The refusal by Tristar Steering and Suspension to pay a dying employee his work entitlements after he applied for a voluntary redundancy is just the latest in a long fight the company's workers have waged to secure their rightful entitlements. Another 30 longstanding Tristar workers are still awaiting their own entitlements.
Accounts manager John Beaven had been with the company for 43 years. He was the sole provider for three children, aged 17-21, after his wife died in late 2005. Two of his children are at university and the third is yet to complete her HSC. Beaven was diagnosed with terminal bowel and liver cancer and on sick leave when he applied for a voluntary redundancy. His employer knew that he didn't have long to live.
It is estimated Beaven would have been owed about $211,000 under the site agreement, but he received less than a quarter of that amount after a public outcry forced new workplace relations minister Relations minister Joe Hockey to step in and broker a solution.
Beaven received a cheque for $50,000 two days before he died on January 26. He had agreed to the reduced payout to secure some money for his children.
Under the Howard government's Work Choices amendments to the Workplace Relations Act (1996), Tristar's legal obligations are significantly less — as little as $8000 for someone with 40 years' service. If the company had been able to hold out until after Beaven's death, it would have had to pay his children nothing.
Tristar's enterprise agreement (EA) ended in September 2006 and with most of its operations moved offshore and its Marrickville factory lying idle for some months, management applied to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) to terminate the site agreement and offered voluntary redundancies that amounted to around one quarter of what each worker was owed under the EA — a move that would save the company up to $200 million. The case is coming up in the AIRC on February 1.
Tristar does not have to negotiate over redundancy provisions under Work Choices and has employed one of the law firms that drafted the new IR laws to act for it.
Afraid they would otherwise lose the lot, 20 workers took the redundancies. Thirty longstanding workers decided to fight for all their entitlements, each banking on this money for their retirement. Beaven was the only one whose offer was knocked back.
Conditions in the EA meant that each worker was entitled to four weeks' pay per year of service. If the site agreement is terminated by the AIRC, under Work Choices this would be knocked back to a flat 12 weeks of pay. If they do not accept this, the company can fire them after 12 months and avoid paying any entitlements.
Tristar has produced nothing for the last six months, yet the 30 workers are still turning up to an idle factory in the hope that with a fight, they can secure their rightful entitlements. They are forced to watch from a hot tin shed as equipment is being removed from the factory. They have no running water, no air conditioning or heating, no privacy in the toilets and a single antiquaited computer to relieve the boredom.
When the workers travelled to Canberra last November, Howard refused to meet with them to discuss their situation.
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) NSW secretary Paul Bastian told the January 24 Sydney Morning Herald that Beaven's case "demonstrates that the Work Choices legislation has gone too far and there's nowhere for workers to go. It has swung the pendulum so far it promotes the worst behaviour in some employers."
Tristar made steering and suspension components for the major car manufacturers in Australia. The company was involved in a major dispute over entitlements in 2001-02 that caused the shutting down of car manufacturing plants due to the unavailability of parts.
In 2001, the AMWU ran a national campaign for a fund — Manusafe — to secure entitlements for workers in case their employer went out of business.
As part of this campaign, the Tristar workers took strike action in support of an EA their delegates were negotiating. The EA put forward by the AMWU contained company contributions to Manusafe to cover each worker's entitlements for their length of service.
Despite a campaign against them by the corporate media and being branded as "traitors" by then workplace relations minister Tony Abbott, the strike was able to win an EA that appeared to secure millions of dollars for the workers' futures.
While the national campaign was unsuccessful in forcing all manufacturers to contribute to Manusafe, it forced the federal government to introduce the General Employee Entitlements and Redundancy Scheme (GEERS) — a scheme that secures entitlements at government expense, but caps payouts at $20,000.
Manusafe has since been converted to the National Entitlement Security Trust (NEST) — a fund that employers in all industries could contribute to in order to secure workers' entitlements. NEST contributions became part of future EA negotiations between the AMWU and employers.
With the money supposedly put aside for the workers, Tristar deliberately waited for the new IR laws to come into effect last March to avoid paying the full amount owed to each worker under previous industrial laws and agreements.