BY TONY ILTIS
MELBOURNE — Two hundred and fifty people packed Trades Hall on March 8 to discuss the struggle of the Latrobe Valley power workers against attempts by Yallourn Energy and other privatised electricity corporations to slash jobs, conditions and the quality of service.
The meeting, organised by the Melbourne Yallourn Solidarity Group, began with greetings from the International Women's Day Collective, presented by Justine Kamprad, a member of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and the Democratic Socialist Party. Kamprad spoke of the effect of unemployment on women in Morwell and Moe, and the domestic violence fuelled by unemployment.
John Maitland, national secretary of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) mining division, explained that corporate globalisation benefits the few. For example, the head of BHP will receive $100 million at the end of his 5-year contract.
Lorretta O'Brian from Friends of the Earth, which is part of Melbourne Yallourn Solidarity Group, told the meeting that it might seem ironic that "greenies" were supporting power generation workers. She said FoE believes environment issues were inseparable from social justice issues. Jobs and the environment were the common casualties of the capitalist ownership of energy production.
The meeting also heard from Laurel Preston of the Latrobe Valley Jobs and Community Campaign. Swinburne University lecturer Michael Salvaris said that far from spreading wealth, globalisation had "accentuated differences in wealth and power to the point where the income of the wealthiest 100 men was equal to that of two billion people".
The final speaker was Latrobe Valley workers' leader Luke van der Meulen of the CFMEU Victorian mining and energy division. "We've all got a stake in the struggle, as consumers and as workers", he said.
Workers had been given a choice between accepting Yallourn Energy's enterprise bargain, which van der Meulen described as "the worst deal ever put to a power industry workforce", or accepting whatever the arbitration court handed down. Van der Meulen said there was a third choice — to fight.
The meeting was unanimously passed a motion calling on the ACTU to publicise the Yallourn workers' dispute, seek continued support from its affiliates and intervene in any Industrial Relations Commission proceedings in support of the workers' right to bargain. The motion called on the Victorian Trades Hall Council to organise an all-union meeting to assist in the Yallourn workers.
The meeting also urged the organisers of the May 1 blockade to make the Yallourn dispute a theme in the actions.
Donations for the Yallourn Energy workers can be sent to CFMEU Jobs and Community Campaign, 14 Hazelwood Road, Morwell, Victoria, 3840.