Joy picketers: 'We won't give in'

BY MARG PERROTT

WOLLONGONG — Workers and their supporters maintaining a 6-month picket outside Joy Mining Machinery Manufacturing at Moss Vale had hoped for a breakthrough this week. It appeared that there were only a small number of points yet to be resolved by arbitration be the dispute would be settled.

However, the company has now raised 20 new points in discussions with the unions. "We're just back where we started from", one union official told Green Left Weekly.

Joy Mining seems to have been chosen as a test case for federal industrial relations laws by the bosses. It has a small workforce of around 70 and is geographically isolated. This makes rallying public support difficult.

Scabs are working at the plant and the hydraulics plant has moved to Wollongong. The workers on the picket line are finding life difficult. They have little money and support from the local community is diminishing as the dispute drags on. The picketers, despite doing it tough, have been supporting other workers in struggle.

"We won't give in", one worker told Green Left Weekly. "We are very strong together. Being on the picket has made us more united than never before."

Please visit the picket line on Vale Road (near off Suttor Road), Moss Vale. For more information or to make a donation, phone (02) 4226 2010 or email <wollongong@dsp.org.au>.

From GLW issue 423