An eight week lockout ended on 17 December with Victorian Otis workers winning a new enterprise agreement. Members of the Electrical Trades Union and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union – who build and service lifts and escalators (including on construction sites) – had been locked out since 21 October.
 Their new agreement retains most of the conditions that the company had been trying to strip away and includes a 14 percent wage rise over the life of the three and a half year agreement, income protection and increases to daily fares and travel allowances.
After beginning negotiations with the company in April the workers initiated protected industrial action from the end of September, imposing overtime bans and stoppages. Management responded by closing the gate to its Victorian workforce and trying to replace the highly skilled technicians with scab labour, including some who were flown in from interstate. Around 170 units ordinarily serviced by the locked out workers were soon out of operation.
The company didn’t buckle quickly though, instead putting a dodgy agreement to the vote on 27 November. After it was rejected by 90 percent, management invited the workers back. They refused the offer and instead voted to stay out until the company bettered its deal. 
The Victorian Otis workers received widespread international support during their dispute. The company is the largest manufacturer of lifts and elevators in the world, with 200,000 employees globally. The union representing Irish Otis workers, the Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union, responded first with its Dublin members voting for strike action in solidarity. Similarly, Otis workers in New Zealand, Canada and Denmark held stop work meetings to hear about the Victorian dispute, send messages of support and collect for the strike fund. The ETU says that these actions strengthened the workers’ resolve.
 “The company is trying to use the Abbott government’s building code to rip out conditions that have been in place for years”, ETU organiser Howard Worthing told Red Flag. “The strike wasn't about money but maintaining hard won conditions.”
The win is an important signal that unions can fight to retain conditions even where they may run foul of the anti-worker building codes favoured by successive governments. The codes, which exist federally and in some states, preclude companies with non-code-compliant enterprise agreements from tendering for government contracts. They will be tested this year. Several industry-wide agreements are due for negotiation and could erupt into major confrontations over conditions if governments and employers don’t back down.

Liam Kay

Otis workers win

The Queensland branch of the Electrical Trades Union has walked out of negotiations with a government-owned energy company over a dispute about “cultural diversity” recognition. Powerlink, which owns and manages much of the state’s electricity transmission infrastructure, wants to scrap a workplace right that allows workers with accrued leave entitlements to take leave to participate in cultural or religious activities. 
The ETU says that Powerlink is the second government-owned electricity company in recent weeks to target the clause in negotiations for a new workplace agreement. Energex, a distribution company, also argued for its removal but appears to have backed down.
“The removal or watering down of such clauses is seen as being equivalent to cultural exclusion and would be regarded as providing implied approval for inequality and discrimination”, said Stuart Traill, ETU organiser for the electricity supply industry. According to the union, the state government is driving the attack on these clauses.
If negotiations with another electricity company, Ergon Energy – also owned by the government – are any guide, the push to wipe conditions won’t stop at cultural diversity. Ergon has presented the union with a log of claims that runs to more than 50 pages. The company’s claims represent the “greatest attack” on conditions in the history of the industry, according to the union.
The company wants to get rid of the “no forced redundancies” clause, working in the rain penalty rates, minimum apprentice numbers and casual conversion rights. It wants to change the ordinary hours of work, increase the use of labour hire, cut the rate at which time off in lieu is accrued and expand the tasks it can require workers to perform on their own. In exchange for gutting conditions, overtime and penalty rates, Ergon has offered workers a flat 3 percent annual wage increase. 
Traill told Red Flag that ETU members are angry. While Ergon’s CEO Ian Macleod pocketed a salary of $812,000 last year (up from $708,000 in 2011), workers are being told that most of the conditions they’ve ever won are part of a bygone era.
Bound up with the attack on electricity supply workers is the Liberal National Party’s campaign to sell off the sector. A report commissioned by the government in 2012 has recommended that up to 40 Ergon depots be closed and 34 isolated supply assets be sold. 
Part of the government’s privatisation strategy has been to undermine the ETU – one of the most outspoken opponents of its agenda. The union’s “not4sale” campaign has been raising awareness about the likely impact of privatisation through public meetings, advertisements and protests at LNP pro-privatisation forums. These actions have been encouraging, but more is needed. The ETU and other unions have the power to organise a serious industrial campaign against the government’s plans. Rank and file workers will have to be mobilised and solidarity sought from workers in other industries. 
Indications are that support would be forthcoming. Working class Queenslanders are well aware of the impact of privatisation in other states. A poll conducted in May showed that most would prefer an increase in mining taxes to the sale of public assets. Traill said that privatisation of Queensland’s electricity supply “will leave workers and their communities exposed to massive job cuts, compromised service, huge price spikes and compromised safety as private companies will seek to maximise their profits”.
Since its 2012 election the LNP government has been allowed, with little serious opposition, to implement a vicious anti-worker agenda. At least 14,000 public sector workers have already lost their jobs without much more than a yelp from their union, Together.
Now thousands of electricity supply workers are facing down a state government determined to cut wages and wipe dozens of conditions off the slate. The same government is pushing ahead with plans to auction off the state’s energy infrastructure. The bosses and the LNP have made their intentions clear. The only question now is: how will our side respond? 
[Liam Kay is an ETU (Qld) member.]

