BY GRAHAM WILLIAMS
MELBOURNE — In yet another hurdle for manufacturing workers to jump in their industrial Campaign 2003, the Victorian Industrial Relations Commission is increasingly refusing to certify agreements.
"The IRC is tightening up on what it will allow in union agreements, despite the fact that workers and companies agree", the acting assistant state secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), Gary Robb, explained to Green Left Weekly.
The AMWU's Campaign 2003 is an attempt to use pattern bargaining — simultaneous campaigning for the same conditions across different workplaces — to win better conditions, including a 36-hour work week and wage rises of 15% over the next three years.
Some of the other clauses in the model agreement protect the unions' ability to represent workers. This is urgent, unionists argue, because the federal Coalition government has made this much more difficult when it introduced, and subsequently toughened, the Workplace Relations Act (WRA).
"Payroll deduction for union dues, right of entry and the use of contractors who must have a union agreement — the IRC has ruled that even though these might be included in an agreement, it will not certify an agreement with these clauses", Robb stated.
The IRC ruled that clauses ensuring payroll deductions are not allowed, because, according to the WRA, the agreement can only refer to matters between the employer and the employee. The money would be collected for the union, "which is not a party to the agreement", according to the IRC.
In 1996, the WRA was amended to require that unions give 24-hours' notice to an employer that their officials will be visiting a workplace. The AMWU has been attempting to insert clauses in agreements to ensure union organisers have easy access to workplaces, including giving workers the right to meet with a union organiser in a space away from management.
The AMWU is also trying to get employers to sign up to a clause ensuring that they will only use contractors that have a union-endorsed industrial agreement. This agreement is essential to maintain worker solidarity — to ensure that all workers in the same workplace have a reasonable standard of wages and conditions.
The IRC has attempted to undermine this by agreeing to ratify agreements that contractors claim have union approval, without checking with the union.
"This was challenged recently by a case before the IRC regarding Beveridge Engineering", said Robb. "The company attempted to have an agreement ratified that had the union's name on it, but the union hadn't endorsed the agreement because the wage rises were only 9% over three years, and [it did not include the] 36-hour work week.
"This is classified as an LJ agreement [one that includes a union] and is an attempt by Beveridge Engineering to remain working as contractors at sites which require a union agreement.
"The judge in the IRC only withdrew the union's name from this agreement after the organiser firmly said to all the workers that the union wouldn't endorse this agreement. The organiser was forced to stand in the witness box for hours saying the agreement did not have the union's support."
Employers are also signing LK agreements (ones that exclude unions) that cover most of the union's demands, in an attempt to break the AMWU's strength. This makes it more difficult for the union to represent the workers during the life of the agreement.
These employer, and IRC, tactics are making it harder for unions to effectively represent workers. Workplace relations minister Tony Abbott regularly talks about "freedom of association" for workers, but his laws make it difficult for a union to represent workers when they want it to.
Abbott's attacks on workers doesn't stop there. The government's laws allow companies to sue individual workers and their union during a strike, by claiming the strike has had a negative impact on the company's profits.
"The government has been pushing to do this through disputes at car component manufacturers even though they might have stockpiles of product ready to go", Robb told GLW.
A recent example of this was a 24-hour national stoppage on August 18-19 of AMWU members employed by glass maker ACI in solidarity with ACI workers at Box Hill in Melbourne who have been on strike for four months.
"All the workers across the country received notices of legal action against them, even if they were on holidays or on maternity leave when the stoppage occurred. Many workers were disturbed by the fact these papers were delivered to their home address, and also by the companies' use of this personal information. The way that the union attempts to overcome this problem at the end of a dispute is to have the company forgo these lawsuits as part of the settlement."
Robb said Abbott has been willing to go after these workers and the union even though the company is not. "Abbott was recently reported by the Financial Review as being willing to pursue workers at Calsonics in Melbourne and Kempes in Geelong even though these industrial disputes were over months ago."
From Green Left Weekly, August 27, 2003.
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