By Jennifer Thompson
It's been three months since the Liberals' workplace relations bill was passed into law with the support of the Democrats. MAX ADLAM, women's officer of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union South Australian branch and Women of Metal activist, spoke to Green Left Weekly about the effects of the new law.
The act gives employers more options for attacking wages, conditions and ability to organise. These attacks add to the difficulties experienced by women working in male-dominated industries and occupations, but Women of Metal activists are organising to meet the challenges.
Despite being 42.% of the overall work force, women in metal fitting and machining trades are only 0.5%, in other metal trades 3%, printing trades 20%, vehicle trades 1% and plant/machine operators/drivers 14%.
Issues of great concern to the women's committee of the AMWU and Women of Metal — formed in 1988 by Adelaide women — include sexual harassment, the deregulation of the child-care industry, equal access to employment, training, promotion, conditions and pay.
Many employers in the metal, print, food, vehicle manufacturing and scientific and technical industries — those covered by the AMWU — were testing the bill's provisions cautiously, said Adlam, but a new "climate" is evident.
Workers in one company, Southcorp, were taking protected industrial action over enterprise bargaining negotiations, legal under the new law, and notified their employer of their intention, said Adlam. The employer not only sought Industrial Relations Commission orders to fine workers, but locked the workers out illegally, she said, so the union had to defend the negotiations in the IRC.
While some employers had always taken on their workers by behaving illegally when it suited, the new provisions were encouraging more to do so, she explained.
More direct evidence of the workings of the bill was the instance in a medical laboratory which had called in its lab technicians — mostly women — "one by one" and demanded they sign individual contacts, said Adlam. It was understood that the choice was signing or being sacked. Provisions of the contract set completely unattainable processing quotas, she said, causing occupational health and safety dangers and a risk to community health of a lower quality product.
In that workplace, some of the women refused to sign and left; others signed in the belief that the new quotas wouldn't be strictly imposed "and they haven't yet, although the possibility is there for later use"; and others were sacked. Of those who left, most had not found new employment in the industry after 12 months and had obviously been "marked", Adlam said.
Another problem was union organisers' access to workplaces. Some employers had taken the opportunity to make contact much more difficult. "On some sites", she said, "I'll actually be met at the gate [by the employer] and escorted directly to the lunch room, where they watch and note everybody who talks to me".
Adlam emphasised training for women unionists to make them confident, informed and active. One woman activist writing recently in the union journal noted the importance of workers getting to know unionists and what they did. Through the AMWU's Anna Stewart Memorial Project and annual women's conference, women unionists have gained the necessary confidence and education to tackle these issues.
The success of a regional forum of women in male-dominated industries and occupations held in the Greater Green Triangle area of southern SA and Victoria illustrated that point, Adlam said. After the forum, women from one local factory returned to the workplace and actively recruited on the issues. Union membership has increased by almost 50% as a result, the proof, she emphasised, that affirmative action is union business.
Adlam said that pay equity cases run by the ACTU in the IRC last year had been important in addressing some of the reasons for the difference in women's and men's full-time earnings. The process had also revealed, but not addressed, some of the more "difficult, structural" reasons for women's lower earnings — like their concentration in lower skilled, lower paid classifications and the barriers to better employment.
As an example, Adlam mentioned a factory where all of the forklift drivers were men. The women in the factory told her that they'd applied for forklift jobs when they'd come up, but had never been granted an interview.
The women in that factory confronted their management the next time a position was vacant, and forced them to consider interviewing women. "Of the 20 women who applied, however", she said, "the three who were selected for interview were thought by the women to be those least likely to get the job — and they didn't".
Male unionists, Adlam said, "most often accept the equity and justice of our arguments and support us", but "we still have a long way to go with the bosses".
Most positive, Adlam said, is the inspiration of the Women of Metal activists. "From being quiet and unsure when we began, they've become confident and informed, and I feel energised every time I'm with them." She affirms the International Workers of the World cry, invoked by Beatrice Faust writing in memory of veteran equal pay fighter Edna Ryan: "Don't grieve — organise!".