Baggage Handlers crippled under the strain
The Transport Workers Union has launched a campaign for a 20 kilogram checked bag limit at Sydney Airport to bring an end to Qantas Baggage handlers suffering serious injuries carrying passenger’s baggage.
Recent OH&S survey results identified:
- In 2007 30% of surveyed employees have been injured in the workplace.
- 1 in 7 Qantas employees had to have time off work as a result of injury in
2007.
- There were 28 cases of serious back, neck and shoulder injuries including
torn discs.
TWU Secretary Tony Sheldon: “These survey results show that the current
maximum baggage weight at Qantas Domestic Terminal of 32 kilograms is just too
much for one person to carry.
“The TWU will campaign for a 20 kilogram maximum checked bag limit for the
Sydney to ease the current strain on baggage handlers and to avoid further serious
injuries.
The 20 kilogram limit is in line with the recommendations of the National Code of
Practice for Manual Handling which states that there is a significant increase to the
risk of back injury associated with handling objects above the 16-20 kilogram range.
This new limit is consistent with international solutions, with British Airways and the
United Kingdom Health and Safety Executive supporting a shift to a similar checked
bag weight limit.
This campaign follows long inaction by Qantas management at Sydney Airport to fix
serious safety concerns related to faulty equipment and inadequate staffing levels.
“How many Qantas baggage handlers will have to watch a colleague sustain a
serious injury that dramatically impacts on family and work life before management
choose to address the serious safety issues”, Mr Sheldon said.
“Many injuries go unreported because of the fears of negative repercussions for
employees who hurt themselves at work.
“Qantas management have left the baggage handlers with little choice but to
campaign for the new weight limits for the safety of themselves and their
workmates.”
On 14 April 2008, Alan Jones from 2GB radio commented on a listeners email as follows:
ALAN JONES: Simon Harvey writes, “To the know-it-alls who wrote in to bag baggage handlers, how about you take your crisp, white-collared shirts off, and put your pens down for a moment, and come and see what we actually do? To John who said, you get injured if you do your job wrong, we get injured because we're doing our job to the best of our ability, under staff-cutting, and cost-trimming, so our employer can offer people like you, cheap air fares. It's naive to compere us with Army personnel, who carry, according to readers, much more than us on their backs all day. Have you ever been on your knees, in the cargo-hold of an aircraft, having to stack, lift and twist all day, day in, day out? The manner in which readers attack baggage handlers, and profess to be experts in what they do daily, is irritating”.
Now that is quite true, I had a caller on the open line, you might remember last week, who told me, this is not just baggage handling, you are on your knees in the cargo hold of an aircraft, stacking baggage, and it might do us all the world of good actually to go out and see what happens, before we start criticising, I guess, the complaints that they're making.
Media Inquiries Josh McIntosh 0408 463 199.
9 April 2008
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