Community pledges support to Chef workers

BY MARTIN ILTIS

MELBOURNE — The local Brunswick community has reaffirmed its support for workers at the Chef whitegoods factory, holding a solidarity demonstration outside the factory on February 14.

Despite being profitable, the factory faces imminent closure as its new owner Email, a subsidiary of Swedish manufacturer Electrolux, plans to consolidate production lines at a new factory in Adelaide.

An original plan for the rally to coincide with a stopwork meeting by Chef workers was changed at the last minute when the Australian Workers Union, which covers the factory, announced it would delay industrial action to allow Electrolux to review its decision.

One of the rally organisers, Kristalo Hrysicos, said that, if the company does go ahead with a shutdown, a permanent picket and blockade should be established at the site, to stop company attempts to remove machinery. An AWU spokesperson assured rallygoers that the union would ask for community support to blockade the factory if it was needed.

The rally also heard a solidarity message from power workers in the Latrobe Valley, who are engaged in a long-running dispute with their employer, Yallourn Energy. Simon Millar, an organiser for the Yallourn workers' union, said that workers and unions needed to have political solidarity and unity to beat the government and the bosses.

A representative of the local Labor-controlled Moreland City Council pledge the council's commitment to keeping jobs at the Chef factory. The ALP state government, however, has failed to give such commitment.

From GLW issue 437