Refinery workers fight for jobs

By Dave Mizon

Workers at Caltex's Kurnell refinery voted on June 30 to take industrial action against the company if it moves against the remaining laboratory workers at the plant, members of the Australian Workers Union.

A few months ago Caltex announced that the current lab workers were not qualified enough, even though most have been doing the job for between 10 and 29 years.

Only 12 of the original 22 workers remain, with the other 10 taking redundancy packages. The remaining workers have resolved to stay in the refinery and have refused to accept the changes or the redundancy packages.

Caltex has trained chemistry undergraduates and is threatening to use them as a dispute breaking force.

The meeting resolved that if the company used the undergraduates or directed police to remove the lab workers, it would take immediate industrial action and seek the support of other refineries around Australia.

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