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Woman sacked for having a Coal Dust Free Brisbane sign in her car – what next in Queensland?

Submitted by x332349 on Thu, 08/28/2014 - 16:45

By Kate Dennehy - Lock the Gate Alliance, August 26, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

10636594_741023029303100_2869331995961584311_o.jpgThings are seriously wrong in a state that allows a hard-working woman to be sacked for having a Coal Dust Free Brisbane sign in her car. But that’s happened to Wynnum West resident, Kym Garrick who was sacked from her security officer job at the Port of Brisbane.

Ms Garrick’s sign from the Clean Air Queensland (CAQ ) group says: “Coal Dust Free Brisbane. No extra coal trains. Lids on wagons. Cover stockpiles.”

She lives on the train line along which 150,000 uncovered coal train wagons pass every year travelling through Brisbane suburbs to the port near Wynnum.

“I had the sign in the car because of all the problems we have with coal dust and coal train noise living so close to the line,” she said. “My washing gets coal dust all over it, I and my animals must be breathing in the dust and I had to install water tanks because I need so much water to wash down my yard and vegetable garden.”

Her termination letter, issued on August 6 on Corporate Protection Australia Group letterhead, stated that her employment contract with the Port of Brisbane “has been terminated, effective immediately” because she refused to remove the sign from her car.

Apparently the Port of Brisbane is claiming the sign made Ms Garrick ‘a security risk’.

Tags: 
coal
mining
coal-seam-gas
Australia

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