Commission rules in Incat workers' favour

BY ALEX BAINBRIDGE

HOBART — Shipbuilder Incat has been forced by the Industrial Relations Commission to back off from attempts to impose on its workers the "choice" of a four-day week or 200 redundancies.

Incat has a legally binding agreement, which specifies a 40-hour week, with the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) and cannot impose changes to that agreement without negotiations, the commission has found.

Incat workers voted for the four-day week despite the fact that this would involve a considerable cut in pay. This pay cut would have come on top of a loss of overtime, which the company says is due to a large number of unsold ships.

The union initially supported the 32-hour week as the better option, providing a number of conditions were met. These conditions had been discussed at a meeting between the AMWU and management on May 9. AMWU organiser Greg Cooper told Green Left Weekly that an adequate redundancy agreement was one of the key issues the union wanted to resolve.

By May 18, the company had put nothing on paper for the union, which represents more than half the workers, to scrutinise, either about redundancies or the terms and conditions of the proposed 32-hour week.

In reaction, the union refused to agree to any changes to the existing agreement, which specifies a 40-hour week. The AMWU organised mass meetings of workers on May 16 which found that an "overwhelming majority" of workers supported the union's policy.

Negotiations are now continuing between the union and management and Cooper has refused to comment about their progress. But when asked about what sort of redundancy agreement the union would support, Cooper said that the union would have to wait until Incat provided a written proposal.

Incat owner Bob Clifford was named Tasmania's richest person by the Business Review Weekly Rich 200 list on May 17, with assets estimated at $180 million.

From GLW issue 449