Critical Times

A viewing of a couple of articles from the, “The Meatworker”, journal of the Australiasian Meat Industry Employee’s Union (AMIEU) caught our eye and illustrated in very human terms how bad workplaces can become under Australian Workplace Agreements. Read on to see what awaits workers in the near future.

Unfair Dismissal (Teys Naracoorte)

One case involved a worker who was sacked after refusing to work weekends and who had to take time off work to care for her sick children.

We lodged an unfair dismissal application in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission where the company argued that she was on a probation period and that they could do what they liked with her job.

During the first hearing it came out that the company had sent an AWA to the Office Of the Employment advocate for her to which she had not consented.

Evidence showed that her supposed signature to the AWA had also been witnessed by a person who was not even in the office at the time that it was supposed to have happened.

In fact, it turned out that the alleged ‘witness’ was a person who was prohibited by law from being a witness to an AWA.

The Commission found in favour of the worker in that she was not a probationary employee and therefore able to argue the unfair dismissal claim. Immediately the company lodged an appeal.

They then withdrew the appeal to go back to the Commission for further conciliation.

This proved fruitless and the company said that they would continue the appeal process.

When they hadn’t relisted their expected appeal, we found that we had gone over the prescribed time to proceed to arbitration and so we had to apply for an extension of time.

The company seized upon the opportunity to get the matter struck out through a technicality and opposed the application.

It was to no avail to them with the Commission granting the extension, thus allowing the full hearing to continue.

On the morning of the next directions hearing the company decided to settle out of court.

Freedom Of Association (Teys Naracoorte)

A campaign to try and get workers off their AWA’s and onto a collective enterprise agreement (full report further on in journal)

Saw the management threaten our delegate on site with the sack if he handed out Union newsletters on the plant.

The Union has applied for an injunction against the company in the Industrial Court and will pursue the safety of our delegate with all of our resources.

This type of activity is against the law and the company could face penalties as a result.

Teys’ Workers Fight For Better

Workers at the Teys Brothers (Naracoorte) plant are one of those groups of workers who had to sign an Australian Workplace Agreement in order to get a job at the factory.

The AWA’s came up for renegotiation this year and after 5 years of being told by management to take it or leave it (ie quit), the workers decided to try and get organised and improve their conditions.

That is, after all, the purpose of negotiations.

That is the time to look at what you have and to try to negotiate something that suits you better.

Many workers joined the Union and a meeting of Union members was ultimately held out of work, where delegates were chosen and elected to represent the views of the workers and to try to negotiate with the company.

Of course, the company’s arrogance was beyond comprehension by most rational people as they tried various tactics to avoid any real negotiations. Their childish antics to avoid dealing with the Union were bewildering to watch.

As time went on, some workers gave up the fight out of a sense of hopelessness, some were scared of what the company may do if it didn’t get its way, and some others were sucked into the usual anti-Union sentiment that company’s whip up to trick people out of pursuing a better deal.

However a core group are fighting on and their perseverance will win the day. This group will win better conditions if they stay together and they should be admired by all for their strength and unity.

The Howard government has turned the clock back 100 years with its AWA laws, but with strength and unity workers will prevail.

One Worker’s Fight For Justice

Most of the Liberal Governments Industrial Relations strategy revolves around individualism rather than the collective and promotes individuals to rise or fall on their own.

This is true of their AWA legislation, which relies on the fact that when you crush the ability to organise and work together as a collective, most individuals will not want to fight on by themselves.

Fortunately this is not true of all people and some of our members are strong enough to rebuke the rhetoric and say ‘no’.

We have seen several such individual struggles for better working conditions but none more outstanding than one of the T&R Murray Bridge workers, John Woods.

John worked in the by-products section of the meatworks on a rotating shift arrangement with the other workers.

In 2000 it was discovered that John did not have a valid AWA. This meant that he was an award based worker.

The ramifications of this were quite large because although the Office Of The Employment Advocate had decided that the AWA passed the No disadvantage Test, it turned out that the penalty payments for the shift work were much higher under the award than what the AWA paid.

John contacted the union and we looked at the payroll records and lodged an underpayment claim with the company.

Initially it looked as though the company would just pay up the difference but then they decided to add the condition that John must sign an AWA before they paid up.

How ironic that the company would offer to settle an underpayment claim by making it a part of the deal that he then sign away the conditions that he had won.

When he refused, the company withdrew the offer to settle the claim.

This was the start of many headaches for John as the company started changing his working arrangements in an obvious attempt to force him to sign the AWA.

He was taken off the rotation roster and put permanently on day work, costing him huge financial losses through the loss of his penalty rates.

They moved him permanently to the effluent plant. When you are in the shit at T&R they really mean it!

When this, and various other tactics didn’t work they moved him to the skin sheds.

He was put onto a different lunch break to everyone else and effectively isolated from other workers. He was also prevented from working any overtime.

All sorts of tactics ranging from financial pressure to annoyance and segregation were employed by the company in its crusade to ‘encourage’ him to sign an AWA.

Eventually a complaint was made to the Office Of The Employment Advocate alleging illegal treatment by T&R.

The OEA investigated and have now commenced Federal Court proceedings against the company. If found guilty, T&R faces hefty fines and compensation to John.

If workers stood together with the same drive that John has, AWA’s would not be the mechanism for cheap wages and conditions that they are now.