Painters Laughed On Job

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30855, 14 September 1965, Page 17

Painters Laughed On Job

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) SYDNEY, Sept. 13.

Painters working on a Sydney construction job last year became the victims of a mysterious laughing sickness, the union reported today.

It said the outbreak was traced to the use of a preparation being sprayed on the walls of a basement. This incident, and similar

cases of side-effects from new preparations, has sparked off a demand from the union for a special watchdog ministry to test and approve all new products before being introduced to industry. The union will develop tts demand at the Australian Council of Trade Unions (A.C.T.U.) Congress, which opened in Sydney this afternoon.

Among other suggestions by the union is the establishment of a central bureau of antidotes, which could be dialled direct on “hot lines” from any part of Australia, to cope with emergencies. The assistant secretary of the Painters’ Union (Mr J. Foster) today described the problem posed by “new look” preparations, including paints, glues and pesticides as frightening. Only the surface of this problem had been scratched, so far, he said. In the case of the laughing painters, the distressing symptoms vanished after the construction authority had withdrawn the preparation from the job. “The men left the job crying, laughing and going into hysterics,” he said. “They were accused of being under the influence of liquor. They were under the influence not of liquor but a toxic vapour inhaled on the job.”

During a similar outbreak of “high spirits” among some Melbourne painters, men had been dismissed for being drunk on the job but they, too, were victims of the vapour, he said. The union would ask for more scientists and equipment in Government departments to police industrial safety laws; periodic overhaul of existing laws and regulations to keep abreast of new techniques and preparations in industry; and the establishment of Federal and State ministries of industrial safety, with the sole function of co-ordinating industrial safety measures.