BY CHRIS SLEE

MELBOURNE — The Power Workers Support Committee has begun holding public meetings in Melbourne's suburbs to build support for the Yallourn Energy workers. Public meetings were held in Sunshine on May 2 and Brunswich on May 10.

Speakers at the Brunswick meeting included Andrea Sharam from the Energy Action Group and Luke van der Meulen, president of the Victorian mining and energy division of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU).

Sharam said that privatisation was supposed to mean lower prices and better services but this has not occurred. She added that the price of power prices for domestic users was likely to rise 15-20% when the retail electricity market is deregulated in January 2002.

Van der Meulen spoke of how Yallourn Energy is trying to “legally rob workers of their conditions” by using the Workplace Relations Act, “a law made for big business”. The CFMEU and 14 individual members are facing writs totalling $60 million because of a four-hour strike on November 2.

The legal system is also being used to repress free speech. Van der Meulen and other activists are under injunctions not to talk about industrial action, or about the contents of secret documents outlining Yallourn Energy's plans to sack its entire mine work force and replace them with contractors.

Van der Meulen also spoke of the impact on the Latrobe Valley of the cut in jobs in power generation from 11,000 to 2,300 over the past 12 years, and the union's work in building a jobs and community campaign in the local area.

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