Power workers meet despite threats

BY CHRIS SLEE

MELBOURNE — Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) members employed in Victoria's privatised power generation industry defied threats of legal action to meet at Morwell on November 16. Workers from all four power generation companies attended.

Workers at Yallourn Energy have been attempting for 18 months to negotiate a new enterprise agreement guaranteeing job security and reasonable conditions, but the company wants total "flexibility", including the right to contract out any work. The dispute led to a strike by power workers across the Latrobe Valley on November 2, triggered by company plans to sack 260 workers. Following the strike, the companies took out writs totalling $38 million against the CFMEU and 14 individual workers.

Latrobe Valley CFMEU secretary Luke van der Meulen told Green Left Weekly the dispute is about jobs and conditions throughout power industry in the Latrobe Valley. Yallourn Energy's enterprise agreement will be a precedent for other agreements in the power industry.

The November 16 meeting was called to update members on the progress of the dispute, including the outcome of Industrial Relations Commission hearings, but the power companies claimed it was an illegal stop-work meeting.

Despite the threats, the meeting was well attended by workers and their families. The meeting called on the state government to help resolve the dispute.

The union has already had a meeting with the government. Van der Meulen told Green Left Weekly: "We asked them to intervene in the conciliation proceedings, and in the arbitration proceedings if they occur. We asked them to argue (under the public interest provisions of the Workplace Relations Act) that the rights of workers and the Latrobe Valley community be protected. The government says it will do this."

Van der Meulen said that the government has a responsibility to help the workers, since the policies of both Labor and Liberal governments were at the root of their problems. "The strike was a result of 12 years of corporatisation and privatisation", he said.

From GLW issue 429