CANBERRA — On December 8, around 1100 trade unionists attended an ACT Trades and Labour Council-organised stop-work meeting outside the Legislative Assembly. The meeting was called to discuss responses to the ACT Liberal government's enterprise agreement package for government workers.
The government is offering a 3.9% pay rise over 28 months in return for productivity and working conditions trade-offs. The trade-offs include multi-skilling ACTION administrators to double as bus drivers, eliminating or reducing penalty rates for health workers, preventing all workplaces (including whole departments) from having more than three unions on site, making ACT Housing Trust workers share a desk, and forcing some workers to provide and maintain their uniforms. The meeting, which heard speakers from the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, the TLC and the Transport Workers Union (TWU) opposing the government package, was exceptionally badly organised. Held during working hours rather than at lunchtime, workers were forced to sacrifice wages if they wanted to attend.
Just as TLC president Kate Lundy announced the end of the meeting, all the lunchtime supporters arrived. The meeting lasted less than one hour and appeared to have been organised simply to gauge the sentiment of union members on the issue. Despite these problems, workers at the meeting strongly supported taking militant action against the government. Accompanied by loud cheering, the meeting voted for the principle of "one out all out" in response to government threats to lock out troublesome workers.
The rally was the culmination of months of Liberal government intransigence and underhand activity. Following initial attempts to defuse the situation by offering government workers an unconditional 1% pay rise before Christmas and TWU workers 3.9% over three years, (both were rejected outright), the government has resorted to threats and intimidation. On the morning of the December 8 meeting, the director of the Department of Urban Services, Robyn Read, sent a letter to all union delegates stating that the government would view any industrial action as giving cause to lock out workers, either as individuals or groups, for as long as the government saw fit.
Attempts to intimidate workers into inaction by threatening lock-outs follow an Industrial Relations Commission ruling that allows the unions to conduct "protected actions" — industrial action against losing current entitlements or pay. As well as threatening lock-outs, the government has also said it will use scab labour to break any industrial action.