Sam Wainwright, Perth
"With every dispute, it's only as good as the people involved and the families who are backing them. Everyone who was on the picket line had the support of their wives and children. This day is to say thank you to them", said delegate Colin Wakeford. Among the barbecue smells at Rockingham's Anniversary Park, the BP Kwinana refinery maintenance workers were celebrating a very special Labour Day long weekend on March 5. These workers spent nearly six weeks on strike in November and December.
Maintenance work at the refinery is contracted to the company UKG, whose workers are members of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU). In February 2005, the delegates opened enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) negotiations with the company, nearly nine months before the expiry of their old agreement.
The workers wanted a pay increase of 7% per year for three years, plus allowances and adjustments that would have taken them to $30 per hour. However, in nine months of negotiations, UKG management refused to lift their offer above three instalments of 5%. As one of the workers, John Brenchley, explained to Green Left Weekly: "By early November we realised that the only way we were going to get anything was if we pulled the pin."
During the previous EBA negotiations, the company proposed an agreement for ratification by secret ballot, which the work force accepted. Brenchley said, "We'd been on an overtime ban for three-and-a-half months and the guys were losing a lot of money. I think if we'd hung out for one more week we would have had them, but it was perfect timing on their part and they hung us out to dry.
"With this EBA they thought the same thing was going to happen, but it didn't. Our delegate made the men so much stronger. They followed and trusted him, and believed in what we could achieve. Before we even went out it was put to the men that if we go on strike it's going to be a hard fight and we ain't going to fold."
The work force took two weeks of "protected action". When that expired they took another two weeks. Then they stayed on strike.
Brenchley explained: "After the second period they took us to the [industrial relations] commission, which ruled in their favour. They really expected us to return to work.
"We put the commission's order to the work force and the work force said no. They weren't prepared to give up the time they had lost for no gain. Actually, they were getting stronger by the day."
The very next day, company representatives reopened negotiations. Wakeford said, "When we eventually went back to work it was for $31.51 per hour. So, after 10 months of negotiation and six weeks on the grass, the company ended up having to pay 51 cents more than what we were originally asking for!
"I think that shows that if the company had been serious about negotiating with us from the start they could have negotiated an EBA ... We had nearly six weeks on the grass, but when they wanted to fix the dispute it was all over in six-and-a-half hours of negotiations."
On the first day of the strike the UKG workers asked people not to cross their picket. However, the majority of the workers at the refinery are not UKG employees. While supportive, the operations workers are members of the Australian Workers Union, employed directly by BP or other contractors.
Rather than blocking access, the strikers found other ways to publicise their cause and increase the pressure. One of these was a massive car-window washing exercise to raise money for charity. When the police went down to the BP gates to see why traffic was banked up they found hundreds of drivers happily queued up. The next Saturday, one of the AMWU organisers appeared on Channel Nine's telethon appeal and explained the dispute while handing over the donation to the applause of the studio audience.
When the strike began, other UKG employees and AMWU members walked off the job to discuss the Howard government's industrial relations agenda before joining their colleagues at the BP picket. These workers believe that members of the union-busting Australian Building Construction Commission (ABCC) took photos of them at the time.
A delegate employed on UKG's Alcoa Pinjarra upgrade project, who asked not to be named, said, "We walked off in support of the BP picketers, as did UKG employees at Wagerup and Alcoa Kwinana. The chairman of UKG was the second person after the head of Qantas to come out in support of Howard's laws, so we're quite clear about what our company wants to get up to in the future."
Wakeford said about the ACCC: "We know for sure that they're chasing [union organisers] with respect to part of our dispute and the continuing dispute with Alcoa down at Pinjarra ... We've had some laminated cards printed up should the task force approach any of the blokes ... with the instruction they're not to speak to them, to ask for legal representation and to contact me or the union."
When asked what he thought the union movement and wider community should do if a worker is jailed or fined $22,000 for illegal industrial action, Wakeford replied, "We really need to take on this legislation. If you touch one, you touch every single worker. We should close down Australia and see how they like it."
Brenchley, who became a delegate only after the dispute broke, said: "Amongst the rank and file the strength has increased ten-fold. Every one knows now that if something happens to them then it happens to all of us.
"We don't let anything happen without the whole work force knowing about it, and the work force makes the decision ... rather than the company making the decision. If we agree to it, it'll go through. If we don't, they know they'll have a fight on their hands."
From Green Left Weekly, March 22, 2006.
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