Firm tries flexibility, union busting

Construction company Grocon in Melbourne faced a strike on 7 December when Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU) members attended a mass meeting called to discuss management’s attempt to make the 650 workers take on non-union contracts.

Grocon tried to ignore the union by offering workers a pay offer in exchange for more flexibility, including more management control over rostered days off, sick leave, annual leave, working hours, and ultimately individual employment contracts.

Federal Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott backed the company’s attempts, saying he approved Grocon’s policy to by-pass the CFMEU.

Formerly the union had good industrial relations with the firm, but this situation changed when the union co-operated with a government inquiry into corruption in the building industry

Casino workers down games

Up to 1,000 workers organised by the Liquor, Hospitality, and Miscellaneous Workers Union (LHMWU) at the Crown Casino in Melbourne struck during an evening shift on 3 January in support of a pay claim.
Around 2,700 of around 4,000 workers employed at the casino are LHMWU members, and closed down about half the tables.

The union is pressing a claim for a 20 percent wage increase over three years; Crown is offering 10.25 percent.
Surprised by the high level of support for the strike, management failed to improve the offer, but agreed to talk with the union, which promised more industrial action if Crown does not improve the offer.
The Australasian Poker Cham-pionship taking place in the casino at the time of the strike was unaffected.

Welfare benefits workers strike

Over 24,000 Centrelink workers struck on 13 December - the second time in two weeks - over a new national work agreement, demanding improvements in pay and conditions.
Centrelink offices, which administer social security payments, Austudy allowances, and invalid pensions, shut down at noon. Centrelink managers refused to negotiate.

Strike on ‘flagged out’ ship

After the chief officer physically assaulted an Indonesian crew member aboard the 14-man Myron N, the entire crew refused to work. The ‘flag of convenience’ ship was in Port Waratah Coal Services in Newcastle harbour, New South Wales at the time of the event.

News about the case is sketchy, but it is understood that the attack happened over a wages dispute.
This type of incident occurs frequently aboard foreign-flagged ships. The main benefit of ‘flagging out’ (whereby shipping companies avoid labour laws in the home country) for companies is financial – anti-union companies like Disney (with two ships registered in the Bahamas) avoid organised labour. As a result pay is abysmal and workers have no union to protect them.

The International Federation of Transport Workers (ITF) estimates that more than one million seafarers now work on ‘flagged out’ ships; in 2002 over half the world’s ships are flagged out, up from one in five in the 1970s. Panama, the Bahamas, and Liberia, were the most commonly used of 28 countries offering to register flags of convenience. Sale of these flags is lucrative, for example Liberia receives US$15-20 million per year.

From World Socialist Web Site, 14 December 2002 and http://www.itf.org.uk/publications/sweatships/index.htm