CRA: history of a corporate thug

By Shane Hopkinson In early October CRA merged with its parent RTZ to form the largest mining company in the world with an estimated $14 billion in assets. The company also has big investment plans — to the tune of $750 million in Queensland alone — a part of which is to open the door to individual contracts. CRA is also at the forefront of the fight to resist Aboriginal land claims spending millions on a Federal Court appeal which dismissed the Waanyi people's claim to land under the Mabo ruling in June this year. This ruling clarified that pastoral leases extinguished Native Title and cleared the way for CRA's $1 billion zinc mine in northern Queensland. This, for CRA, is civilised stuff. On Bougainville the ruthless extraction of copper by CRA has driven the native people to take up arms only to be met by the Papua New Guinean Army and Australian-supplied helicopter gunships. While the ACTU crows about its "victory" against the mining giant CRA at Weipa it is clear that the company's strategy of union busting is still very much on track. The genesis of this strategy has its beginnings in 1991 at Tiwai Point aluminium smelter at Invercargill, New Zealand. The introduction of new industrial relations legislation allowed the company force its blue collar work force to move to a system of individual contracts. By cutting 200 jobs and moving to longer shifts CRA achieved a 17% reduction in labour costs and ended union representation on the site. It was not long before the company began to seek out other opportunities to implement this. Since Tiwai Point, undermining the power of the unions has become a long-term project for CRA. Firstly it realised that its old hard-nosed image would have to go. Instead of resorting to the use of archaic common law remedies such as "conspiracy" and avoiding industrial relations courts (by 1981 CRA had almost one industrial dispute a day), the 1990s strategy was to tie up unions in the courts making them seem ineffective. To this end CRA began retraining its middle managers to forster "team building" with workers. This, combined with the ALP government's Prices and Incomes Accord which had kept real wages down (and profits up) CRA was able to build up a fund with which to offer some workers generous pay rises and to capitalise on the consensus rhetoric of the new Accord-style industrial relations era. The introduction of enterprise bargaining in Accords VI and VII allowed employers to actively block collective agreements by continually stalling negotiations and arbitration. In late 1992, the Victorian Kennett government abolished state awards for public servants and forced them to sign individual contracts. At the same time CRA set up the Peak gold mine in Cobar with its 150-strong work force on contracts. At Hammersley Iron in the Pilbara, CRA started to offer individual contracts in 1993 and by 1994 had signed up 98% of the waged work force. This was done under the WA Liberal government's industrial relations legislation. Attempts in 1994 to win over workers to individual contracts at Comalco, Bell Bay, Tasmania were largely successful. However, in December that year the IRC ruled that the same conditions had to be offered to those who had stayed in the union. Evidence also came to light of the company's intimidatory tactics when the court ruled that they had "deliberately deceived" the workers about the contracts. ACTU won a paid-rates award for a few Bell Bay workers. CRA appealed the award in September and the Industrial Court overturned it with the ruling that only a minimum rates award could be granted. The ACTU has announced that it will take this to the High Court. However, this will not be heard before mid-1996.

Flexibility

The 1993 Industrial Relations Reform Act opened the way for non-union Enterprise Flexibility Agreements (EFA). This provided companies such as CRA and Woodside Petroleum with the mechanism by which they could introduce individual contracts under the existing legislation. Earlier this year at Boyne Island, an aluminium smelter in Gladstone, Queensland, CRA, having learnt from Bell Bay, introduced individual contracts with a non-union EFA. This was only narrowly passed by the work force. CRA enticed workers with a 12% pay rise for two years if workers abandoned the union. Why is CRA so generous? The "staff" contracts have no fixed term and can vary at the company's discretion under a "changed economic conditions" clause. The appeal process, which excludes unions, is always referred to the management. The workers have no rights — except to their pay. Those who do not want to sign individual contracts are forced to work under the old conditions with less overtime than they need to survive. New workers have to sign individual contracts; they cannot choose to stay in the award system. In the Vickery dispute outside Gunnedah, NSW, CRA used the same tactics. It entered negotiations by withdrawing overtime, forcing workers to move elsewhere in search of work, while the remainder walked out. Negotiations have proved very difficult for the workers who have been on strike for several months. Most recently the CRA has tried to implement its union busting strategy at Weipa. CRA, as elsewhere, had refused to allow the union to collect union dues. Weipa workers haven't had a pay rise for four years. After stalling for 18 months in the IRC over a collective bargain with the union, CRA was able to induce more than 80% of its work force to accept individual contracts with a generous $15,000 a year pay rise if they did. This is the context for the current dispute which began on October 13 when 71 longer-term employees struck over CRA's refusal to discuss a collective agreement. CRA, with the IRC's stamp of approval, retaliated on November 11 by taking out Supreme Court writs against workers and their unions for damages. This precipitated the national strike, coordinated by the ACTU, in defence of the right of workers to bargain collectively in a union framework without discrimination. Despite CRA claims that those who wish to stay with the union would not be discriminated against, the recent IRC hearing has shown that CRA is lying. The sole unionist at the kaolin plant was given the same assessment in his performance review as contract staff, but is not being paid the same amount. In another case, a union tradesman is being paid less than the apprentices he is training. Again the company was forced to admit its unfair treatment. The IRC has arbitrated for a backdated 8% pay rise to be awarded to the striking miners, and CRA has promised to drop its common law actions. The Weipa workers are sceptical that CRA will comply and, last week, pledged to remain on strike until the company agreed to the equal pay for equal work principle. Despite ACTU secretary and Reserve Bank director Bill Kelty's elation with the IRC ruling, it is clear that CRA's successes in its union busting strategy are a product of the ALP's Accord. The drop in real wages over the past 12 years has enabled CRA to offer wage increases above the award to its work force to entice them from the union. The fall-off in union membership nationally over the last 12 years — from 50% to 35% — is evidence that workers see unions as irrelevant when they do not defend their interests. The fight against CRA is not yet over. Although the ACTU has been forced, at high noon, to run a belated campaign against CRA's union busting, the fight by working people against companies such as CRA, is far from over. As Bob Richardson, ACTU industrial officer at Weipa said, the fundamental mistake was not to have stopped CRA at Bell Bay. CRA's attitude is clear. When asked about the cost of CRA's strategy of taking on the unions, executive Greg Walker replied that it was "a question of whether you take a short- or long-term view".