BMD Group is an Australian group of construction companies based out of Queensland. They are one of Australia’s most financially successful companies, and despite this, they consistently cut corners and do anything they can to save money, resulting in dodgy job sites, poor construction quality, missed deadlines, injuries, and, most importantly, workers’ deaths.
BMD serves as a prime example of the consequences when companies put profits above worker safety. They have repeatedly compromised safety protocols to minimise expenses, endangering their workers and leading to fatalities on the job.
Most recently, at the end of 2023, a worker in his mid-40s died of heatstroke at a BMD site. The worker was reportedly showing signs of heat stress on a BMD site in Flinders View before he collapsed and tragically passed away on Tuesday, 5 December.
Shockingly, Workplace Health and Safety Queensland (WHSQ) did not show up to the site until Friday, 15 December, claiming it had no record of the fatality.
Under the Workplace Health and Safety Act, it is mandatory for the business – in this case, BMD – to report all workplace deaths, injuries, or illnesses to WHSQ.
The fatality demonstrates BMD’s poor treatment of its workers and raises serious questions about the efficacy of the regulator.
In December 2023, a worker died on an Ipswich BMD site after showing signs of severe heat stress. It was a baking hot summer day and the site had no heat policy, no air-conditioning in the crib room and no cool drinking water for workers. This is what happens when Bad Mad Dangerous put productivity and profits ahead of worker safety.
On a Jmac (a subsidiary of BMD) job site in Queensland CFMEU organisers found utterly unacceptable workplace conditions.
They found:
no first aid room
no eyewash facilities
no crib room
no drinking water
no chemical storage
These conditions are not only unacceptable for workers but also dangerous and could cost workers their lives.
If a site has no first aid room, what happens when a worker is injured? When a site has no eyewash facility and no chemical storage what happens when a worker is exposed to chemicals? When a site has no air-conditioning and no drinking water what happens? BMD knows exactly what happens and yet they neglect all of these safety requirements anyway.
The state of worker facilities at the West Camden Water Recycling in NSW
The state of worker facilities at the West Camden Water Recycling in NSW
The state of worker facilities at the West Camden Water Recycling in NSW
The state of worker facilities at the West Camden Water Recycling in NSW
The state of worker facilities at the West Camden Water Recycling in NSW
The state of worker facilities at the West Camden Water Recycling in NSW
BMD called SafeWork on themselves and scored them selves 2 improvement notices.
BMD called SafeWork on themselves and scored them selves 2 improvement notices.
Overwhelmingly, BMD’s profits come from government sites. This means that your taxes are going to a business that doesn’t care about the health and safety of its workers. We expect better from governments. Governments should choose companies that provide good, secure, local jobs where workers come home safe.
Instead, BMD creates unsafe workplaces with insecure, labour hire jobs. Instead of paying their workers fairly and making sure they’re safe, BMD focuses more on its self-promotion by putting some of its massive profits towards sports sponsorship.