Thousands of Queensland construction workers are rallying Brisbane today, protesting for better workplace health and safety standards. Unions are calling for a complete overhaul of the office of industrial relations and its Worksafe Queensland arm.
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00:00 Thousands of workers marched through Brisbane CBD this morning to where we're standing now.
00:06 That's outside Parliament House.
00:07 Now they're calling for changes to workplace safety laws in the state, which they say need
00:12 to be strengthened.
00:13 They're also calling for new laws making it mandatory to have female toilets at job sites.
00:17 Now the interesting thing about this particular protest is A) its size.
00:21 There were thousands of people here, but also the fact that these people are from a wide
00:25 variety of unions in Queensland as well.
00:28 There's been some interesting signs, including people carrying a cardboard coffin as well
00:34 as a skeleton and someone dressed as the Grim Reaper.
00:37 They're saying the government's got blood on its hands.
00:39 It's been quite intense this morning with some of those chants, but some speakers did
00:43 address the crowd this morning.
00:45 Here's what they had to say.
00:46 For 20 years I've been blowing on sites for women to get toilets and facilities.
00:52 Still to this day we're fighting for them and then when we get them we've got to fight
00:57 again to get them cleaned and to keep them locked so not everybody else can use them.
01:01 We've obviously been pushing for what we call BPICs, the best practice industry conditions.
01:09 That means every government job that's over $100 million must apply the best practice
01:14 conditions.
01:15 Health and safety, apprentices, First Nations training, females on our jobs get more females
01:22 into our industry because we have a skill shortage like you wouldn't believe.
01:26 Why we're here, as I said, I'm talking to the converted, we're an industry that loses
01:32 a worker every two weeks, year in year out, not just construction, manufacturing, the
01:38 blue collar industries.
01:40 What we do as a union, all the blue collar unions, and what we ask of government, the
01:45 number one thing about people's welfare is their safety and you'd think this government
01:51 would do that.
01:53 Well there's more of these rallies and marches planned coming up to next year's state election
01:57 as pressure mounts on the government to take action.
01:59 [BLANK_AUDIO]