Electrical workers subjected to mandatory blood samples by prospective and current employers are calling for an update to the Privacy Act to outlaw the practice.
Workers applying for jobs in the resources sector have been required to sign broad waivers allowing their blood tests, private medical information, and the data associated with them to be used for any purpose by global employers and testing companies.
These practices are detailed in the Centre for Future Work’s “No Blood, No Job” report, released in August this year.
The ETU is calling on the Attorney General to update the privacy act to stop this invasive and disturbing practice.
ETU National Secretary Michael Wright said of this practice, “It is profoundly disturbing that employers are requiring people to submit vials of their own blood to even be considered for employment. The practice is unethical, unnecessary and frankly, quite creepy. The government should ban it before it spreads. We are calling on the Attorney General to urgently make sensible updates to the Privacy Act to prevent this abhorrent and unethical practice.”
The right to privacy is fundamental, and just entering into an employment contract should not be licence for the violation of these rights. Rights to privacy in the employment space must be subject to protections, protections equivalent to other areas of our society.
The ETU has welcomed a review of the Privacy Act, however, based on ETU members’ experience of increasing employer encroachment on their rights, the ETU has made recommendations on the needed reforms.
Recommendations:
Recommendation 1: Amend the Privacy Act and Fair Work Act definitions and exemptions for “employee record” to;
• ensure workers (and where they choose, their unions) have standing on privacy matters under both the Privacy Act and the Fair Work Act;
• provide access for representative complaints for workers and their unions via section 38 of the Privacy Act; and
• limit the ‘employee record’ definition under the Privacy Act to ensure employers are only allowed to keep records consistent with the Fair Work Regulations and so that workers health data is protected, and
• expand the matters Entry Permit Holders are permitted to investigate, interview and request records of, to ensure they include privacy matters.
Recommendation 2: Amend the definition of ‘health information’ in the Privacy Act to limit the types of health information allowed to be accessed and retained by employers.
Recommendation 3: Recognise that the power imbalance between a worker applying for a job and an employer requesting privacy consent means that consent cannot reasonably be considered voluntary.
Recommendation 4: Introduce safeguards to ensure employers can only obtain health data for a primary purpose and that primary purposes are established via industry or sector guidelines in privacy codes. An entity should be made to outline the primary purpose for which the information is required, and the data obtained should be limited to that purpose.
Recommendation 5: Amend the Privacy Actto require privacy codes to be developed in consultation with industry representatives similar to the manner in which safety Codes of Practice are developed. Privacy codes must clearly outline the types of health data permitted, how that information is allowed to be obtained, and the minimum threshold employers are required to meet to demonstrate how a ‘primary purpose’ is being met.
Recommendation 6: Introduce mandatory reporting requirements for breaches of privacy that ensures workers are notified in a timely manner and provides for adequate remedies and enforcement.
ETU WA member Nic works in the mining and resource industry in Western Australia. He spoke to the ABC about his concerns with the blood sampling practice, “There should be stricter restrictions … because that’s my DNA you know.”
You can read the ABC article here