
Issue No 67		18 August 2000

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News

Bellicose Joy: Baseball Bats and Tinsel

By Rowan Cahill

Bellicose American style industrial relations continue to characterise the long-running Joy dispute in Moss Vale, on the Southern Highlands of New South Wales.

During the last fortnight there was the hint of a breakthrough. Following Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) recommendations, the American owned Joy Mining Machinery company ended its latest lockout and foreshadowed a return to work.

However subsequent meetings and compulsory AIRC conferences between Joy and unions representing 70 workers, who have variously been on strike and locked-out since the breakdown of EBA processes in March, were fruitless.

Joy strategists seem intent on shepherding the dispute to arbitration, and the parties remain miles apart with about twenty issues in contention.

Concurrent with discussions Joy pressed ahead with union bashing tactics. It sought, and gained, a certificate for 166A proceedings against the three unions involved in the dispute (the AMWU, AWU, and CEPU), officials, and workers at the Moss Vale plant.

The way is now clear for the company to pursue common law claims against those unions and people that its various private investigators, video cameras, and informants have identified as allegedly damaging business.

Joy workers have rejected any return to work and refuse to be intimidated. Quite simply, they have been hardened by the dispute; they have been out in the cold for much of the year, and no longer respect or trust their "employer". Any fear has been replaced by wry contempt for what they regard as an American "baseball bat" approach to industrial relations.

I got an insight into the mood on the picket line one afternoon last week. One of the workers was looking across the road at a 20 metre high pine tree; casually, and with sense of bitter humour, he remarked, "We should start getting tinsel for that tree". A young father, thinking of Christmas on the picket line.

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Issue 67 contents

Interview: Slyly Selling the Silver
In their recently published book Privatisation, Sell-off? or Sell out? (ABC Books), Bob and Betty Walker took a long hard look at the major government asset sales of the last decade. Here they tell Workers Online what they've learnt.

Politics: Dysfunctional Society
Noel Pearson looks at the plight of Aboriginal people through a prism of class and comes up with a challenging perspective on Aboriginal welfare, law and order and the state of our society.

History: Money Power
Should the People or the Banks Rule? Reserve Bank Governor McFarlane thinks he knows the answer. Eddie Ward was pretty strongly of the opposite view when the ALP introduced the Commonwealth Banking Legislation in 1945.

International: Soccer Pro Tackles Nike
Olympic sponsor Nike is under pressure over its human rights record in the run up to the Sydney Games.

Economics: Globalony
Frank Stillwell looks at the contradictory nature of the globalising economy and fears it is turning into a race to the bottom.

Satire: IVF Debate: Federal Government Tells Lesbians: "Get Fucked"
MELBOURNE, Monday: The Federal Court decision to allow single women and lesbians to use infertility treatment in Victoria has been attacked by the Federal Government, the Catholic Church and by pro-family community groups.

Review: Confessions Of A Union Buster
It's not a new tome but the threat for Australian Unions remains the same if not greater as when this book appeared five years ago.

» 'Shoot to Kill' Powers Under Union Fire

» SDA Launches Appeal for Struggling Multinational

» Hated Anti-Worker Law Junked

» Bellicose Joy: Baseball Bats and Tinsel

» Selleys Fight Kicks On

» Fiji To Dominate SPOCTU Summit

» Trade Unionists Stand In ARM Elections

» Sydney Hosts Child Care Conference

» Roboboss Corrigan Straddles Lemon

» Staff Vote With Feet At Commonwealth

» Paying Dues Made Easier

» Telstra Risks Roasting Workers

» East Timor's Year One Celebration

» Senate Applauds Australian Seafarers