Go west at your peril

• General News
• 4th April 2013

Driver was given one hours notice to gather up his things and get on a plane back to Perth, MICK CONNOLLY Reports

“Go West Young Man” was the slogan used in the US many years ago to encourage families to move and make their fortune in California.

In Port Hedland there is a bus company called Go West but it’s certainly no Utopia.

The firm has a BHP contract and runs the miner’s workers to and from its various mine-sites in the North West.

I got talking to a couple of the drivers on one of my frequent visits to the town and invited them to a union meeting that night.

However, I was told that the company had threatened them with losing their job if they showed up.

Eight of them came anyway and it was great to be able to talk with them about their work-related issues.

They even elected a TWU delegate to represent them and I promised to drop in to their depot the following day.

However, next day Go West put the newly appointed union rep on a plane to Perth with just an hour’s notice.

He was told to report down to the company’s main office in Bunbury to face disciplinary action for breach of contract.

The poor bloke just made it to the Port Hedland airport in time – in fact he was too late to book his suitcase-full of clothes onto the flight.

When bus industry organiser Kevin Starr and I baled up Go-West in Bunbury – surprise, surprise - we were told the driver’s rep wasn’t going to be disciplined.

The company director told us they had flown him down to take on a manager’s position on another contract in the South West.

It was all a misunderstanding, he said – But a month later the driver has not been given alternative work.

By the way, after I had taken the delegate out to the airport I went back and did a safety audit of the
Go West depot.

And I identified 16 serious breaches of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

I don’t have the space on this occasion to list them all but one was the heavy bus gear box being held up by a crap piece of pine in our picture.

I was also sent photographs of drivers scrambling over the roof of bus they had been instructed to clean. Workers die doing dangerous jobs like that!

The Go West workshops that I inspected are littered with safety hazards that I believe are potential death traps.

I can assure you Go West haven’t seen the last of me.