Working icon bites dust

DAMIEN McCARTNEY | October 1st, 2011

Workers at a Darwin building site have been banned from wearing singlets in a move they have described as "bureaucracy gone mad".

The tradies at the new Darwin detention centre being built at Wickham Point have been told they will be ordered off site if they do not wear high visibility, long-sleeve shirts.(THIS IS Darwin average temp 39C)

"They say you can't wear a singlet on site because they aren't UV rated and if your arms get sunburnt you will sue your boss."

"If you come in with a singlet they will kick you off."

Another tradie said workers were considering a "singlet strike" to protest the ban.

"There's been talk of everyone wearing singlets to work on the one day so they have to kick all of us off site," he said.

Clarke Constructions defended the decision. He said the company was following national Occupational Health and Safety guidelines.

Rumour has it that Clarke Constructions is run by an accountant and his next objective is to have them wearing collars and ties so they don't look like tradies, it is believed that he wants to lift the image of workers.

The fact that temperatures in Darwin average about 30 degrees is not taken into account is because he always works in an air conditioned office.

"It's OHS policy around Australia that you have to wear high-visibility work gear when on-site," the firm says.

"Go to any other major site in the Territory, and you will see the same policy in place. It's all for the safety of the workers."

Many Territory worksites have banned the plain blue tradies singlet however they still allow their workers to wear a high visibility singlet.

At the dentention centre only shirts with sleeves are allowed.

David Harris of Work Safe said they did not dictate what clothing workers had to wear at the workplace.

It must be a conspiracy carried out by those southern blow ins. What would they know about skin cancer anyway, don't they know true territorians are immune to skin cancer and heat stroke.