BY MARCEL CAMERON
BRISBANE — Workers employed at the Bradken company's Karrabin railway carriage making plant near Ipswich have set up a picket line after being locked out on July 16.
As part of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union's Campaign 2003, the Bradken workers have sought negotiations with the company for an enterprise bargaining agreement that would include annual wage increases of 6% for the next three years, improved redundancy payments, the protection of workers' entitlements, education leave, paid maternity and paternity leave, and a 36-hour work week.
The wage increases offered by the company over the next three years — 3.5%, 3% and 2.5% — have been rejected by union members.
However, the company has refused to negotiate a new enterprise agreement with the workforce. "They are trying to beat us into submission by locking us out", AMWU assistant Queensland secretary Peter Lees said. "Management are now trying to break the picket line by individually contacting workers and offering to allow each worker back on site in return for the protected industrial action to be dropped."
More than 150 AMWU members are employed at Bradken Karrabin, and 100 of them had been engaged in rolling four-hour stoppages prior to the lock-out — industrial action that is supposed to be legal under the federal Workplace Relations Act.
David Fyffe, an AMWU delegate at Bradken, said that workers are being regularly addressed about the dispute through report back meetings on the picket line.
"We are standing strong and will not resume discussions with management until they stop coaxing workers back to work. We will not be accepting a substandard agreement", said Fyffe.
Protected action notices have also been served on most major metals fabrication and installation contractors in the construction industry in Brisbane and the Gold Coast as part of Campaign 2003.
To send a message of solidarity or to make a donation to the Bradken workers contact Peter Lees at <amwuqld@amwu.asn.au> or David Fyffe on 0409 622 791.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, July 30, 2003.
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