An October 19 report in the Guardian has brought to light a spate of major safety breaches on the Sydney Metro rail construction project over the past six months.
Primarily, the breaches have been revealed by whistleblowers inside Metro management, who told the Guardian that the project had “a culture of trying to avoid delay at all costs,” including the safety of workers.
The Electrical Trades Union (ETU) has made a handful of public statements about safety concerns on the multi-billion dollar government-funded project. But the union has not mobilised workers against the dangerous conditions, keeping them on the job in line with the demands of management and the state Liberal-National government in New South Wales (NSW).
One of the most dangerous incidents occurred on July 16, when a “failsafe” mechanism on a 30-tonne flat-top railway trailer failed in an unplanned decoupling. This resulted in the trailer, loaded with equipment, racing for more than 1.5 kilometres through the half-built tunnel between the inner-city suburbs of Marrickville and Waterloo.
Workers told the Guardian that the only reason no-one was killed in the incident was that it occurred during a lunch break.
If the coupling mechanism fails, the “failsafe” system is supposed to activate and apply the emergency brake. According to the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator (ONRSR), the system failed because brakes designed for road trucks had been installed on the trailer.
ONRSR described the July 16...
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