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27 November, 2006
French multinational Saint-Gobain, one of the world’s largest companies in the building materials sector, has quickly taken advantage of the Howard government’s WorkChoices law in Australia to undermine enterprise bargaining in favour of individual labour agreements.
The company has imposed the practice at two plant sites in the Sydney area, intending to break collective representation by ICEM affiliate National Union of Workers (NUW).
As a result, Saint-Gobain Abrasives Pty. Ltd. staff at the Lidcombe and Wetherill Park worksites are currently on strike, seeking a new collective bargaining agreement. The strike started after it had become clear that Saint-Gobain, instead of starting negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement, was applying to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission to terminate the existing one.
As part of the same process, Saint-Gobain is attempting to have employees sign Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs). AWAs are individual contracts, whose key characteristics are that they prohibit the right of employees to bargain collectively and exercise other rights of union membership.
The use of AWAs, and the refusal to bargain collectively, is inconsistent with international law. This was recognised, in July 2005, by the Special Committee on the Application of Standards of the ILO, which found that Australia is not meeting its obligations to protect the rights of workers through the provision of AWAs.
On top of all that, on 8 November, the Federal Court of Australia determined that Saint-Gobain unlawfully terminated the employment of two NUW delegates. The two employees, Jeff Gearin and Tony Seymour, who had been working at the site for 18 and 30 years, were dismissed, according to the company, for lack of skills. In court proceedings, it became apparent that the necessary training would have taken “two to three hours” and that one of the two had earlier asked for the training, a request that management had denied.
NUW delegates Jeff Gearin and Tony Seymour
In a letter to the company, the NUW quotes the third principle - on freedom of association and collective bargaining - of the UN’s Global Compact, which the company joined in June 2003.
The ICEM has been in direct contact with its French affiliates in the materials sector in an effort to press Paris-based senior management of Saint-Gobain to respect freedom of association at the Australian plant. The ICEM and French unions are also seeking an end to Australian management’s pressure on Lidcombe and Wetherill Park employees to accept individual contracts, and want management to begin earnest negotiations with the NUW toward a new collective agreement.