Queensland government goes after power workers

The Queensland branch of the ETU has had a court victory against the state Liberal National Party government.
On 8 July the Magistrates Court found the ETU not guilty of breaching the state government’s new union-busting Transparency and Accountability of Industrial Organisations amendments to the Industrial Relations Act.
The amendments require unions to publicise details of officials’ salaries on a public website. The ETUQ complied with the amendments and publicised the details on the website opposethesefascistlaws.com, alongside the salary details of the LNP’s cabinet. The LNP argued that the website was not the official website of the ETUQ, but the magistrate dismissed the case because the act did not mention anything about official websites.
Attorney general Jarrod Bleijie said that the government would “decide at a later date whether there are grounds for an appeal”.
In another victory, the LNP government reversed its decision to make unions ballot their membership every time they spend more than $10,000 on anything deemed a political campaign. Bleijie stated that he would await the outcome of the royal commission into trade unions before proposing more changes.
The LNP in Queensland is not feeling confident to push through anti-union laws. Poll after poll shows low support for the government.
Unions in Queensland may have dodged the worst of the law changes and been lucky that the stupidity of the LNP made it easy to get around the new laws. But if the bosses really take on the unions in the future, legal technicalities and wrangling in the courts will be no protection.
The only way to protect workers and our unions will be to rebuild a strong and militant rank and file that can take industrial action against the attacks of the bosses.

ETU wins court case against LNP

May Day marches in Queensland have long registered higher attendances than other states. This year was no different, as thousands of workers took to the streets of Brisbane on Sunday 4 May to mark the traditional day of the international working class.
This year also marked the second march since Campbell Newman moved the Labour Day public holiday from May to October. The move has been labelled “vindictive” by the Queensland trade union movement.
Despite Newman’s spit in the face, trade unions have continued to organise the annual march in May, not October. However, holding the march on a Sunday rather than the usual Monday public holiday has contributed to a drop in the turnout. Nonetheless, an estimated 10,000 unionists attended the march through the city, and many more rallied around the state. 
The largest contingents belonged to the most active and organised unions such as the CFMEU, ETU, QTU and United Voice. Anti-Newman and anti-privatisation slogans dominated the banners of many union contingents whose members have been feeling the brunt of the LNP government’s cuts.
The crowd was addressed at the end of the march at the RNA Show Grounds by state Labor Party leader Annastacia Palaszczuk, who delivered a lacklustre speech. Palaszczuk offered little, making no commitment to improve things for Queensland workers. Her only promise was that if returned to government, her party would reinstate the Labour Day holiday in May.
The next day, despite threats from Fair Work Building and Construction, workers on construction sites in the city downed tools and rallied at King George Square to protest against state government attempts to restrict union access to sites. The mass action was a repeat of last year’s walk-off on the Monday after the May Day march. If the government tries to shift the Labour Day public holiday to October, then workers can and should take it back on its rightful date in May. 
Dave Hanna, CFMEU Queensland president, told the workers assembled at the start of the march to take industrial action and shut sites down if bosses won’t let union reps in. “When he [a union rep] comes and tells you it’s time to walk off the job due to safety, you have to walk off and support yourselves to support the union to make sure that you keep a safe site.”
Unfortunately, despite the important stand taken by the unions against intimidation and for the right to have union reps on site, Bob Katter was also invited to speak to the crowd. He used his time to attack immigrants, refugees and 457 visa holders, who, he warned, were coming to take Australian workers’ jobs. Katter is an anti-working class bastard and was a minister in the conservative state government that smashed the ETU in 1985. He should never receive a platform at a union event. His racist politics are also anathema to the workers’ movement. His invitation to speak indicates that, despite occasionally militant speeches, important sections of the union movement don’t have a political strategy to build the sort of fight we need to beat back Newman.
However, May Day remains an important day for workers across the world. We need to argue against dead end strategies for the workers’ movement and build on the positive aspects of these mobilisations for the future. Marx’s famous words from 166 years ago ring loud and clear today: “Workers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains!”

