fair Work Australia upheld its decision prohibiting a state-owned company from conducting urine tests on its workers.

SafetyCulture reported in April that the state-owned energy company appealed on Fair Work Australia’s ruling stating that conducting urine drug tests would be “unjust and unreasonable” because these tests could provide positive results from drug use days earlier. Oral swabs were suggested as a better option.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the full bench of Fair Work Australia upheld the earlier ruling.

“In the present matter the senior deputy president did not fail to consider the employer’s occupational health and safety obligations to take reasonable steps to minimise risk associated with employees being impaired by drugs such that their ability to work safely is compromised.”

A spokesperson for the energy company said that they would consider the implications of the decision before deciding to appeal further.

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12:38 pm, Tuesday 3 July, 2012

A transport and logistics company is facing unfair dismissal charges after allegedly spying on staff who take leave to recover from workplace injuries.

The case was taken to the national workplace relations tribunals by one of its workers who said she was dismissed unfairly after private investigators hired by the company followed here in February this year.

According to a report by the Sydney Morning Herald, the case is the first of two unfair dismissal claims against the company filed this week which involved spying on workers.

Although WorkSafe and its insurance companies use private investigators to check on injury claims, it is not common for individual companies to spy on their workers.

The company claimed that their actions were justifiable as employers can conduct surveillance to make sure employees are really entitled to benefits being claimed.

One of the cases at Fair Work Australia lodged involved a female worker who said she was followed by private investigators hired by the company when she was on sick leave in February.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, she was in the process of lodging a WorkCover claim for a back injury she sustained while working at the company’s warehouse. She was followed by investigators for a day in February.

She was filmed from outside her house, and at a supermarket for 13 minutes.

She was dismissed from work after three days when she failed to mention her trip to the supermarket to her managers.

The worker was represented by the National Union of Workers during a hearing on Monday.

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12:52 pm, Monday 18 June, 2012

Fair Work Australia has upheld an airline’s decision to stop aircraft engineers from conducting maintenance checks on newer aircraft before takeoff.

ABC News reported on Friday that the Australian Licenced Aircraft Engineers Association accused the airline of endangering the public by cutting back on safety checks before flights. The union ignored the airline’s instruction and told its members to continue conducting the maintenance tasks.

“We think it’s an absolute disgrace that this management team can come out and put profits before safety and it is certainly going to make travel in this country less safe,” said Steve Purvinas of the Licenced Aircraft Engineers Association.

“The genuine safety concerns we’ve raised through this process have been completely ignored by the airline”

The association’s Paul Cousins believes that pilots should not do their job.

“I have the utmost respect for pilots, but they are not… licensed aircraft engineers,” said Mr Cousins. “As far as I am concerned, we’re the ones who carry out maintenance checks, the pilots fly the aircraft.”

The airline asked the engineers to refrain from conducting the checks, explaining that these are not necessary for newer planes, and that the pilots will now conduct pre-flight checks. The airline says this new system has been approved by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.

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02:27 pm, Tuesday 17 April, 2012

A state-owned electricity company has appealed to Fair Work Australia on its ruling stating that conducting urine tests would be “unjust and unreasonable” because these tests could provide positive results from drug use days earlier.

Fair Work Australia senior deputy president, Jonathan Hamberger, ruled that the company should instead utilise oral swabs in their drug tests.

The Herald reports that the company, in its notice of appeal, said that urine drug testing has importance as a “deterrent” to drug use and that it was more accurate than conducting oral swab testing.

“We have an overriding legal and social responsibility to protect the safety of our staff at work from foreseeable risks associated with chronic drug use,” said the company.

“It is urine testing, not oral swab testing that best mitigates those foreseeable risks.”

However, one of the unions which represent the workers said that the electricity company was out of step with the state’s other energy distributors, who are already using swab testing to detect drug use.

“The organisation is now, in my view, wasting taxpayers’ money for a vendetta against its workforce,” said Scott Namara of the United Services Union.

“Urine testing is something that is done to basically socially monitor people, and has no effect in identifying fitness for work.”

Other unions believe that this dispute will set an important precedent for other workforces since drug testing is common in different workplaces and the issue of whether swab or urine testing should be used is strongly argued.

According to the Rail, Tram and Bus Union organiser, Bob Nanva, a reversal of the decision could cripple its proposal of making oral swab testing the standard in national rail safety laws that are being drafted.

A spokeswoman from the electricity company said that the FWA ruling is contradicting its earlier decision to allow a mining company to conduct urine drug tests on its workers.

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03:19 pm, Monday 2 April, 2012

Prison guards, firefighters and train drivers are appealing to the state government not to force them to submit to urine tests after the Fair Work Australia decision last week decided that the practice was “unjust and unreasonable.”

According to a Herald report, Fair Work Australia ruled that urine tests should not be done to employees of a state-owned energy company since the test could give a positive drug result from days earlier which is “unjust and unreasonable.” They further suggested that drug tests using oral swabs were more appropriate.

Unions NSW on Thursday passed a motion to ensure “the precedent set by the Endeavour decision flows through to workers throughout the state of NSW.”

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03:44 pm, Thursday 29 March, 2012

Workers at a New South Wales company will not be required to submit urine sample for drug test, after Fair Work Australia ruled that making employees submit to urine tests for drug use is “unjust and unreasonable.”

ABC News reports that the arbitrator ruled in favour of unions who represented workers from the state-owned energy company who said that oral swabs should be used instead of having urine tests.

Fair Work Australia’s decision was welcomed by the United Services Union.

“The tribunal took a view that drug testing is not for social monitoring. Drug testing is to seek if you are fit for work, and that gets down to workplace safety,” said Scott McNamara, from the United Services Union.

“What people do on the weekend does not necessarily have a bearing on what they do during the day. It’s similar to alcohol consumption.”

The NSW energy company is still considering whether to appeal their case.

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