Patricia Fernandez report
Patricia Fernandez
This year has already come and gone so fast there has been little time to reflect on all that has gone on, well not quite the year but certainly the Easter five day long weekend came and went so fast that by the time one realised, it was all over, but it was great to have five days off.
This year has kept us all busy with negotiations for the replacement of Enterprise Agreements and once again trying to get a handle on all of the legislative changes most importantly the supposedly harmonised Occupational Health and Safety Act.
I attended a conference for three days regarding the changes to the Act and now more than ever I am sure that the workers in NSW will get little if any positive changes as a result of this exercise.
The Union was successful in getting funding from WorkCover to run a number of conferences on this issue and we are hoping to hold three conferences one in the Metro area and two in regional areas to educate safety representatives, union delegates and members on this issue.
As I have written before in this journal, safety in our industry should be first and foremost in the minds of all workers, managers, supervisors and owners every time a task is carried out in our industry.
The meat industry is one of the most hands on industries carrying out work and we are still operating machinery, knives, handling chemicals and manual handling tasks which pose a great danger to the occupational Health and Safety of all.
Please always think and act safely to minimise and if at all possible, eliminate any risk to yourself or your fellow workers. Please report any hazard and or potential hazard and make sure that it is acted upon and if not please report it to your union delegate or the union organiser.
On a much sadder note, Tom Hannan passed away in April. Tom was one of my mentors; I met him whilst working as a process worker at Inghams during a dispute regarding boots.
When I went to work for the union it was Tom who offered me the job and the privilege of working and being mentored by him. For the first twelve months I worked alongside him travelling throughout Australia, visiting meat works in remote areas and getting to know the members of this union.
Along the way we had some fun together as we shared common interests such as going out in the middle of the night just to spot nocturnal marsupials and be in awe of how beautiful they were. He also taught me how to survive the everyday pressures that our work brings and would always tell me to make sure I stopped and smelled the flowers.
But mostly he taught me how to be the best I could be at representing his beloved meatworkers, how to handle difficult situations with management and how to try and achieve all that could be achieved with the least disruption to our members.
I would sit in meetings with him and just watched as he produced outcomes that only he could do, I was in awe of his achievements.
Tom would always tell me the stories of what took place prior to me joining the team and always asked me to preserve the history of this great meatworkers union.
Tom became a family friend and we would often share meals with him and my whole family.
Tom leaves behind a legacy of achievement and history for many meatworkers.
He will be sadly missed by all who met him, and I will miss him greatly but I know that he will finally rest in well deserved peace.
Tom – “The Workers United Will Never Be Defeated”
RIP from my family and I.
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