Page 14 - ETU Journal Autumn 2017

FIGHTING BACK > PARMALAT WIN
SCABBY THE RAT VERSUS PARMALAT
Union members fighting back against Parmalat’s attack on
Temployment conditions
he indefinite lockout without pay of 70 Parmalat Echuca union members has now entered its third month.
For all this time, the locked-out members of the ETU and AMWU have maintained a 24-hour, seven-day-a- week protest camp at the front of the Echuca dairy dessert manufacturing site. Despite this extended period and many nights sleeping on the front lawn of the site, Parmalat Echuca members are as determined as
ever to accept no reduction in their employment conditions.
An unacceptable loss of conditions
Since enterprise agreement negotiations started in July 2016, the Parmalat Echuca members have had to deal with the full catalogue of nasties that the corporate world has recently been serving up to Australian workers. These included:
• a four-year wage freeze
• the company to have the right to engage labour hire personnel on at least $17.00 an hour less than Parmalat employees
• reductions in employer superannuation payments
• a new lower classification wage rate structure that provides from $8.00 to $11.00 an hour less for new starter employees
• management having the right to roster employees to work on public holidays.
To put pressure on union
members to accept such reductions
in employment conditions, the company has applied to the Fair Work Commission to terminate
the existing Echuca site enterprise bargaining agreement. If this application is successful, existing employees will be hit with a minimum 40% reduction in their wage rates
and catastrophic reductions in a
wide range of other employment conditions. The indefinite company lockout that started on 18 January 2017 was the final strategic move by Parmalat to maximise the pressure on Echuca employees to give up their employment conditions.
A fight for all Aussie workers
Echuca site union members have not only rejected Parmalat’s claims but they have actively campaigned against the company’s view that Australian workers should be giving up their employment conditions.
The members have highlighted
that Parmalat is a very successful business, making a $58 million profit in 2015. Shop stewards recently appeared before a Senate Committee and presented detailed proposals
for changes to the Fair Work Act that would protect all Australian workers from Parmalat-style attacks on rights and employment conditions.
The ETU and AMWU members have been strengthened by the substantial support they have received from union members in Echuca, across
the Goulburn Valley and interstate. This support has included many thousands of dollars to assist the members survive the lockout without pay. The Maritime Union has been particularly supportive, with visits
to the protest camp and financial
THE COMPANY FAILS TO UNDERSTAND THAT UNION MEMBERS WILL NOT ACCEPT A REDUCTION IN SITE WAGE RATES AND EMPLOYMENT CONDITIONS
THE ETU > AUTUMN 2017
www.facebook.com/etuvic
UNION MEMBERS HAVE MAINTAINED A 24-HOUR-A-DAY, SEVEN-DAY-A-WEEK PROTEST CAMP OUTSIDE THE COMPANY’S ECHUCA PLANT
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LOCKED OUT!