Thousands turn out for Queensland May Day march

Workers at the Teys Australia abattoir in Beenleigh, Queensland, have had a significant victory in their long battle for a decent enterprise agreement with one of the largest meat processors in the country.
On 4 March the Fair Work Commission upheld the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union’s challenge to a dodgy agreement that the company claimed was approved by workers at the abattoir in August. The commission has ruled that the company took a mistaken approach to determining which employees would be covered by the agreement and were therefore eligible to vote on it. In layman’s terms, the commission found that the company allowed stooges not covered by the agreement to vote it up – by a margin of eight votes.
In September 2013 Red Flag reported on the dispute, which was then centred on the fact that the workers at the abattoir had not had a pay rise since November 2011. At the expiry of their old agreement, they started a campaign to win a new deal with the same conditions and a guaranteed pay rise.
The company had other plans and drew up its own enterprise agreement, which included an effective pay cut and increased workload. Workers at the site held a number of stoppages and voted by a show of hands not to put the company agreement to a secret ballot.
The company didn’t shift and put its agreement to a secret ballot in which “trainee supervisors” not covered by the agreement voted to get it over the line.
Now that the Fair Work Commission has knocked out the company’s agreement, the union says that workers, who have had to work under the company’s agreement for months, are keener than ever to win a better deal. “In practical terms, the company is very alive to the fact that its employees have had six months of working to its new agreement and not many like it”, said Matt Journeaux, AMIEU assistant branch secretary. “The company will resist a new ballot at any cost due to this dissatisfaction. The union is hoping for a democratic outcome whereby workers who aren’t working to the terms of a proposed agreement won’t be able to be stacked in for a rigged vote.”
Workers at Teys have experienced first hand the impact of the bosses’ productivity agenda – a non-union agreement illegally voted up, leaving many of them with less pay and more work. But this time the courtroom chips have fallen the workers’ way, and their campaign continues.

Fair Work finds abattoir vote not fair

Around 400 unionists, motorcycle club members and supporters gathered in Brisbane’s King George Square on 11 February to protest Queensland’s draconian anti-association laws. Called to coincide with the first sitting day of state parliament the rally called for the so-called “bikie” laws to be repealed.
Under the laws, members of any group declared a “criminal organisation” face imprisonment for lengthy mandatory minimum periods for the crime of associating with each other. A recent amendment extends the tentacles of state repression to workers with a license issued by the government. If any such worker is deemed to be a member of a “criminal organisation” they can lose their license and therefore their job.
One of the first to address the crowd was Sam Watson, a veteran aboriginal activist and community leader. He spoke about the parallels between the current period and the fight against the notoriously repressive Joh-Bjelke Peterson state government in decades gone by. “We mobilised then and that’s what needs to happen here, we’re a bit greyer and a bit broader in the bellies, but we’ve still got the fire”, he said.
Electrical Trades Union (ETU) state secretary Peter “Simmo” Simpson spoke about the persecution of ETU members labelled “bikies” as well as charges the union is facing under the Newman government’s anti-union political donation laws. “The ETU and MUA have spoken out against these laws and we’re paying the price”, he said. “But people are starting to move.”
In the crowd Red Flag spoke to Maritime Union of Australia members Sarah and Mark Maguire about why they’re protesting. “The laws are removing our rights and taking us back to the Joh days. We used freedom of association and community support to win the fight in ‘98 and they’re trying to take that away. It’s not just Queensland”, Sarah said. “In Victoria they’ve taken away the right to protest and have pickets.”
Mark said, “Its touch one, touch all and the ETU is just the first cab off the rank. Workers are under attack from the wealthy and when you’re pushed up against the wall you have to fight.” Making the argument that such a fight has to include an industrial response Mark said, “Your only power as a worker is to withdraw your labour”.
While street protests are an important way for the community to express opposition to the Newman government’s agenda they are not enough to land a real blow against the LNP. Only the impact of large scale industrial disruption has the power to stop the government’s assault and put workers on the front foot.

