Wollongong workers and the general public would be at grave risk of injury if the NSW government pushed ahead with plans to axe the region's safety inspectors, a union claims.
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Seven WorkCover NSW inspectors in Wollongong were set to lose their jobs, meaning the construction industry would be without "front-line policing", Brian Parker said yesterday.
The CFMEU secretary called on the government to come clean on what it had planned, saying he believed the job cuts in Wollongong would be "the opening salvo in a bid to slash inspector numbers at the safety authority".
"Given the important role WorkCover inspectors are meant to play in maintaining safety on construction sites, we are demanding to know what is going on," Mr Parker said.
"Just last month, a 37-year-old man was killed at a Wollongong glass manufacturer when a sheet of glass fell on top of him.
"It is appalling that we can have fatalities on job sites and at the same time, WorkCover is cutting inspector numbers."
The WorkCover Authority was called to investigate the man's death at Coniston on March 8.
He was crushed under the weight of eight large sheets of toughened glass. The load fell as the man was handling the three-metre-high sheets, each weighing about 100 kilograms.
Workers tried to help him while paramedics were called to the site, a glass manufacturer on John Cleary Place.
Mr Parker said yesterday that losing seven WorkCover positions meant "no tough cops on the beat".
"To be honest, we are appalled at the situation," he said.
"In the industry, there are a lot of inferior products coming in from overseas, a lot of the work is high risk ... stuff like steel structures and scaffolding coming in, so there will be no policing of that.
"It really means no people left on the beat any more."
Mr Parker said "unscrupulous employers would cut safety programs to the bone" because there would be no one to enforce the rules.
"When you are looking at inferior materials coming into the country from places, like China and Taiwan, and big steel structures in the air ... our fears are just not for the workers in Wollongong, we are fearful for the general public as well."
Mr Parker said the government had "ripped the guts" out of workers' compensation system and was now adding to the burden workers faced, by removing "what little safety enforcement remained".
The NSW government yesterday made no comment on the proposed cuts.
