By Sue Bolton
MELBOURNE — One hundred and thirty-six maintenance workers at the ACI glassworks plant at Spotswood have been locked out for 13 weeks. The dispute began on June 3, when BTR-ACI ignored existing workplace agreements and announced 59 forced retrenchments from its maintenance work force.
The announcement came in the middle of negotiations with unions over a new enterprise bargaining agreement. It was only after the Australian Workers Union (AWU), which covers production workers, broke ranks and negotiated a separate agreement that the company announced its attack on the maintenance workers.
On July 5, 25 retrenched workers barricaded themselves in the boilermakers' shop for eight days before police forcibly removed them. By July 8, picket lines had been set up on all gates, and on July 11 the remaining 77 maintenance workers were suspended for refusing to do the work of sacked mates.
Four unions are involved in the dispute — the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, the Electrical Trades Union, the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union, and the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union. The AMWU has the most members at the plant.
From the beginning, the unions have been prepared to accept some redundancies, but not forced ones. The company has refused to negotiate, backed up by a large and police presence at the main picket line.
ACI does not just want to make fewer workers do more; it also wants to break union organisation at the plant — there are a number of shop stewards on the forced retrenchments list.
The plant has continued to operate, although at reduced capacity. While many of the production workers are sympathetic to the locked-out maintenance workers, the AWU is a barrier to them taking decisive action to help win the dispute.
BTR-ACI has threatened to use section 166A of the Industrial Relations Act against the union and individual picketers. This section, introduced by the previous ALP federal government, gives a company not directly involved in a dispute the right to sue unions and individuals for damages.
Earlier in the dispute, Transport Workers Union members were respecting pickets of BTR warehouses. BTR then leased the warehouses and their contents to Finemores, ACI's cartage company. Finemores was then able to claim that it was the victim of a secondary boycott and issue writs, resulting in the lifting of the picket line.
On August 30, BTR-ACI announced that it will retrench 106 workers at its Penrith plant, 23 from Laminex at Ballarat, at least 30 from Laminex at Wagga and others from Laminex at Cheltenham.
The Industrial Relations Commission told BTR on September 23 that, under the award, the workers cannot be suspended for more than 24 hours. A mass meeting on September 28 voted that the 77 suspended workers should resume work, but that the picket in support of the 59 locked-out workers would continue. Since then, ACI has reneged on its offer to allow the suspended workers to return.
There has been a high level of unity between the rank and file of the different unions. In late August, however, Doug Cameron and John Corsetti, the national and state secretaries of the AMWU, secretly tried to negotiate a separate deal with BTR which would have left most of the sacked workers out in the cold.
Then, on September 27, a meeting of AMWU members at Spotswood voted, under intense pressure from their officials, to allow a full bench of the IRC to arbitrate. The AMWU leadership argued that most of their issues are "resolved" and gave the impression that the ETU too supported arbitration.
The decision immediately divided the unions. The IRC is likely to decide that the suspended workers can have their jobs back but that forced redundancies can go ahead. The 59 forced retrenchments include all ETU members, who are being targeted by the company because they are among the most militant on site.
The ETU, CEPU and CFMEU all say that they won't cop arbitration, that under no condition will they accept forced redundancies or changed work conditions and that the dispute must be fought and won.
Rank and file metalworkers have since said that they won't cross the ETU picket line.
Support is still needed at the picket line. Donations are welcome and can be left at the picket line in Raleigh Street in Spotswood. A solidarity street party and fundraiser will be held at the picket line on October 13, from noon until late.