ETU member

Queensland protest for civil liberties

The Queensland branch of the Electrical Trades Union appeared in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on 6 February. The union faces seven charges under laws introduced last year by the LNP state government. It is accused of refusing to detail publicly political donations and spending on campaigns. Each charge carries a fine of $340,000 (just short of the deputy premier’s annual salary).
The ETU is the first organisation to be charged under the laws, which require that unions open their books to the state and declare any spending over $10,000 made for political purposes. The laws also require that unions conduct a ballot of all members before spending any amount over $10,000 for a political purpose. 
Four other unions and nine employer organisations have also been found to have failed to comply with the laws, but it is unclear if any of them will be charged.
The ETU leadership is not willing to comment on the case while it’s before the courts. Queensland Council of Unions secretary John Battams is quoted by AAP as saying, “They are keeping tabs on unions in a Gestapo Nazi way to try to figure out how much they are spending on various campaigns.”
Battams says there are reports of government investigators scrutinising newspapers and billboards, trying to find grounds to charge unions. “In a democratic society there should be no constraints on a union's ability to campaign for its members”, he said. It is clear that the purpose of these laws is to undermine the ability of unions to mount a political opposition to the agenda of the LNP.
The Queensland attorney-general’s office has released a statement saying that the laws were introduced to “allow the light to shine in on how industrial organisations spend their members’ money”. This type of rhetoric, about transparency and democracy, has been the government’s line on these laws from the start. Rank and file unionists can see these claims for the lies they are. 
State intervention in the trade union movement is never about democracy or accountability. It’s about trying to weaken our strongest unions, financially and industrially. This is why the ETU has been targeted first. There are a host of right wing and industrially weak unions, not to mention anti-worker employer organisations, which these laws will never be used against.
The ETU has democratic structures in place, a developed delegate network and an active rank and file membership. That the LNP government has brought the first charges against a militant union that has been one of it most strident critics should come as no surprise to those who've been following the government’s actions since its election in 2012.

ETU charged under Queensland’s anti-union laws

In a blatant attack on the trade union movement, the Queensland government has enacted amendments to several pieces of legislation targeting some of the state’s most militant unions. The laws, now in effect, take particular aim at the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) and the Plumbers Union Queensland (PUQ) but have implications for union organisation generally. 
Under the changes, any electrician or plumber working in Queensland can have his/her licence revoked or renewal refused if the state government declares that he/she is a member or an “associate” of a proscribed motorcycle club or any “criminal” organisation. To date, 26 motorcycle clubs have been proscribed by the government.
Without a licence, electricians and plumbers cannot legally perform their work and will lose their jobs.
The new laws are tied up with the LNP’s law-and-order crusade against bikies. This is a crusade that has never been about “community safety” or criminals but about attacking workers’ organisations and increasing the repressive powers of the state.
“They don’t even mention bikies in the legislation. Striking unionists, picket lines and unions in general are Newman’s main target in our view”, said Peter “Simmo” Simpson, state secretary of the ETU, speaking to Red Flag.
“The government’s own figures show that bikie-related crime makes up 0.9 percent of all crime in this state”, he pointed out. 
So far 200 ETU members have contacted the union worried that they will be affected by these laws. Demonstrating that surveillance of unionists is already under way, police have approached electricians to question them about their involvement with motorcycle clubs.
 Many have resigned from their clubs in the hope of avoiding persecution. However, advice from union lawyers indicates that any past involvement in one of these groups is enough to have your trade taken away.
“There’s no doubt they’ve singled us out”, said Simpson when asked if he thinks ETU members have been targeted because of the union’s open hostility to the Newman government.
In 2012 the ETU sent members to the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Brisbane’s Musgrave Park to help resist police attacks. That same year it had members standing strong on the nine-week Queensland Children’s Hospital picket line. The ETU has also been a vocal critic of the privatisation and anti-worker agenda of the LNP.
“We keep poking them in the eye, and they don’t like it”, Simpson said. 
However, plumbers and electricians are not the only groups that could be affected by these laws, so broad are their scope. Any worker who needs a government-issued licence to do their job could be affected – from nurses to construction workers. Many CFMEU members are also motorcycle club members, and there is fear amongst construction unionists that they too will be targeted.
Every night the television news streams images of what governments of all shades will resort to when their system demands it. While governments in Australia have not yet launched an all-out assault on workers’ organisations, these laws are part of the groundwork for just such an attack. 
Only a strong and united workers’ movement will have the strength to push back their agendas and win gains for our side. Investing our hopes in legal challenges and Labor governments can only encourage passivity. Already a dangerous precedent has been set by Queensland unions not taking strike action to defend the 14,000 jobs axed by Newman since his election.
Workers and our unions need to be active. We need to rebuild rank and file strength and politically educate unionists about the challenges we will likely face in the near future.

