Accident effects possibility raised

Press, 22 November 1983, Page 6

Accident effects possibility raised

The . possible effects of voluntary union membership on industrial accidents was the subject of a personal submission from Dr T. Dwyer, a sociologist of work at the University of Canterbury, to the Industrial Law Reform Bill select committee yesterday. Dr Dwyer said that industrial accidents imposed enormous costs on both the working population and the economy, but strong, active trade unions were an important factor in keeping down the rates of serious industrial accidents. “To the extent that the passage of the Industrial Law Reform Bill results in weaker and less active unions in the work places in New Zealand, rates of serious industrial accidents can

be expected to rise,” he said.

Dr Dwyer recommended that the unqualified preference provisions be retained in awards, but if this was not done policy-makers should be held publicly accountable for any adverse consequences which the act’s passage should have on the rates of death and injury suffered by the nonunionised working population.

He further recommended that this information should be made available to the Accident Compensation Corporation to equitably fix its' levy policies, and that when compiling its statistics the corporation should include an indicator of the victims’ union membership status.