Snowy Hydro 2.0 workers lose faith in safety

Snowy Hydro has declared ‘serious concerns about safety issues’ on the Snowy 2.0 project, after a damning confidential report found workforce fears over management.

Concrete moulds made to line the tunnels for Snowy Hydro 2.0.

Snowy Hydro has declared “serious concerns about safety issues” on the flagship Snowy 2.0 project, after a damning confidential report found a strong belief across the workforce that management was not committed to safety.

The Australian has obtained the report that documents a significantly higher than average negative attitude among workers about management’s attitude to safety on the $5 billion project.

Commissioned by project joint venture Future Generation, the report said 42 per cent of workers were negative or neutral when questioned about management’s commitment to safety, compared to an average project benchmark of 17.3 per cent.

Workers had very low levels of confidence or trust that incidents, hazards and accidents were being reported, and they did not receive clear or consistent communication about safety.

“There is a strong perception across the workforce surveyed that it is OK to take shortcuts when under time pressure,” the Snowy 2.0 Safety Climate Survey says.

Over one quarter of the workers surveyed perceived safe production was not important to their supervisors; more than one third believed their supervisor was not effective in resolving safety or risk-control problems.

Construction of a tunnel for Snowy Hydro 2.0

Snowy 2.0 project director Kieran Cusack said safety was the highest priority for Snowy Hydro and contractors were held to the highest safety standards.

“Snowy Hydro has expressed serious concerns about safety issues with Future Generation Joint Venture, the principal contractor for Snowy 2.0, including stopping the project on several occasions to address immediate safety issues,” Mr Cusack said.

He said Snowy Hydro had required FGJV to “immediately develop a comprehensive safety improvement plan”, which would be audited weekly to ensure issues were being addressed.

But Tony Callinan, the Australian Workers Union NSW secretary, said there were serious issues with the safety standards on the project and predicted a worker would be killed.

He said at times supervisors had to leave work to go to a hardware shop in Cooma to buy protective equipment as it had not been supplied to workers.

Mr Callinan said workers were employed as casuals through a labour hire company, NX Blue, travelling significant distances to and from a remote location, and working 12-hour shifts for about $30 an hour, well below what civil construction workers earned in capital cities. “The original Snowy scheme is a proud part of Australian history,” he said.

Construction of the Snowy Hydro 2.0 project in southern NSW.

“This job, unfortunately, will be remembered as the construction job where workers were paid well below industry standard rates, where workers were kept on casual employment through labour hire companies, and a job where safety standards are atrocious … it’s only a matter of time before someone is killed. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.”

He said the NX Blue labour hire agreement had been voted up by five workers at another workplace before being applied to hundreds of workers on the Snowy project.

“The joint venture claims to not employ anyone yet they determine what time the employees start and finish work and the shift rosters. They arrange the transport. They even stipulate the food the men eat. They are the employer for all intents and purposes, yet when we raise a safety or industrial relations issue, their response is we are not the employer, go and talk to NX Blue. We go to NX Blue and they say we can only do what our client (the joint venture) says,” he said.

The report says the workers expressed frustration that negotiations for an enterprise agreement had not been finalised, and there was a “divisive/blame climate enabling individuals not to take personal accountability”.

Future Generation said safety culture and outcomes were core values and action was being taken.