Sue Bolton, Melbourne
After Hawker de Havilland, a subsidiary of Boeing, unjustly sacked three union delegates at the Fisherman's Bend site in Port Melbourne, an August 17 meeting of workers voted to strike until the workers were reinstated.
The company asserted that the three delegates had claimed overtime payments that they weren't entitled to for training. However, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) organiser Victor Jose told Green Left Weekly that the workers had been on an "approved" training course, from which the company benefited, so the workers were entitled to be paid, "regardless of whether it was in work hours, after hours, weekends or whatever".
Hawker de Havilland has a deal with Swinburne University of Technology to provide a Masters of Business Administration for staff. The course is very intensive, with the workers having to complete in five weeks what other students do in 12 weeks.
Jose said the company started investigating 19 people, including five from management and 14 award-covered employees. The company refuses to reveal the outcome of the investigations of management staff, but its response to one of the 14 workers — not a delegate — who admitted to inappropriately claiming payment for the study was to simply give him a warning.
The three delegates who have been sacked have proof that they were doing their normal production jobs on the dates in question and the company has not been able to provide any evidence that they have received payments they weren't entitled to. Jose said, "The company's whole attitude has been simply 'we don't believe you' and that's the extent of their evidence. This is despite one of our members bringing forward witnesses who have substantiated his responses."
The day before the company sacked the three, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) had ruled that, while the award is clear that workers are entitled to payment for study during normal work hours, it was not clear that the award entitled payment for study done outside of normal work hours.
The delegates had been employed by Hawker de Havilland for 25, 13 and five years, and all have unblemished work records. Colin Watson and Rob Katzirz represent the AMWU, and Rob Chittenden represents the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers, Australia (APESMA). Watson told GLW that he thought management had been worried that, with enterprise bargaining negotiations coming up, the three delegates would be a "threat" because they "know the company's negotiating strategy from studying the course".
There are approximately 470 union members at the site; 440 in the AMWU, four in the National Union of Workers, and the rest in APESMA. Members of all three unions were involved in the strike.
On August 18, the day after the workers voted to strike, the AIRC issued orders against the three unions, and their officials and shop stewards. On August 21, the company returned to the AIRC and succeeded in getting orders against all of the employees, demanding they return to work.
The workers held report-back meetings every morning on the picket line. The August 22 and 23 meetings, with no officials or delegates present under AIRC order, voted to stay on strike. Then there was a breakthrough in negotiations and the workers voted to return to work on August 24.
Jose said it was "ironic that the resolution was exactly the same proposal we put to the company on August 20", which it had rejected then. Employees at Boeing's Bankstown plant in Sydney were preparing to take solidarity strike action when the breakthrough occurred.
Delegates told GLW that this was the first significant strike at the company in 20 years, and the company was shocked at the workers' resolve. "The company thought that if the delegates and the union officials were ordered to stay away [by the AIRC], people would crumble", Jose said.
"That certainly wasn't the case, so the company went for the next level and assumed that once the orders were issued against all the employees that would break their spirit. But that fired up people even more."
The workers have won a clear victory, although the dispute has not yet been completely resolved. The return to work followed management's agreement to re-examine the grounds for dismissal of the delegates with an independent arbitrator agreed to by the union and the company. As well, the delegates will continue to be paid until there is an arbitration outcome.
Jose explained that a significant aspect of the Hawker de Havilland dispute was that "for five days, the protest was handled, maintained and organised through the workers alone, without officials or delegates there". The victory "certainly wasn't because of the efforts of the union officials", he added. "It was just the tremendous efforts of the workers collectively and the support they got from the community."
Workers from Amcor, who had recently taken successful strike action to have two union delegates reinstated, visited the picket line. The Hawker de Havilland workers' appreciation of the support they received from Union Solidarity was expressed in their decision to donate their strike fund to the campaign group.
Chittenden told GLW that the strike had broken down divisions between the different sections of the work force, and there is now "strong solidarity and collective feeling amongst all the workers, as we've had to rely on each other".