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4 June, 2007
After a difficult year of negotiations, which included industrial actions this spring and a subsequent string of three-day lockouts by the company, 500 tyre workers at Bridgestone’s Salisbury factory near Adelaide, South Australia, accepted the Japanese company’s terms.
Workers of three unions passed by the thinnest of margins – 240 to 225 – a new three-year agreement. The contract, some ten months after a prior one expired, grants workers 6% wage increases from May 2007 to May 2010, with possible bonuses interspersed.
Production workers, numbering about 450, are represented by ICEM affiliate Liquor, Hospitality, and Miscellaneous Union (LHMU), while most maintenance workers are represented by Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU), also an ICEM affiliate. Electricians at Salisbury are represented by ICEM affiliate Communications, Electrical, and Plumbing Union (CEPU).
Bridgestone used the full weight of the 2005 WorkChoices law in Australia to leverage its inferior bargaining demands. Workers had engaged in four stop-work actions since March, as well as an overtime ban. The company punished workers for the unions’ actions by employing contract workers on maintenance and electrical work, and taking the offensive under WorkChoices by imposing three-day, non-paid lockouts.
“Clearly, the restrictions placed upon union members by the current Australian industrial relations legislation made pursuit of improvements more difficult for members,” said LHMU lead negotiator, Jim Watson. “The company relied on the legislation and frustrated union members into accepting the agreement.”
Bridgestone workers had last seen a pay raise in December 2005. The previous agreement had expired in June 2006.