Union unity beats Alcoa

Barry Healy, Perth

Unity among rank-and-file members of different unions has beaten back an attempt by contractors hired by Alcoa to prevent unions from organising on the job.

One of the activists involved told Green Left Weekly that the Alcoa construction site, in the Kwinana industrial zone south of Perth, has a variety of tradespeople working for separate employers being paid under a variety of agreements.

"We've got blokes working just a couple of feet away from each other, doing the same work but being paid different money", he said. Some workers are paid under the construction agreement while others are declared by Alcoa to be doing maintenance, at lower wages.

A long-standing grievance has been Alcoa's habit of declaring that very expensive projects are "minor" and so deny better pay to workers.

Matters boiled over when one contractor, the Abbey Group, tried to force workers to accept a non-union agreement. Abbey also tried to exclude two Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) organisers from the site and threatened to call the police.

On May 19, AMWU members struck and were supported by members of the construction workers' union (CFMEU) on the site.

Within days the non-union agreements were withdrawn and the strikers returned to work after a meeting on May 23.

A new sense of unity now exists among the different unions on site and more activity is expected.

From Green Left Weekly, June 1, 2005.

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From GLW issue 628