Weipa, Argyle workers make common cause

By Jennifer Thompson Weipa unionists are waiting for the Industrial Relations Commission decision — expected this week — on their claim that award workers be paid the same rates as those on individual contracts performing the same work. The unionists' campaign, backed by the ACTU, has continued to make links with workers at other CRA-owned operations, including workers at the Argyle diamond mine in Western Australia. CFMEU lodge secretary Nigel Gould told Green Left Weekly that the basic aims of the Weipa workers remain the same: to defend the award system and workers' right to be unionised. Gould said the workers were happy with an annual salary which incorporates basic wages, penalty rates and other allowances. However, the right to unionisation remained unresolved. Some union members, who were part of last year's seven-week strike, are now being intimidated by Comalco management. Comalco is also continuing to discriminate against award workers by refusing them back pay from March 1994 if they left the company prior to November 1995, when the IRC made the order. Many of those who have left were "good unionists", Gould said, who were driven out by Comalco's refusal to grant an award wage rise over four years. The ACTU disputes committee, which is coordinating the broader campaign against CRA's union-busting policy, visited the Argyle mine on January 18, where part-owner CRA is seeking to attack workers in a similar way to Weipa. A mass meeting at Argyle carried a resolution congratulating the Weipa award workers and supporting their campaign. The meeting endorsed the basic principles of the right to bargain collectively, the right to union membership and representation without discrimination and the right to be paid equally for work of equal value. The Argyle workers rejected CRA's "industrial apartheid" approach, in which award workers have been offered a 4% pay rise, much lower than that offered to workers on individual contracts. Around a quarter of the 450 workers at Argyle have refused contract offers, preferring to stay with their union and collective bargaining. The meeting also agreed to engage in "strategic industrial action" if CRA rejects or frustrates an IRC decision in favour of equal pay.