Autoliv victimises injured workers

Last month, four injured workers had their light duties suspended by Campbellfield car parts manufacturer Autoliv and were told that they should consider taking "voluntary" redundancy packages.

Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) organiser Chris Spindler told Green Left Weekly that "voluntary packages" did not exist in the enterprise agreement. He said the company "is trying to get out of paying people a proper redundancy and they are just not serious about meeting their responsibilities to help workers get back to work".

None of the four workers who had received their injuries during their employment with Autoliv have been paid since they were put off work and only one is eligible for WorkCover payments

Olga Sulema, who was put off work in February after 14 years at Autoliv, told the April 1 Hume Weekly that she couldn't get entitlements for WorkCover payments because she wasn't working and didn't know where to find the money to make ends meet.

Spindler told GLW that the four women workers want to go back to work. The union, he said, is "very keen to negotiate a plan to make that happen". He said the AMWU proposes that the four workers be returned to light duties so they can recover from their injuries while still working. If no genuine light duties are available, he said, the workers should have the opportunity to be retrained on full pay.

On April 3, a mass meeting of AMWU members at Autoliv voted to take support action if the company targets any other workers on light duties and if it refuses to implement a negotiated outcome of the dispute over the four women workers.

In another dispute, workers employed by giant packaging company Visy, at its Coburg plant, staged a 24-hour stoppage in support of sacked AMWU member George Kyridis. Kyridis, who had been on light duties for some years, was sacked in January after refusing to do jobs he was incapable of undertaking due to a knee injury he suffered at Visy in 2003.

From GLW issue 747