Down Under

MUA onshore diving delegate Rob Harding

In the ocean depths men like Rob Harding work amongst sharks every day. But for many it's not the finned variety that they need to look out for in this dark & dangerous world where some of the worst employers lurk & unions are yet to fully fathom

Marcus Williams got into the heaving ocean off the remote Gulf of Carpentaria to do a job 10 metres down. He was never seen again. The father of one was working with nothing more than scuba gear in oceans where currents are so lethal his chance of surviving was almost nil.

His employer should not have ordered him to work in those conditions - certainly not without surface supplied air apparatus and surface to diver communications securing him to the vessel.

His death sparked a coronal inquiry and state government review of the industry.

"We need to clean up the industry and get rid of the cowboys," says MUA diving delegate Rob Harding. "There are some notorious, dodgy blokes around. They don't comply with safety standards. And many pay under the award."

In the case of Marcus Williams the company did not even bother to contact his family. That was left to MUA Assistant National Secretary Mick Doleman.

Diving is dangerous. Aside from the risk of sharks, blue ringed octopus, and rips, divers work at depths of 30 metres, blinded by the murky depths of oceans, lakes and dams, welding, drilling and dynamiting. Water temperatures can plummet to 5 degrees. Sometimes divers have to work in raw sewerage or toxic mud.

So dangerous is the job that most divers can't even get income or disability insurance cover. And they find it difficult to get life insurance.

Onshore divers work from small vessels without cover from the weather and without washing or toilet facilities on board.

Divers must have first aid qualifications and be able to treat potentially fatal barotrauma, bites and stings by marine creatures, drowning, toxic gas, poisoning by water contaminant, crush injuries, electrocution and embolism in remote worksites. They also have decompression skills.

Catch a cold or get an ear infection and you are unable to work for weeks. As 95 per cent of divers are casual they get no sick pay entitlements.

Yet until recently onshore divers were getting paid less than the lollypop man on highway repairs -- thanks to the Howard Government award simplification requirements.

In the union submission to the Commission last year, divers pointed out that in 1987 a tradesman on a construction site was on about $12-$13 per hour. The divers' rate was about $21 per hour. But by 2002 most trades on construction sites were on $28-$35 per hour while the divers' rate remained virtually unchanged.

It took 12 years to get the award finalised and during that time divers had to work alongside other trades whose rates of pay had risen by 51 per cent.

Onshore divers do it tough. They're on call 24 hours a day, but can go weeks between jobs. There work is just as arduous and just as skilled and just as dangerous as their offshore colleagues. But unlike oil industry workers, onshore divers are not swimming in money.

Harding says the difference is that onshore is run like a cottage industry. Some companies only have 15 employees. And that always makes it hard to organise. Whole regions are completely non-union, especially in our remote north.

"Oil is big money," said Rob Harding. "They make millions a day. When offshore divers in the Bass Strait went on strike in 1982 they got around a 50 per cent pay rise. But it took onshore divers 12 years to get the award simplification tied up."

That was done in 2002. Within weeks 60 new divers joined the MUA.

"Now we've got the award fixed we've got something we can offer people," says Harding. "I can walk into any of these shonky operators, ask to see their books and offer the people working there something worthwhile. It's the way to forge ahead and get people as members."

Divers joined the union through amalgamation in 1989.

To get the award fixed, Harding and others on the diving committee with NSW Branch Secretary Robert Coombs, National Industrial Officer Bill Giddins, Assistant National Secretary Mick Doleman and then branch deputy Barry Robson had to argue that the divers rate should be benchmarked to 130 per cent of a fitter in the metal industry. Stevedoring workers get 95 per cent.

"We had to make a detailed submission to justify our rate," said Harding. "We had to spell out all the skills and dangers and conditions."

Most divers are tradesmen. Harding is a welder. He says it's easier to teach a tradesman to be a diver than the other way around. After a while you forget you are under water.

"But we work harder under water," says Harding. "A diver expends three to four times as much energy to do the same job he or she would do on land. It's physically demanding. We need medicals every year."

Onshore diving covers redevelopment, construction, wharves and civil construction work that are usually closer to shore. But it can go deep. Sometimes onshore divers have to use decompression chambers each day. In the Bass Strait onshore divers laid the optic fibre cable and offshore divers worked on the gas pipelines.

"I reckon onshore is harder," said Harding. "Onshore you have to be in the water for much longer. Often you are working in zero visibility. Sometimes you can't see a thing. You're installing pipes by hand -- just by feel."

A diver must be able to do concreting, carpentry, drilling, steel erection, pipework, engineering and demolition, including the use of explosives and high pressure water blasting.

They must be able to maintain and operate diving systems and decompression chambers.

A diver must have expert maritime knowledge to work on ships doing propeller replacement and hull repairs including ship surveys to international standards. Inspection work requires knowledge of a vessel's structure. As well the diver must be able to use underwater video and still photography. Some work, like marine sampling, seismic and geotechnical surveys, require the diver to be a quasi scientist.

Much work is done from small vessels and diving crew are expected to be seafarers and work as deckhands.

"One paramount factor is that all these tasks are invariably done solo," says Harding. "There's no one nearby to call on like you can on a city construction site. Rigging in extreme swells or poor visibility is like working on the surface blindfolded while the load is swaying violently."

Underwater carpentry requires hydraulic chainsaws, drills and welding tools -- s all of which carry a greater risk of electrocution underwater.

Medical research shows that professional divers are prone to a series of injuries and illness ranging from hearing loss, liver damage and heart failure.

A paper by Dr Ernest Campbell also points to the risk of subclinical damage to the brain, spinal cord, inner ear, lung and airways. Deafness is widespread. Bone degeneration, sinus and ear problems, arthritis and bone necrosis are all common long-term affects of diving.

Divers must get yearly medical checks. The only other worker subjected to these stringent medical checks is the airline pilot.

Most divers cannot work beyond 45 years of age. In the UK they are even considering this age the mandatory retirement from the industry.

The MUA divers' committee worked hard during the award negotiations for a modest outcome.

"We didn't achieve big money," said Harding. "But it was our first pay rise in 12 years. We certainly have achieved more in last 12 months than in the past 10 years. We've got an onshore diving committee, which meets each month. We have more people joining up. If people understand the conditions we had to work under with this award simplification, it's a very good result. We can make it a springboard to get more guys into the union. If we get 70-80 per cent coverage we have a unified voice, better bargaining power and industrial muscle. At the moment there's not much unity in the diving community. Union coverage I guess is around 33 per cent."

The Maritime Union of Australia is now examining how to develop resources to organise a major recruitment campaign in non-union areas around Cairns and Broome.