GEELONG — After seven weeks on strike, the maintenance crew at the Godfrey Hirst carpet factory here have won a 15% pay increase. They have also won significant guarantees of financial security, should the company sell its maintenance arm to labour hire firm Skilled Engineering as planned.
Workers taking voluntary redundancies within the next three months will receive a package of three and a half weeks pay for each year of service up to 15 years, and three weeks pay for every year beyond that. Any stood down when Skilled takes over at the end of the month will also have access to the same package.
The workers are members of the Electrical Trades Union, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union. The agreement is in line with Campaign 2000, a pattern agreement being sought by their unions across the state.
Fitter and turner Chris Lawson told Green Left Weekly that the dispute really united the workers. "Many of the blokes had paid union dues all their lives but hadn't really known how worthy it was to be in the union. This dispute has really unified the work force to fight for a common goal."
The AMWU's Geelong organiser, Gary Rob, said the dispute really showed workers can stick together and win a decent deal from the bosses.
"The dispute wouldn't have been a success without the support of workers like those at Orica who donated $21,000 in levies to the picket line", he said. "Many other workplaces implemented levies to keep the strike going, workers at Shell, at Alcoa, at the waterfront construction projects, all committed to support the strike".
Another worker, Bill Wright, commented on the levy system, saying "During the [maritime] dispute [in 1998] we had levies at Godfrey Hirst to support the wharfies and my family commented 'Why are you giving money to support blokes that you have never meet?'. After this dispute, with so much support from the community and donations from other workplaces, they now understand why it's important that workers support each other in the struggle to fight attacks from companies."