Fed: Thousands of Victorian manufacturing workers strike

AAP General News (Australia)
08-29-2000
Fed: Thousands of Victorian manufacturing workers strike

By Heather Gallagher, Industrial Correspondent

MELBOURNE, Aug 29 AAP - Unions estimated that up to 25,000 Victorian manufacturing
workers walked off the job today while they said more employers were bowing to their bumper
pay claim.

The Metal Trades Federation of Unions (MTFU) initiated the 24-

hour strike in pursuit of Campaign 2000 - an industry-wide deal to include a 15 per
cent pay rise over 33 months.

The Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union (AMWU) - which accounts for the majority
of MTFU members - declared the strike an overwhelming success, with more than 1,000 work
sites abandoned.

"We're very happy with the result," AMWU state secretary Craig Johnston told AAP.

"More and more employers are now coming to the party and signing on (to Campaign 2000)."

But major employer body the Australian Industry Group (AIG) said the strike was an
"enormous botch-up" with 75 per cent of manufacturers unaffected.

"I think it clearly demonstrates that Victorian workers, ... who are very focused on
what's in the best interests of their companies and the best interests of their jobs,
want to get on and embrace enterprise bargaining," AIG Victorian director Paul Fennelly
said.

"They don't want to be caught up in some union campaign that really reflects the 1950s
and 1960s."

Despite the claim that many workers had refused to strike, Mr Fennelly said the AIG
estimated today's action had cost Victorian manufacturing $10 million.

Federal Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith said history showed workers ended
up losing from blanket strikes as businesses were forced under.

"If you go to the early `80s, the AMWU ran a big campaign for higher wages - they ran
an industry-wide campaign with illegal strikes - and 100,000 workers lost their jobs,"

he told ABC Radio.

"It's very unfair on the workers, many of whom just get pushed into strikes when they're
quite happy with the arrangements in their enterprise."

Opposition Leader Kim Beazley and Victorian Premier Steve Bracks both blamed Mr Reith
for the strike.

"It's regretful that the federal government system - the Workplace Relations Act -
almost obliges in these bargaining periods industrial action to be taken," Mr Bracks said.

"It's not a system I support."

ACTU president Sharan Burrow said the AMWU had run a "well-managed campaign".

"And it's not helpful for Peter Reith who set these laws ... to characterise today's
action as illegal, because it clearly isn't," she said.

AAP hmg/jd/sub/br

KEYWORD: CAMPAIGN NIGHTLEAD

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