My name is Peter Reid. I work as a tank maker. I earn a flat rate of $16.25 per hour, working four days on and four days off.
I do 12-hour days and rotating shifts. That means I work days and nights, and public holidays, at the company's all-encompassing rate of $16.25. I do get an extra eight hours' pay for public holidays. The company I work for, Bushman's Tanks, has had Australian Workplace Agreements for about five years. When I joined the company about four and a half years ago, I was told that if I wanted a job I had no choice but to sign an AWA.
I will not sign another AWA. I'm here to say that I've served my apprenticeship under this system and I find it an unfair system. When I was given a promotion as a plastic welder, after two training road trips with another plastic welder, I was sent out on the road to service the company's customers. About eight weeks later, after I refused to sign a new AWA, I was put back into the factory making tanks. If I read my AWA right, and I'm no expert, it says that once I have signed my AWA, I have to abide by what my company says and its all-encompassing rate of pay. This means I don't get CPI pay rises to keep up with the inflation rate. The Employment Advocate, who enacts these company contracts, came to my factory about three months ago and did a skills and wages assessment on my workmates and me. He found that our company was not paying us under the right award. Yet this Employment Advocate has still not come back with a proper job classification for me and my workmates. All I know is that I'm a tank maker and I m not getting paid my proper wage. I've never been paid my proper wage. I want to go back on award wages. These are a couple of reasons why I will not sign my AWA. Mr Howard and the Employment Advocate want everybody, not just you and me, but everybody, to go on these AWA contracts. Under these all-encompassing contracts, we have no recourse for any grievances.
Most people I know just want a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. I would like to see John Howard have a go at living on a flat rate of $16.25 an hour and put his kids through school, buy a house, put food on the table and run a car. In the last budget Peter Costello and Mr Howard gave me a tax cut of $6, yet fuel, food and everything else keeps going up and they want to keep me on $16.25 an hour. My taxes help pay John and Peter's wages and superannuation, yet they muck around with my wages and super. When I retire from work, I will have far less to retire with. I have come here today to voice my objection to the Employment Advocate, to Mr Howard and to all his fellow party members, to say I do not like what is happening and the way they are trying to change my way of life.
[Abridged from a speech to a public meeting in Warrnambool, Victoria, on August 6 — see article on this page.]
From Green Left Weekly, August 17, 2005.
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