Workers at Morgan Technical Ceramics, in Notting Hill, Victoria, are striking after their employer offered them a 0% pay rise, and wanted to remove or reduce conditions including a rostered day off and redundancy entitlements.
AMWU delegate, Scott Wilkinson, said that the company had made a record profit last year, and workers had been told they would be rewarded in the next collective agreement.
“We were shocked that the offer was zero per cent and that they wanted to take away conditions. All through the financial crisis we were making money, and last year was their biggest profit ever.
“Management were given bonuses of 10%, so we think our claim is fair.”
The workers are seeking a wage increase of 4.5% a year.
The company has since increased its offer to close to what the workers are after, but has threatened not to follow the usual practice of backdating the workers’ pay rise to the expiry of the previous agreement.
Mr Wilkinson said that management was still seeking to reduce rostered days off, and wanted to cut existing redundancy entitlements from a maximum of 80 weeks down to 50 weeks.
The company also wants to remove the provision that automatically gives casual workers to permanent status after 6 months, and to pay casual workers based on the award rate, rather than the union collective agreement rate, which would reduce their hourly rate by eight dollars.
After 9 months of negotiations, the workers voted to take industrial action, which began just before Easter.
Shop Steward, Conrad Rodriques, said the workers were all behind the action.
“All we’re asking for is a simple rollover of our existing union agreement, with all our conditions in place, and a fair and decent wage rise.”
Frank Vojnic has worked for Morgan Technical for almost 26 years and says the workers have not had to resort to this kind of action before.
“I started here in ’84. And today I’ve ended up out here on the line. I feel betrayed, very much so. They’re trying to take away conditions that we’ve had for 30 years.”
AMWU member, Shah Kassim said that the workers were hopeful of getting a solution soon.
“We’re willing to work. We’re following a peaceful demonstration. We’re looking for a win-win outcome”, he said.
“We just want to roll over our previous agreement.”