National stoppage against ACI's corporate thuggery

BY STEPHEN GARVEY

MELBOURNE — On July 22, hundreds of workers at ACI workplaces across the country stopped work in response to the lockout of 77 ACI Mould Manufacturing workers in Box Hill.

The purpose of the stoppage was to support the locked-out workers and also to send a clear message to ACI that such behaviour will no longer be tolerated. Workers realise that if ACI can get away with using a lockout to remove working conditions at Box Hill, it will use this tactic at other sites.

In mid-May, the Box Hill workers were stood-down without pay, then locked out on June 16. Management notified the workers on July 8 that it was extending the lockout for a month. The workers have been without pay for more than nine weeks.

ACI management hopes to wear down the workers through the lockout before "negotiating" wages and conditions in a new enterprise agreement. For instance, it was only after the lockout began that management decided to lodge a demand for an adverse change in the workers' working week.

Despite the lockout, the workers are unlikely to give in. They have expressed their determination to return to work with all of their current conditions intact. Their resolve is being strengthened by the support they are getting from other ACI worksites and the local community.

As Australian Manufacturing Workers Union organiser Tony Mavromatis told Green Left Weekly: "It is not only for us [that we are fighting]. If we give away these conditions, what will be left for our children."

"They say unions are the thugs. This lockout is a perfect example of why this American multinational corporation is the biggest thug I have ever seen", Mavromatis added.

From Green Left Weekly, July 30, 2003.

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From GLW issue 547