By Jeremy Smith
MELBOURNE — Victoria's first "illegal" picket since the promulgation of the Employee Relations Act on March 1 proved interesting for two reasons. Firstly, the workers won the dispute. Secondly, the political intrigue behind the conflict speaks volumes about the character of the Kennett government.
On March 3, the workers at the Salvatore Egg Farm downed tools over a new contract which management presented to the 30 or so employees.
The contract was clearly a test case for the new industrial relations legislation. It included all the predictable nasties: the end of penalty rates, overtime, 30-minute lunch breaks. However, the Salvatore brothers threw in an extra: If workers turned up late for work, they would be obliged to pay the wages of their workmates!
After meeting with the Australian Workers Union on March 4, the company withdrew the contract and attempted to persuade workers to sign an old award agreement which would have cut their pay by 21%.
A stop-work meeting two days before the March 13 federal election was sufficient reason, in the eyes of management, to sack all employees. A picket was immediately established by the workers.
Within less than two hours, the director of the Victorian Farmers Federation was on site with the specific brief of resolving the dispute as quickly as possible. Quite clearly, with two days to go to the elections, the picket was proving to be an embarrassment to the federal Coalition and, indeed, to the state government. By the end of the day, all workers were reinstated under previous conditions.
The dispute seemed to be over. On March 26, however, the shop steward, Kim Hocking, was sacked under the "freedom of association" provisions of Kennett's legislation for asking another employee if she would like to join the union. A stop-work meeting the following Monday voted to strike until Kim was reinstated.
The strike lasted four days before it went to the Employee Relations Commission. There an agreement was reached between the Farmers Federation and the AWU which restored the status quo. Subsequently, Salvatore Egg Farm has agreed to transfer its workers to the federal award system.
In the aftermath of the dispute, the Kennett government became defensive. The Salvatores went public on the lack of government support which had been promised them by the Department of Business and Employment. Claiming that they were used as "a political pawn" by the government and that the legislation "stinks", the Salvatores told the media of some of the intrigue which accompanied the strike. They believed that they were acting within the bounds of the legislation and that the government would back them. Trades Hall claimed that the government had acted to prolong the dispute in order to test the effect of the new laws. Feeling the heat, industrial relations minister Phil Gude stated unconvincingly that the resolution of the dispute was a "triumph" for the legislation!
As a test case, the Salvatore strike indicates that the laws are, thus far, proving to be fairly ineffective in the face of a militant union response.