The CFMEU announces with great sadness that yet another worker has been killed on site, this time at the University of Queensland’s St Lucia campus on Monday, October 31.

The site foreman, 65, was crushed to death when a lifting point on a formwork shutter failed.

Workers on the site scrambled to free the foreman from beneath the shutter and paramedics tried in vain to save his life.

This is the 11^th death in QLD this year.    Download the CFMEU QLD Safety Zone Alert on this incident.

CFMEU QLD Workplace Health and Safety Co-ordinator Andrew Ramsay said site safety walks would be conducted on all major sites in the south-east today in response to the death.

“Safety problems are just getting out of control. The demand for speed and long hours is having a disastrous effect on workers’ health and safety,” Andrew said.

The Union sent its sincere condolences to the family of the foreman and his mates on the job, many of whom had worked with him for over 30 years. 

• Listen to more of Andrew Ramsay’s comments on  ABC Drive Nov 1, 2011
  

• The foreman’s death follows that of a 40-year-old Airport Link mechanical fitter on October 1, two days after he was struck by a falling beam in the tunnel at Lutwyche. CFMEU news

• On July 13, 2011 in Karratha, the rigger on the Finbar-Hannssen Pty Ltd job was killed when a soak well lid being moved released without warning and struck him.  CFMEUWA also carried out a safety walk on the whole site and a WACIRF Counsellor attended the site to assist workers.  More