Attitude of airlines to staff suffering reactions to fumes
2.71 Associate Professor Chris Winder of the University of New South Wales was critical of the attitude of airlines to staff who experience illnesses related to exposure to fumes on the BAe 146. According to Dr Winder:
The response of the airlines to staff showing symptoms of toxicity has shown a lack of understanding of duty of care to employees. Information issued to staff on the issue has attempted to minimise the problem using the language of public relations. The basic approach to injured staff appears to be adversarial. Staff have been bullied and have been victimised. … Workers have been forced to persevere working in conditions that continue to aggravate their health, in some cases to permanent incapacity. Other staff have been offered demeaning duties, and genuine attempts at rehabilitation have been lacking.67
2.72 In response to this comment, Captain John Siebert, Group General Manager, Aircraft Safety and Regulation with NJS, denied claims by Dr Winder that “staff have been bullied and have been victimised”68 Captain Siebert asserted that these claims were “clearly untrue”:
Professor Winder's statement that staff are being bullied and victimised is quite unfounded. … As an aside, Mr (Lawrie) Cox (of AFAP) commented that there had been unfair pressure on some pilots who are members of his industrial organisation who have gone sick during mid-tour of duty. This is completely unfounded; I have checked on that. We have actually had two cases of pilots going sick without a clear explanation, and they were investigated by a flight operations manager. There was certainly no commercial pressure, or any other sort of pressure, applied to those two instances. 69
2.73 A further example of conflicting information concerning treatment of staff became evident during the Committee’s public hearing on 10 April 2000. NJS noted that a former NJS pilot who had been retired from the airline as “not fit to fly” due to a heart condition, later alleged in her written submission to the Committee that, in fact, she had been forced to stop flying due to the effects of exposure to cabin air on a BAe 146.70
2.74 In refuting this allegation, NJS told the Committee:
… We had a first officer become ill with severe chest pains in September 1994. They were investigated and after a period of time there was no
67 Associate Professor Chris Winder, Evidence, 1 November 1999, p 6
68 NJS, Evidence, 1 February 2000, p 133
69 NJS, Evidence, 1 February 2000, pp 133-134. For information on the reporting system used by NJS see NJS, Evidence, 1 February 2000, pp 137-138.
70 Submission 16, Mrs Robin May, p 1
pathological evidence as to why this lady had chest pains. However, it deteriorated into imbalanced and blurred vision and subsequently she was denied an air crew medical. In other words, CASA decided she was not fit to fly. She was then paid out on an insurance claim because of pericardium. In other words, she had inflammation of the pericardial tissue of the heart.
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