Australian Manufacturing Workers Union food and confectionary division Victorian secretary Bronwyn Halfpenny spoke to Green Left Weekly's Sue Bolton about the changes that jailed unionist Craig Johnston brought to the Victorian AMWU branch after he became AMWU metal division secretary in 1998 and then the union's state secretary in 2000.
According to Halfpenny, one of Johnston's achievements was the introduction of a hardship fund to help sustain members who are on strike. Johnston proposed for a hardship fund at national and state conferences since the mid-1990s, but it was only when he became state secretary in 2000 that the fund was established in the Victorian branch. It was then established nationally.
Halfpenny explained the importance of the fund: "If people were locked out or on strike, for the first time ever, they could get a regular income. While it wasn't a lot, it was money that members were guaranteed while they weren't getting any wages."
Food and confectionary members benefited from the hardship fund during a dispute with Nestle at Echuca in 2001 when there was a lockout for around eight weeks. Halfpenny explained that disputes involving the food and confectionary division are a bit different to disputes in the metals sector, because "you're talking about the whole production site, where you can have more than 100 on strike ... You can have collections and support 10 people, but when it's 100 people, it's impossible to collect enough to provide a proper income."
The hardship fund "was part of the reason that people were able to hang out until they got a good agreement at Echuca. And from winning that dispute, workers are still benefiting because the company knows that those workers can do it again if the company tries to do the wrong thing."
Halfpenny contrasted this to a dispute with Simplot in Echuca in 1997 when the company sacked all the workers. "That was when there wasn't a hardship fund and before Craig was elected. There were some terrible stories of extreme financial hardship.
"Also, when people are in long drawn out disputes, if they don't get strong leadership support, they lose confidence. At Simplot, there was no leadership support [from AMWU state secretary John Corsetti]. While the workers won in the sense that they got their jobs back, there wasn't the feeling of achievement, of confidence from going back to work under good conditions."
Halfpenny also compared the outcomes of two disputes with Heinz. More than 10 years ago, Heinz moved tomato processing out of its Dandenong plant and set up a new factory in Gigaree in northern Victoria. The union failed to get an agreement for the new plant, so no workers at the Gigaree plant were in the union and everyone was on an individual contract. They had a 38-hour work week instead of the 36-hour work week, the wages were terrible and they had no rights.
After Johnston's election, the Dandenong factory announced that it would set up a baby food plant at Echuca. Halfpenny said that "when we spoke to workers at Dandenong, because of what happened with the Gigaree plant, they had no confidence and a defeatist attitude."
The company wanted a 38-hour work week and lower wages for the Echuca plant. "But through Craig's leadership, the contractors at the Dandenong plant stopped work and put industrial pressure on the company. Craig also organised to put industrial pressure on the company in Echuca when they were building the new plant.
"As a result, we got an agreement that maintained the hours of work at 36, the wage rates, and other conditions that applied at Dandenong."
Halfpenny said that "prior to Craig's leadership, in workplaces where there were food production and maintenance people, we were operating as two different groups with no solidarity, no unity. There was animosity and hostility between maintenance and food production workers. At Nestle Packenham, we had a picket line many years ago when everyone got sacked and maintenance kept working. At Unilever, production workers were out for 18 weeks and maintenance kept working.
"When Craig was elected, he brought in solidarity between different groups of workers within a workplace and across workplaces. Through that solidarity and unity, so much more was achieved.
"At Lactos Fresh, the company sacked everybody. Then we found out that they were starting a new factory around the corner and needed machinery put in. Again through Craig, there were bans and that machinery wasn't put in. Our members were picketing the place. The maintenance [workers] and contractors respected the picket line. From that, everybody got their job back and maintained the 36-hour work week.
"The thing is, we need each other. In production, it's the morale of having everybody stopping work at the same time. Production [workers] see maintenance as stronger because they've got a trade. But also, maintenance needs a strong production section because in places where production hasn't been [covered by AMWU] food and confectionary, and maintenance is getting better conditions, the maintenance gets contracted out. If you've got a weak production membership and a strong maintenance membership, then the likelihood of the company trying to contract maintenance out is much greater.
"It was Craig who went back to the concept of industry-wide pattern bargaining. Craig was instrumental in having non-wage conditions like long service leave and income protection in agreements and then making them the standard because of pattern bargaining."
From Green Left Weekly, December 15, 2004.
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