BY LIAM MITCHELL
SYDNEY — Solidarity actions at the Arncliffe factory at the centre of a 10-week dispute over wages and conditions have intensified. Unionists have joined with other supporters to attempt to stop daily attempts by trucks and a bus carrying 20 scabs from crossing the picket line.
Workers employed at the Morris McMahon factory walked off the job on March 12 when management threatened to force changes to working hours that would see them go from a 10-hour day, four-day week to an eight-hour day, five-day week.
Many of the workers are single mothers. The changes would mean a 25% increase in the cost of child care. The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) has been demanding a 10% wage rise to cover the changes and a union-endorsed enterprise agreement. Many of the workers are being paid less than $13 per hour.
Management only entered negotiations with the AMWU when ordered to by the Industrial Relations Commission. At these negotiations, the company put the position that all workers were to sign individual contracts.
Initially, 65 workers joined the strike and the company was forced to use the labour hire company Frontline. Forty-five workers remain on strike, refusing to sign the individual contracts and have maintained a 24-hour, seven-days a week picket line
When the AMWU called a protest action outside the law firm Beswick & Associates, also owned by Morris McMahon owner Judy Beswick, it found itself facing a possible damages claim of $700,000 brought against it by Beswick.
The civil court also ordered the picket camp site be removed from company property and the workers not be allowed within 10 metres of the premises. A fence was erected around the site on May 24 to keep striking workers away.
The union has been ordered by the court to stop organising members to block scab vehicles crossing the picket line.
On May 19, 100 people turned up at 5am to stop the dismantling of the campsite. They managed to prevent the scab operation from entering the factory for some time until the company was able to call in massive police reinforcements to get the bus and trucks through.
Members of about 10 trade unions, students and supporters attended the picket.
On May 22, 150 people attended a lunchtime picket outside Beswick & Associates in Sydney's CBD. Several NSW Labor Council leaders and federal Labor MP Mark Latham addressed the crowd. That afternoon, 100 members of the Maritime Union of Australia from Patrick at Port Botany turned up to support the picket line. They held up the scab bus and trucks until 50 police forced them to let the scabs through.
Striking workers say they will not be intimidated by the company's attacks and that they are holding out to win a union-endorsed agreement. For information about community actions to help defend the workers' jobs and conditions, call Liam on 0415 365 937.
From Green Left Weekly, May 28, 2003.
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