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Industrial Relations Officer Report - Winter 2010
A BLF member was recently dismissed by Oakdale after patching for them for about 7 months. I conducted a case in FWA for him, arguing he had been unfairly replaced with new workers, that the Union had not been consulted about his dismissal and that Oakdale could have reasonably redeployed him.
He was only out of work for 9 days but we managed to settle the case for over $5000 ; a direct payment to him of $3000 net and the payment of his unpaid BUSS and BERT totalling over $2000. Only the Union, not the ABCC, conducts cases like this.
Watpac forcing subbies to comply with Workchoices era guidelines
Watpac has been forcing subbies recently to comply with anti-Union Workchoices-era Guidelines made by the Howard Govt. Watpac have been dictating to subbies in this way though the tendering process. Even if the Howard government is still in power in Watpac’s wishful thinking, that won’t give life to dead rules to bust Unions. Watpac even changed the date in their tendering document to pretend they were applying the current Guidelines. The Union has complained to the Workplace Ombudsman that Watpac’s misrepresentation of the current Govt Guidelines requires many subbies with a Union EBA to breach those EBAs. We await the Ombudsman’s investigation.
Workcover underpaying injured workers
I have helped a number of members lately on Workcover who have been underpaid by hundreds of dollars per week. Those member’s wages fluctuate from week to week and their bosses have only sent payslips to Workcover which have the lowest amounts on them. In many cases, Workcover uses these to calculate average earnings, and then pay 85% of that to the member (first 26 weeks). Hang on to all your payslips and make sure Workcover has copies of all your payslips with the big amounts as well.
EBA Activity
We have had plenty of EBAs signed recently. Our website shows a list of companies with current BLF EBAs which is regularly updated. One of the more difficult, but ultimately one of the best EBAs we have achieved recently, was with Multiplex. After months of frustrating negotiations, Multiplex members commenced Protected Industrial Action. After the first short stoppage, Multiplex’s position improved but then negotiations reached another impasse. The Union notified Multiplex of a second, indefinite stoppage. The result was an EBA with Multiplex ensuring their subbies and labour hire workers would be paid Multiplex EBA rates. This will protect the jobs of the Multiplex members. Those rates included a full 5% increase in base rates from 1/1/2011. Plenty of other good conditions were won in the EBA that Multiplex had originally refused. Multiplex members dared to struggle, and their win was big.
Kevin Crank |
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