BY SIMON MILLAR & GRAHAM WILLIAMS
MELBOURNE — The landmark 100th day of strike by 25 Electrical Trades Union members at Smorgon Steel was marked with a solidarity breakfast, provided by other unionists, on June 4.
Contingents from Australian Manufacturing Workers Union members at the Holden plant, the ETU, the Textile Clothing and Footwear Union, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, the newly established Young Unionists Network and the Socialist Alliance converged on the picket to give the striking workers the courage to go on.
The Smorgan Steel electricians, who are on strike for a new enterprise bargaining agreement that includes the claim for a 36-hour work week, have been severely hamstrung by the federal anti-union laws that make secondary boycotts illegal.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has been extra vigilant of late, using its powers under the Trade Practices Act to fine unions for taking secondary boycott action. It deems attempts by the ETU to physically block trucks and workers from crossing the picket line to be a secondary boycott.
This is despite Smorgon Steel interfering in the negotiations between worekers and their direct employers.
This year, the ETU was fined $100,000 after it was successfully sued by the ACCC for breaching the Trade Practices Act in a dispute in the Latrobe Valley. Since then, it has been reluctant to provoke a similar response from the ACCC by trying to block access to the Smorgon site.
The ACCC has only been able to get away with these threats because the electricians, who used to be directly employed by Smorgon Steel, had their jobs outsourced in 1994. So now, the electricians are directly employed by two contractors, TAD Industrial and IES Australia.
The ETU was making good progress in negotiating with these two contractors over a new enterprise bargaining agreement, when Smorgon Steel stepped in, threatening to cancel the contracts if the companies agreed to a 36-hour work week.
These anti-union provisions of the Trade Practices Act were originally introduced by the former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser's Coalition government, were never repealed by the following federal Labor Party government, and are now being used with glee by the Coalition government.
ETU delegate for Smorgon Steel Ronnie Goodfellow says that when the workers started their strike on February 25, they had no idea that they would be up against all of the anti-union laws, as well as their direct employers and Smorgon Steel.
The fact that the Smorgon Steel workers are being prevented from picketing effectively by the anti-union laws, makes it even more important for other unionists to take solidarity action. The picket line is at 105-120 Dohertys Road, Laverton.
From Green Left Weekly, June 11, 2003.
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