BY TERRICA STRUDWICK & SAM KING
ROCKHAMPTON — At a 2000-strong mass meeting on April 13, meatworkers locked out by Consolidated Meat Groups (CMG) voted unanimously to reject a new proposed enterprise bargaining agreement, after the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) abolished their previous agreement on April 8.
The meatworkers have been locked in a frustrating battle since January, when CMG closed the Rockhampton meatworks and told the 1200 workers they no longer had jobs.
The closure was justified by CMG managing director Ray O'Dell because of a drop in prices and international demand. Nevertheless, the company opened negotiations with the workers' union, the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union (AMIEU), in order to reopen the plant with the workers on worse pay and conditions. CMG then applied, in opposition to union and worker demands, to overturn the workers' current enterprise bargaining agreement.
Despite support for the workers' coming from local councillors and politicians, the IRC's Judge Bacon supported the company. Bacon argued that it was necessary to overturn the agreement "in the public interest". O'Dell now argues the market has picked up enough for the plant to reopen.
Before the decision, CMG workers were the lowest paid employees in the Australian meat industry. CMG's proposed new agreement, offered days after the IRC decision, would have given the workers slightly more pay, but at the cost of their conditions, and a significant number of jobs.
The company proposed 10-hour work shifts, which when breaks and changing times are included, would result in workers spending 12 hours at a time at the plant. The shifts would be allocated on a six day-roster, out of which workers would work four days. Workers estimate that nearly 25% of workers will be sacked if the new shift arrangements are implemented.
According to Cheryl Peacock, a member of the workers' consultative committee, the workers are prepared to work for award wages, but only if they get award conditions as well. "CMG will pay us the award but they want their own conditions which are unreasonable", she pointed out. Peacock's pay would be just $400 take home a week, for more than 45 hours of work, under CMG's proposed agreement.
Cassandra Mergatroid, a worker who has been involved in organising public support for the campaign, told Green Left Weekly that the abolition of the enterprise bargaining agreement has set a dangerous precedent for other meatworkers. "By the end of the year there will be no smaller meatworks left", Murgatroid argued. "The big meatworks like CMG will push them all out so they can control the market."
Despite the anger at the meeting, and the determination of all the meatworkers not to let CMG use dirty tricks to force their pay down, there were no proposals for further action. When GLW phoned the AMIEU, union officials explained no-one was available for comment. Local union representatives are not permitted to talk to any kind of media.
From Green Left Weekly, April 24, 2002.
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