Industry safety campaign urges workers to stand up for their rights (ABC)

View Comments ABC Kane Ammerlaan in front of the CFMEU campaign billboard featuring his face and story.

Building apprentice Kane Ammerlaan was aged just 16 when, while carrying an overloaded bucket of concrete, he fell off a roof and was blinded in one eye.

Today the 20-year-old is helping to launch a national safety campaign by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), urging workers to stand up for their rights.

Mr Ammerlaan's accident happened while he was working on a construction site in Melbourne in March 2010.

"It was about my eighth overloaded bucket of cement - about 40 kilograms - when my legs actually buckled and gave way," he said.

"The bucket caught around my arm, pulled me off the roof and the bucket emptied its contents into my left eye.

"By the time my boss laughed at me, told me to get back to work and called his girlfriend instead of an ambulance - because he didn't have ambulance cover - the cement was already dry."

Mr Ammerlaan has lost 100 per cent of his vision in his eye and says his injuries were easily preventable.

"There was no rail on the roof, no personal protective equipment, no workplace health and safety," he said.

"If I had 20c protective glasses, $100 worth of railing, ambulance cover which he should have had, I wouldn't be here talking about this today."

This morning a service was held in Canberra to commemorate International Workers' Memorial Day.

Injured workers and families of workers who have died as a result of workplace accidents attended the annual service to pay their respects and lay flowers at the official memorial.

CFMEU national secretary Michael O'Connor says a worker is seriously injured or dies every six minutes in the construction, mining and forestry industries.

He says last year 19 workers died in the construction industry and 10 in the mining industry.

"One of the most dangerous jobs you can have is as a construction labourer, they are killed at four times the rate of workers in all other jobs," he said.

"Too often, many workers feel they can't speak out, or stand up to their employer - with devastating consequences."

Mr O'Connor hopes the campaign will help others heed the warnings and stand up for their own safety at work.

"To stand up for themselves, to stand up for their workmates, to stand up for the standards that we've fought for over the years," he said.

"In every state, in every territory, in every workplace that we cover, we'll ensure that our members are encouraged to stand up, to speak out so that they can come home."

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