Marcus Greville, Melbourne
In a bruising blow to the Howard government's anti-union laws, striking Amcor workers won an agreement on August 16 in which all legal action against the workers and their union, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), is to be dropped, and the five cases of forced redundancy heard before an independent commissioner.
This is a very important victory. The Amcor strike was deemed to be illegal under the Work Choices laws enacted in March, and was a test case for the implementation of the laws. This dispute showed that strong, united action can make the laws unenforceable.
The Amcor dispute began when management at the company's Preston plant proposed 15 voluntary redundancies, which were agreed to by the workers and the AMWU. However, Amcor then attempted to use the agreement to remove five of the most vocal unionists, including two delegates, whom it considered "troublemakers".
More than 15 workers applied for a redundancy package, but management accepted only 10, then tried to sack the five unionists. In response, a stop-work meeting on August 1 decided to strike until the sacked workers were reinstated and Amcor management agreed to accept the redundancies of workers who had applied for the package.
On August 3, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission ordered a return to work. On August 14, the Federal Court declared the strike illegal and ordered the AMWU to "take all steps reasonably available under its rules" to ensure a return to work. The Federal Court threatened to jail AMWU officials and seize union assets if the union failed to comply.
Dave Kerin, an organiser of the community picket in solidarity with the striking workers, also had an injunction issued against him.
On August 15, the AMWU delivered the return-to-work order to the strikers, who decided unanimously that the picket would remain until their demands were met. Later that evening, Amcor management sent a van full of hired thugs to smash the picket. When an emergency phone network was activated, 80 people turned up to defend the strikers, forcing the goons to retreat.
The next day, the union was presented with the offer, which places the five sacked workers on paid holiday leave until a decision about their reinstatement is made. The Amcor workers say this is a great victory and stressed that they would not have settled and returned to work if they thought the hearing would not be fair.
The community picket set up to support the workers, and the solidarity extended by numerous unionists at 14 other Amcor workplaces and elsewhere, made a huge difference to this dispute. The amount of donations received would have enabled the strike to continue for much longer if it had been necessary.
The Amcor workers showed tremendous courage. They also showed that anti-worker laws can be beaten by collective action, an especially important lesson given the attacks currently underway against Western Australian construction workers (see editorial on page 3).
The AMWU in Melbourne, after winning its struggle with strong cross-union solidarity, has pledged to mobilise in defence of the WA workers on August 29. All unionists and supporters of workers' rights need to join them and help score another victory against Howard's brutal laws.