100 signatures reached
To: Queensland Rail
Qld Rail needs a firm but fair approach to AOD safety
Right now, an RTBU member is under investigation and facing unemployment for the most ridiculous circumstances. His job is in jeopardy for returning a blood alcohol result that wouldn’t even get noticed by the Queensland Police.
If Queensland Rail's claims about safety were true, they would immediately re-install breathalyzers in depots to ensure that all workers can undertake their job safely without fear of being sacked.
They must immediately introduce a new policy that takes into account the margin of error of their tests and ensures workers are provided with a common sense approach if they return an incredibly low result.
Queensland Rail needs to immediately implement a compassionate non-invasive policy, based in the real world that doesn’t punish workers.
Why is this important?
Workers at Queensland Rail can return a positive result of 0.001%, so low that many machines could not detect it, and lose their job. They don’t take into account any other factors that will affect a result, including cough medicine, asthma puffers, mouth wash, tooth paste, energy drinks, lip balm or hand sanitiser.
The tests they use are only required to be calibrated once a year, with an accepted margin of error of 400%, which they ignore. These machines are likely to return a false positive and can be heavily affected by environmental factor like high voltage electrical disturbances and shock and vibration.
These machines are not the gold standard, and that's why there must be a common sense approach in the assessment of any results.
Queensland Rail currently has no interest in supporting workers, only punishing them and under their current practice they have zero discretion in ultra-low range readings other than to sack them.