Tradies targeted by Queensland government

Workers at Woolworths Brisbane Liquor Distribution Centre in Stapylton have won their union agreement. After nine months of bitter negotiation, was it the joy of the festive season that finally moved the bosses to sign? Not likely. It was the threat of strike action at the busiest time of the year that forced these scrooges to cede to the workers’ claims.
After first striking in October, workers agreed to put off a second picket on the understanding that management would meet their demands. What management actually did was try to lock out their union, the National Union of Workers, and bring in the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Union (SDA) to sign a second rate agreement.
The scab agreement devised by the company and the SDA didn’t provide site rates for casual labour hire workers. Protection of casuals’ rights is a key issue for the workers, who have resisted management’s divide and rule tactics.
In an attempt to get the sub standard agreement up, the company brought in extra casuals who were given an SDA induction and told to vote "yes" to the agreement. The SDA and management colluded in a campaign of misinformation in the lead up to the vote. Workers and delegates countered their scheming by talking to new casuals, explaining the lay of the land and winning them to a “no” vote.
After the SDA agreement was rejected, the company met with the NUW and verbally agreed to grant the workers’ claims. But when the written agreement followed, it became clear that management was trying to renege on a key claim. Fed up, the call for strike action spread quickly across the floor.
Delegate Mark Barclay says this is what clinched it in the end: “Industrial action, or the threat of it, is our most effective weapon against the bosses – always has been and it always will be."
Key terms of the agreement are a 4 percent wage rise this year and 3.6 percent next year (up from an original offer of 1.8 percent) Also secured are union rights including access to the site, induction, delegate training and paid union meetings. Importantly, the agreement also provides equal rights and rates for casual workers as well a clause to prevent victimisation on the basis of failure to meet unrealistic production targets. The SDA has been removed as a signatory to the agreement.
Congratulations and merry Christmas to the workers at Stapylton. As I quaff some Christmas cheer this year I'll do it happy in the knowledge that it’s come from a fighting union warehouse.

Scrooge bosses forced to deliver this Christmas

“Equal pay for equal work.” This old union slogan is what most at the Woolworths BLDC (Brisbane Liquor Distribution Centre) say when asked why they’re on strike.
Workers at this distribution centre are paid around 13 percent less than their comrades around the corner at Larapinta. They get 30 percent less than workers in Victoria.
From midnight on Thursday, 24 October, to Friday afternoon, around 100 took strike action for wage justice.
“Even though we lose a day’s pay, they (Woolworths) lose millions. The CEO of Woolworths got a 40 percent pay rise last year, the CFO got a 68 percent pay rise and the company made $2.3 billion. All we want is $5 an hour”, said Claudia, one of the strikers.
Workers reported that all Woolworths distribution centres in south-east Queensland used to be covered by the same agreement until their union, the SDA, let the company negotiate with each shed separately.
National Union of Workers delegate Mark Barclay explained the disparity: “They gave us an award and a barbecue for best distribution centre of the year, but then they won’t pay us the same as other centres. This just pissed everyone off and made them more angry at the company. A bit of steak and a cheap sausage isn’t a pay rise.”
Since leaving the SDA and joining the NUW, workers at the BLDC have gone about rebuilding rank and file unionism and strong delegate structures.
The workers held a protest at the site during the strike. Throughout the night an upbeat spirit dominated, with singing, joking and passing the footy. Many of the workers are Maori, and a hangi was brought to feed everyone.
Contingents from the ETU, United Voice, TWU, CPSU and the Queensland Council of Unions started showing up at around 5am, and the solidarity was warmly received. Around the same time, word came in that workers at the Woolworths Barnawartha shed in Victoria were also out on strike, and solidarity greetings were exchanged.
The experience of striking and standing with comrades made some of the workers more confident. Workers described a change in some of their workmates. Many who are often quiet at work were shouting loudly at scabs trying to get in when everyone else was out.
BLDC workers voted for another strike if Woolworths does not meet their demands. Overtime bans are planned in the meantime. Organised and united, these workers know that they can win and return to work with their heads held high.

Otis workers win

Queensland government goes after power workers

ETU wins court case against LNP

Thousands turn out for Queensland May Day march

Fair Work finds abattoir vote not fair

Queensland protest for civil liberties

ETU charged under Queensland’s anti-union laws

Tradies targeted by Queensland government

Scrooge bosses forced to deliver this Christmas

A cheap sausage isn’t a pay rise

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