BY LIAM MITCHELL
SYDNEY — If unions hope to really represent working people, they have to break into, regulate and organise the labour hire sector, militant union leader Craig Johnston told a gathering on November 13.
Fresh from marching in an International Metalworkers Federation-organised protest against corporate globalisation, Johnston told his audience of 60, packed into a back room of the Trades Hall bar, that labour hire "is the fastest-growing area amongst workers and one of the most exploited".
The area has a casualisation rate of around 70%, is difficult to organise and so has long been ignored by unions, explained Johnston, the Victorian secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU).
His union, however, had taken the view that it's better to organise the sector than pretend it doesn't exist — and Johnston commended the efforts of the NSW AMWU branch in organising among labour hire firms.
Johnston explained the Victorian AMWU's strategy of winning conditions for labour hire workers in the construction sector.
Firstly, he explained, any labour hire company is forced to have an agreement on wages and conditions with the union before it is allowed to come on-site.
Secondly, he continued, the union pushes to improve conditions through the Industrial Relations Commission, to ensure a flow-on to other labour hire workers. The union also argues for legislation to cover these workers.
Regulation of labour hire has "reduced the predominance of employers to contract their maintenance out and bring [the workers] back as labour hire workers. What it's all about is control", Johnston said, citing examples of union activists and health and safety delegates being transferred to other sites while still keeping their jobs.
"Over the last three or four years, we have stopped this from a mad rush to just a few", the union leader said of the outcome of the AMWU's efforts.
But there are still hold-outs and exceptions: most notably the largest labour hire firm, Skilled Engineering, which has switched from doing deals with the union where the workers would be employed on the same conditions to refusing to re-employ sacked workers.
Skilled has "moved from a company that can deal with unions to a company that is openly on the attack, openly trying to break down conditions", said Johnston.
Johnston also spoke about the allegations that a number of workers and unionists damaged an office during a dispute at Melbourne firm Johnson Tiles — the "Skilled Six", now seven after another was charged.
He angrily compared this to the lack of action over deaths of five construction workers and one maintenance worker in Victoria in the last six months: "Not one boss, not one supervisor, not one person has been charged over the murder of these workers and yet seven people have been charged, facing 25 years in jail, for allegedly breaking a few computers".
In discussion, Johnston, a well-known member of the Socialist Alliance, was quizzed about his attitude to the Labor Party.
"Their role in the last election was absolutely ... disgraceful", he said. "I would rather have seen the Labor Party lose by a bigger margin but stand on some principles, than say 'me to, me too'."
Johnston said the success of the Greens and the Socialist Alliance in the elections showed workers' disgust with the ALP.
"There is a lot of work to be done, but it's important that the Socialist Alliance, the left parties and the Greens start to work more cohesively" with the trade union movement leadership and the rank and file "to build a political alternative to the ALP".
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, November 21, 2001.
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