Ben Courtice, Melbourne

According to the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), 35 casual workers employed at Ballarat’s MaxiTrans, which builds semi-trailers, have been sacked while 25 guest worker welders hired last year have been kept on.

AMWU Victorian branch secretary Dave Oliver told the media on May 18 that federal government policy was directly responsible for the job losses. “The federal government is fuelling the skills crisis and costing young people jobs by having such weak conditions for the importation of guest workers. Our members have been employed for years as casuals and not [been] offered the training they needed to become skilled welders. Instead, this company has used the government’s scandalous policy on guest workers to import and keep Chinese welders who are only paid the minimum wage.

“If companies can import guest workers who can be paid lower wages than local tradesmen, and it is cheaper than training young Australians, that is what they will do”, Oliver added.

The AMWU organised a rally of around 100 unionists in Melbourne on May 16 to protest the use of guest workers to undercut the wages and conditions of Australian workers. The rally was addressed by Oliver, federal ALP leader Kim Beazley and a sacked worker from MaxiTrans.

Construction union leader Martin Kingham told the rally, “It's not about racism”. He said that unions are not opposed to the employment of guest workers, but pointed out the hypocrisy of a government that refuses to allow refugees on temporary protection visas to work, while it is importing skilled workers to undercut the conditions of workers who are already here.

From Green Left Weekly, May 24, 2006.
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