Bronwyn Jennings, Geelong
Geelong Trades Hall launched two new picket-line "kits" at a practice picket line on its building on October 7. State union secretaries and delegates attending the launch inspected the large marquee-type tents, generators, lights, tables and chairs, wood-fired heaters, first-aid kits, barbecues and food-warmers that make up the kits.
Tim Gooden, secretary of Geelong Trades Hall, told Green Left Weekly: "We have put these kits together to provide logistical support for workers in our struggle to maintain fair workplaces. If workers are locked out or there is a picket as part of an industrial dispute, we can and will provide the practical support that is needed."
Gooden says the kits are a valuable tool for the union movement and, "while not providing all the comforts of home, they enable all the practical aspects of a successful picket line or protest to be established within an hour if needed".
"I'd like to think that the kits won't be used", he added. "However, the Howard government is making laws that provoke industrial disputes and we have to be prepared for a long fight. It is not a fight that the unions have started but, to be sure, we will finish it and we will win it."
Gooden warned employers in Geelong that if they use Howard's new laws to oppress workers "they will be taking on the entire union movement".
From Green Left Weekly, October 12, 2005.
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