Ruth Ratcliffe, Newcastle

The Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) has rejected an application by the Australian Workers Union for a secret ballot of striking maintenance workers at Boeing’s Williamtown RAAF site.

“We proposed the secret ballot as a means of bringing this dispute to an end, but Boeing can’t even come half-way”, AWU national secretary Bill Shorten said on September 16. “Is Boeing too proud to agree to a secret ballot because it was the union’s idea, or is it really just scared that the majority of its maintenance workers and technicians in Newcastle would prefer to have the union negotiate an agreement on their behalf?”, he added.

Twenty-seven maintenance workers have been on strike for more than four months over Boeing’s refusal to allow a union-negotiated agreement at the site.

The AWU’s application for a secret ballot can be heard by the AIRC again in a month. In the meantime, the banners outside the Williamtown RAAF base are still flying high, declaring the workers’ determination to last “one day longer than Boeing”.

From Green Left Weekly, October 12, 2005.
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