BY ALEX BAINBRIDGE
HOBART — Retail workers at the K&D chain of hardware stores grudgingly voted to accept an enterprise agreement on January 22 that offered a pay increase of less than 4.5% a year in exchange for an erosion of conditions, particularly overtime. BRIAN MILLAR, a member of the Shop Distributive and Allied Workers Union (SDA) and a Democratic Socialist Party activist, works at K&D's Glenorchy store. He spoke to Green Left Weekly.
"K&D is a franchise of the Mitre 10 chain. Fewer than half the 169 workers voted in favour of the agreement. It was approved because 40 people abstained. This did not stop the general manager putting up a notice thanking workers for their 'overwhelming endorsement' of the agreement.
"When the bosses introduced the new agreement [at a meeting last year] the general manager calmly stood there and told us that the agreement was designed to allow them to guarantee stability and maximise profits. They didn't want unions making claims on the company and saw the 'agreement' as a means of ensuring that this doesn't happen for the two-and-a-half-year period of the agreement. There was no agreement, though. It was a joke. They presented the document to us and said: 'This is what we're going to do'.
"One of the things K&D tried to take away was penalty rates for casuals on public holidays. At the moment, we get double time and a half; they wanted to make it time and a half and claimed we were already paid for holidays in our 20% [casual] loading. When the union opposed that move, the company took the money out of our 'incentive scheme' instead.
"The 'incentive scheme' is one of their gimmicks to make workers identify with the company instead of relying on working class solidarity. They have a formula that links the incentive scheme fund to K&D's after tax profit. The Christmas bonus is paid to workers out of this fund. This makes workers think that they ought to work hard to boost profits and their bonus. However, if profits do rise dramatically, the fund has got a cap on it anyway.
"One of the tricks they pulled was to say that the 'incentive scheme' would only operate if we voted for the agreement. The other threat they made was that if we voted against the agreement they would have to get casual labour in for the weekends and most workers would lose weekend work.
"We got a pay rise of around 4% per year but they have forced us to trade off conditions, particularly overtime. K&D have extended the regular hours they can roster us on to 11pm Monday to Saturday and have virtually eliminated the possibility of getting paid overtime rates. K&D call this 'efficiency' and 'flexibility' but in reality it is part of a long-term plan to erode workers' conditions. They don't have any regard for our social life or things like that, but I think it's important.
"K&D fired a guy the other day. When he complained to the general manager, he was told that the manager shouldn't have fired him but instead reduced his hours to one day a month so that it was not worth him continuing in the job. He was told this point blank — that's the way K&D treats its workers."
Millar said that while the SDA succeeded in getting some of the worst aspects of the agreement removed during negotiations with the company, the union did not break with the trade-off mentality of the trade union movement leadership. "The union isn't very active on the site. I had to try really hard to join. What really annoyed me about the negotiations was that the union never once came and consulted us."