Vista workers win

Vista workers win

one round

By Dick Nichols

SYDNEY — Workers at the small outer-Sydney paper products plant Vista have won a round in their fight for reinstatement and the right to representation by their union, the Printing and Kindred Industries Union.

Last week Commissioner Riordan of the Industrial Relations Commission ruled that the IRC had jurisdiction over the dispute, a move that Vista management, backed by the Australian Chamber of Manufactures, had been fighting since hostilities opened with the sacking of the workers for rejecting management's list of "give-backs".

The ACM has been trying to turn Vista into a precedent for the right of the bosses to impose "enterprise bargaining" on their workers without any role for industrial tribunals. If they succeed at Vista, small and weakly unionised plants stand to be robbed even of the defence of the written award.

The Vista workers' 24-hour picket holds firm, with considerable support beginning to come in from other unions and work sites. n

From GLW issue 11