James Hardie locks the gate

November 17, 1993
Issue 

Andrew Martin, Brisbane

On October 19, workers at James Hardie's Meeandah concrete pipe factory arrived for their usual start time of 6.30 am to find factory's gates locked. The company had initiated a 28-hour lockout in response to workers holding a stop-work meeting to discuss a new enterprise agreement.

In response, workers at James Hardie's Carol Park building board factory took strike action while workers at Meeandah set up a protest camp outside the factory.

These industrial actions affect almost 100 workers at Meeandah and 140 workers at Carole Park. Most are production workers covered by the Australian Workers Union. A number of others, such as the maintenance fitters, are covered by the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union.

Currently, a single certified agreement covers both sites. According to AMWU state organiser Brendan Matthey, there were separate agreements for both sites a number of years ago until the company requested a single certified agreement to cover both sites.

"Now they want to do away with a single agreement, locking workers out for taking protected industrial action — a stop-work meeting on the Wednesday. It's a classic case of divide and rule", Matthey said.

"At the moment, everyone's back to work, but we'll continue in our bid to get James Hardie to sit down and talk by holding stop-work meetings every Wednesday. However, we want to be sure that [negotiations] are genuine as, in the past, James Hardie has used talks to smooth things over and buy time."

Stop-work meetings are being planned until the end of the year to discuss the process of negotiations. Workers at both plants have decided to impose an overtime ban on weekends, which will restrict production and limit maintenance work.

Workers are pushing for better pay and conditions at both plants. According to Matthey, James Hardie has previously tried to abolish penalty rates.

The industrial dispute is taking place while James Hardie is being investigated for the withdrawal of funds for asbestos victims in 2003.

[Andrew Martin is a member of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and the Socialist Alliance.]

From Green Left Weekly, November 2, 2005.
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