Workers & unions

We’ve heard it all before — “the larger the cake, the larger each slice”. The bigger the economy gets, the more productive we are, the more we should expect to share in the wealth. Trouble is it’s not true: while the economy grows and profits rise, bosses are cutting jobs and attacking our conditions. While they clean up, we lose out. And unless we fight to stop it, the imbalance will only get worse.

"The pay offer is a lemon" has been the theme of protests by Australian Taxation Office (ATO) workers around Australia over the past two weeks. Workers have put lemons on their desks and stuck up posters of lemons to symbolise their rejection of management's pay offer of 9% over three years, which is less than the rate of inflation. Some workers have called for strike action in the tax office, as has happened in other government agencies.

The statement below is being circulated by Power to the People, a campaign group which formed during the fight against electricity privatisation in NSW and the newly formed NSW Union Activist Network, made up of left and green union activists.

The announcement by BlueScope that 1100 workers will be sacked from the local steel industry has sent shockwaves through the community and much of the country. Another 200 people could be sacked from the Port Kembla wharves and at least 100 more local workplaces will be seriously affected. Many of the sacked workers have been at the steelworks for decades. They are now being told to get out of town, to move to Queensland or Western Australia, to forget about their ties to Wollongong, because other corporations may need them somewhere else.

Supporters of Fijian workers rallied in Melbourne on September 2 against a recent crackdown by the military regime. The same day, two Fijian trade unionists, Fiji Trades Union Congress president Daniel Urai and National Union of Hospitality, Catering and Tourism organiser Nitin Gounder, appeared in a Fijian court charged with unlawful assembly because they met with their union members to discuss a collective agreement. The Fijian trade union movement is under very heavy attack by the Fijian military government. New laws aiming to make it virtually impossible for unions to exist.

Nearly half a year after workers revolted over Wisconsin Republican Govenor Scott Walker's February announcement that he intended to bust Wisconsin's public-sector unions, voters went to the polls in nine recall elections. Unions and their supporters hoped the polls would put the state Senate in the hands of Democrats ― whose 14 Senators left the state for a month after Walker announced his anti-union bill in a bid to block it. Despite an obscene amount of money flowing into the state over the past few months, the union movement fell just one seat short of its goal.

Australia Post is trying to implement a new form of delivery called separate bundle delivery (SBD). SBD will force posties to sort part of their mail outside while straddling their motor or push bikes, hindering safety. Currently, mail is sorted into delivery sequence inside the delivery centres and then delivered. SBD will move an hour of the inside work outside, exposing posties to traffic, extreme weather conditions and increased fatigue.

Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) members in several government departments are continuing to campaign against the federal government's policy of limiting pay rises to 3% a year, which is less than the rate of inflation. CPSU members in the defence department walked off the job for one hour on August 25 to attend protest meetings over stalled pay negotiations. Civilian staff at more than 70 defence bases and offices throughout the country took part.

Unions have sharply criticised Qantas as the airline announced it had doubled its profits a week after it said it needed to lay off 1000 workers. Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce reported a $249 million after-tax profit for 2010-11 — about twice what it earned the previous year. Its before tax profit amounted to more than $550 million, which is a rise of about 50% over the 2009-10 financial year. On August 16, Qantas announced plans to restructure its business, which would include setting up two new Asian-based airlines and cutting up to 1000 Australian-based jobs.

The Socialist Alliance released the statement below on August 23. * * * BlueScope Steel Ltd. announced on August 22 that it would shut two production facilities and shed 1000 jobs as part of a restructure aimed at turning around a $1.05 billion annual loss. This will mean the shutdown of a blast furnace at Port Kembla in the Illawarra region of New South Wales and closure of its Western Port hot strip mill in Victoria. The Port Kembla closure will result in 800 job losses, while at least 200 jobs will be cut at Western Port.

Quarantine staff at Australia's international airports walked off the job for four hours on August 19. The action was part of a campaign by Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) members working in the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) to win a better enterprise agreement. The strike caused some delays at the airports, and affected cargo inspections, the release of imported goods and the x-ray screening of international mail.

Electrical Trades Union members around the country are currently voting for national and state union officials. The ballot goes from August 8-29. Nationally, a team of Howard Worthing, former assistant Victorian secretary, and Greg Wilton, former Western Australia organiser, are challenging incumbent national secretary Peter Tighe and Allen Hicks, for the positions of national secretary and assistant national secretary respectively. Allen Hicks is former Queensland assistant secretary. Reconnect ETU is running a full ticket against the Victorian incumbent leadership.