Sue Bull, Geelong
It was revealed in a Senate estimates committee on August 17 that Australia Post spent $250,000 in legal fees to get rid of one worker.
Trevor Grenfell worked at the Wendouree Mail Centre in Ballarat for 25 years. When a new mail sorting system was introduced in 2000, Grenfell, like many older workers, found the target of 18 letters per minute pretty hard going.
Grenfell managed to build up to 16 or 17 letters per minute, but 18 eluded him. Management monitored his rate for five months, keeping graphs and statistics, pushing him to meet the target.
Unlike many other workers, who were intimidated by management's approach, Grenfell refused to work during his lunch break or after hours to increase his average. He had been the union shop steward and wasn't about to be bullied.
Grenfell saw many of the older workers and decent managers take redundancy packages as they became demoralised by the ruthless productivity drive. New, more pliant managers came in determined to "do something" about Grenfell, who wasn't cowering and was undermining the new ethos.
So Grenfell was sacked in 2002. None of the other 100-plus Australia Post workers in Victoria who had not achieved the productivity target at the time were sacked. Grenfell believes he was made an example of because he stood up for his rights.
Three years and four hearings later, Grenfell has not succeeded in proving that he was unfairly dismissed. This is despite not one of his co-workers being prepared to testify against him, and only regional and state managers being prepared to testify that he was "belligerent".
The Industrial Relations Commission took six months to decide on the case and the commissioner revealed his negative decision only on the day after PM John Howard won the last election.
Why did Australia Post spend $250,000 to get rid of Grenfell? Because if Grenfell had won, the company could not have used unrealistic productivity targets to get rid of workers it does not want.
Grenfell told Green Left Weekly: "Yes, there are laws about discrimination and unfair dismissal, but the courts don't follow them. The whole system is riddled with fear.
"If this has been my experience under the current rules, can you imagine what it's going to be like once this fig leaf of protection is further eroded with the new laws? What it all says is that if you stand up for your rights then they'll shit on you and they'll spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to do it."
Grenfell hasn't given up. On the contrary, he has been inspired to take on more challenges. Now a construction worker and a proud member of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, as well as the Socialist Alliance, Grenfell continues to fight against Howard's draconian anti-worker laws.
From Green Left Weekly, August 24, 2005.
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