
Issue No 16		04 June 1999

News

Woolies Shopfitters Win Back Jobs From Body Hire

Sacked shopfitters who were sacked and replaced by body hire workers last month, have won back their jobs after a community campaign headed by the CFMEU.

The shopfitters were sacked after a Patricks-style company restructure by Metro Shopfitting, a firm which fits out Woolworths and Coles supermarkets (see Workers Online Issue #14), after being told there was no more work available.

Within days they had been replaced by a labour hire firm, paying wages below the enterprise agreement which had covered the site.

The CFMEU placed pressure on the Woolworths chain of supermarkets, organising pickets outside their city stores on two occasions, including a Thursday night sausage sizzle attending by about 200 people. The protest received national media attention, bringing the dispute to a head.

Under the weight of this public pressure Metro was persuaded to remove the body hire labour, reinstate all the sacked workers and finalse a new enterprise agreement which provided for imporved wages and conditions of employment.

CFMEU Construction Division state president Peter McLelland thanked other trade unions for supporting the successful campaign.

"If this had been successful we would have seen a series of similar bushfires throughout the shopfitting industry," he said.

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Issue 16 contents

Interview: Opening Australia
Lindsay Tanner talks about new ideas, new policy and new politics in the Information Age.

Unions: An Educated Fightback
A visiting US trade unionist reveals how training better union delegates is the key to reversing the membership slide.

Legal: A Fair Case for Free-Rider Laws
The proposal to enable unions to charge non-members a service fee for negotiating enterprise agreements is consistent with the principle of freedom of association.

History: New Ideas in Labour History
See the latest from the May issue of Labour History, A Journal of Labour and Social History.

International: Tiananmen Square Ten Years On
We remember the massacre and the role that working people continue to play in fighting injustice.

Review: Organising Our Future - What Use the US??
A new paper looks at what Australian unions can learn from the experiences of their American colleagues.

» State Wage Highlights Case for User-Pays

» Labor Hire Cowboys - the NFF Link

» Murder Call: Charge Bosses Who Kill

» Braddy Bunch to Lift Contractor Veil

» Rural Redundacies - Redeployment Confusion Reigns

» Woolies Shopfitters Win Back Jobs From Body Hire

» Political Payback: NSW Targetted in Costello Cuts

» Rio Tinto Buries the Truth

» Child Care Campaign out of the Blocks

» East Timor Mercy Ship heads for Dili

» Fabian Society Reforms

» Industrial Who�s Who Head for Geneva