By Herb Thompson
Mr Peter Wade, NBH-Peko Managing Director, and chief negotiator for Australian Pulp and Paper Mills (APPM) Ltd. in Burnie, Tasmania, accepted a $95,000 pay rise in 1992 to take his annual pay to $585,000, a small pittance indeed for the many contributions he has made to APPM in bringing down labour costs.
The bon ton of Mr Wade is reflected in his attitude to unions. He informed the workers at APPM that: (1) Unions have no role in matters outside basic award arrangements; (2) Employees will work as directed; (3) Management and contractors will operate any plant and equipment at the company's discretion; (4) Only those workers who were willing to accept all company directions would be allowed to work.
Given Mr Wade's contribution, workers at Burnie decided that they would cover the costs of his pay increase by removing some of the remaining inefficiencies at APPM. In June, 1992, the workforce, after being on strike for four weeks, accepted an agreement put together by the president of the ACTU, Martin Ferguson and Mr Wade, in which they basically agreed to do as they were told. This was the same agreement they had originally rejected and because of which they had gone on strike.
Union officials, under the guidance of Messrs. Ferguson and Wade, informed the media that the workers, by agreeing to do as they were told, had gained a major victory. This triumph in June fits into the grand tradition of the labour movement established during the Age of Accords. Other victories include Robe River, Dollar Sweets, Mudginberri, Airline Pilots and SEQEB.
Due to victories such as these and the back-up of Structural Efficiency Principles, hundreds of workers can now weld clever, process smarter, lay bricks perceptively, hang doors shrewdly, nurse inventively; and all of this because of restructuring, reskilling, retraining, redesigning, retooling, re- examining and resigning themselves to managerial prerogative. Don't let anyone say that it's because they are frightened witless by the prospect of losing their job. Everyone knows that if the Accord was about anything it was about creating jobs. And we are in a recovery anyway. And no children live in poverty. And we are getting what we had to have.
The most recent victory in November at APPM was gained once again with the assistance of an astute and adroit ACTU negotiating team. The workers at Burnie, under the watchful eye of the ACTU hierarchy, agreed to increase their working week without receiving additional pay.
Of course, those who don't agree to participate in this spirit of giving in the "national interest" can, with the good wishes of APPM management, take voluntary redundancy. This exemplary example of participatory democracy is most characteristic of Enterprise Bargaining in the spirit of post-modern, post-structural, post-t consensus. It is something troglodyte craft unionists would never understand. In fact, NBH-Peko is trying to eliminate the problem of troglodytism altogether by applying to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission under Section 118(a) to get rid of all the unions now with the company except the Printing and Kindred Industries Union. This will cut down on much of the paper work (not including Reflex) which will be required to inform workers during the next 18 months that 700 of them will be made redundant.
The last thing any capitalist firm (or the ACTU for that matter) needs is multitudinous unions with crafty shop stewards holding nineteenth century attitudes in favour of class conflict.
This increase in the working week follows the Christmas holiday during which, the company has informed the workers, a 20-day shutdown will take place. The families of Burnie have been given notice that they will be able to reduce their ostentatious spending during Christmas; receive and additional, unpaid three-week holiday; work longer hours; and only a third of them are likely to lose their jobs over the next eighteen months. Christmas should be a hell of a lot of fun in Burnie this year.
On November 17, 1992, a worker had both feet severed after he fell into a debarking maching at APPM's Massey Green chip mill in Burnie. It would be interesting to know the last time someone on an annual salary of $585,000 fell into a debarking machine?
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us..." — Charles Dickens.