From Chapter 9
Compensation
When do we want it!
To speed up the delivery of accident pay, union protests erupted along Melbourne streets during May 1979. The demonstrations started after ABLF officials reported the "disgusting" treatment of one member at the hands of Mercantile Mutual. In response, 900 workers took over the firm's offices. Gallagher warned that scams by the insurers were on the rise. One trick was to sneak a line onto the bottom of application forms to sign over access to the labourer's medical records for use in combating his claim.[1]
Building workers occupied insurance offices on and off for six weeks, finding a sympathetic ear among clerical staff. The British multi-national C. E. Heath thought itself secure 33 floors up in BHP House when 4,500 building workers marched on them. Just to make sure, the managers stationed police downstairs and turned off the lifts. BLs knew the ins and outs of the place, having built it. Entering through the delivery dock, 300 of them bounded up the 600 steps, while the majority stormed the front entrance. Soon afterwards, all sixty insurers signed up to end delays in their delivery of accident pay on injuries "caused by violent visible external means." Money had to be there each week, not fortnightly.[2]
As with the 1971 campaign in NSW, no one in the industry could recall an issue with wider or deeper support for militant action. The Melbourne struggle united the native-born and the immigrants. Unlike in NSW, the action also strengthened the alliance between tradesmen and labourers. The ABLF leadership rejoiced that the battle had not been diverted into another "Vote Labor" fiasco, like the one that had derailed opposition to the 1976 wind-back of Medibank.[3]
Mass rank-and-file representations to the insurers jumped State borders. Early in 1980, the NSW Branch went after the Victorian deal by occupying company premises. Here too, the campaign had been triggered by a single case which resonated with labourers. Sun Alliance had cut off payments to a worker from the QANTAS job. The appearance of 600 unionists brought a change of mind and convinced other insurers to agree to the Victorian practice.[4] Direct action in July got a lump sum of $4,700 for a member who had been on sickness benefit of $56 week for 20 months.[5]
Much the same happened in August 1981 on behalf of Canberra scaffolder Bob Weslin who had got accident pay after falling onto his back at the National Gallery. When he returned to work, though with a different company, his back gave out and he had to go off again. This time, he saw no payments for four weeks. To get Weslin the money to support his twin daughters, thirty BLs sat in on the Canberra agent for the insurer. Once word reached Melbourne, ten jobs stopped and 1,000 labourers marched on the company. Its manager accepted that Weslin was entitled to his accident pay; the hold-up, he explained, resulted from a tussle between his firm and City Mutual. He suggested that Weslin wait until the courts decided which insurer had to pay. No sooner did the Federation mention bans on a City Mutual project in Perth than the cash began to flow.[6] Next year, even whispers of a march on C. E. Heath in Hobart was enough to win a payment outside the Table of Maims.[7]