Illustration: Matt Golding "In any other industry, and in many other workplaces, every effort would be made to make sure the workers were protected; let's say from adverse substances,'' she said. "I'm not saying anything about Essendon … but you could look at the standards around nurses working with chemicals - my background is nursing - or the concerns that we have for things like asbestos and the outcry there is in the community over people working around asbestos. "If, in a workplace, there is exposure to substances that could be potentially adverse, then there needs to be very stringent protections and guidelines. This is a normal thing that would happen in any normal workplace. The welfare of the workers would be put first." Former Telstra boss Ziggy Switkowski was commissioned by Essendon earlier this year to conduct an independent assessment of the club's 2011/12 supplements program. His report, tabled in May, described a "pharmacologically experimental environment never adequately controlled or challenged or documented within the club".

The report also referred to "rapid diversification into exotic supplements, sharp increase in frequency of injections, the shift to treatment off site in alternative medicine clinics, emergence of unfamiliar suppliers, marginalisation of traditional medical staff". After being excluded from an information briefing held by Essendon for the families of players last Tuesday, the AFLPA is set to call a meeting - potentially a series of meetings - involving players, their families and AFL player agents this week. It's understood the AFLPA will advocate for players to have the right to seek contract terminations with Essendon, given the club's admission to governance failures. Kearney said she would attend any meeting Finnis asked her to attend and that the ACTU could provide the AFLPA with a range of support services. She said that assistance might eventually involve other sporting codes. Finnis is also chief executive of the Australian Athletes Alliance, an association of unions in major sports including rugby league, cricket and netball. "I've had a chat to Matt about that, and he's very happy for the ACTU to become involved and become connected in some way," Kearney said. "We should be highlighting that these are workplaces for these people.

"I'm not a sporting expert, so I'm not sure how these things have worked in the sporting world. But what I can talk about generally from my own experience is that you don't take these sorts of things lightly, and that there are very strict guidelines about them. A lot of these things are legally prescribed, too. "With a [safe] supplements regime in a sporting club, the players would need to know exactly what the substances were, there would need to be education about them and there would need to be full education about the potential impacts [of use], the efficacy, and the side-effects. There would need to be very strict guidelines about who could administer things like that. This is the type of thing that I think would normally happen in a workplace." Finnis could not be reached for comment on Saturday. While the AFLPA says that players' health remains its priority, the imminent sanctioning of Essendon presents a raft of issues, including the footballers' contractual positions. With the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority's investigation of AFL players still open, however, this raises the question of how any player who wanted to leave the club over the affair might be placed in the future elsewhere. While ASADA has not issued infraction notices against Essendon players after a seven-month probe, it has stressed its investigation remains open.

The ACTU has played a leading role in the most momentous industrial struggles in the nation's history, arguing for wage increases, improved safety for workers and equality. AFL commissioner Bill Kelty, who earlier this year removed himself from any commission deliberations about Essendon due to his relationships with ex-club chairman David Evans and coach James Hird, served as secretary of the ACTU from 1983 to 2000.