June-July 2014

ASC members on
through Hendersonthe march

Naval shipbuilders unite to tell politicians....

BUILD OUR SHIPS HERE!

Our government must act to ensure the future of naval shipbuilding and 7,000 Aussie jobs
We had a great show of solidarity from BAE
and Australian Submarine Corporation
members last month to support the unions
national campaign to Design, Build and
Maintain our Ships Here. BAE delegate
Jon Primrose chaired the Henderson
meeting, which also heard from Assistant
National Secretary Glenn Thompson and
State Secretary Steve McCartney.
It was a shame that neither the Defence
Minister, WA Senator David Johnston, or
the Premier Colin Barnett made the time
to attend but we think members made
themselves clear with the following motion:
The meeting of BAE & ASC members
welcome the reports on the National
AMWU Shipbuilding Campaign. The

meeting recognises the great work of

our delegates in representing our yards
and interests. This meeting reaffirms its
support for this very important campaign.
We condemn the contempt that Defence
Minister Johnston has shown us by not
responding to our Unions request to attend
this meeting to put the Governments views
on the future of the Naval shipbuilding
industry.
This meeting endorses an action of calling
Ministers Johnstons office voicing our
concerns about this contempt and calling
on the Minister to make a decision now to
bring forward future naval ship builds.
More than 7,000 Australian jobs depend

on our naval shipbuilding industry and the

government only needs to bring forward
the build of a couple of vessels by a couple
of years to give certainty to the industry.
We dont think its a big ask for the benefits
it will bring to Australian skills, defence
capability and future opportunity.
Delegates also attended WA Parliament
in May to see Cockburn Labor MLA Fran
Logan deliver a motion calling on Premier
Barnett to do more to support efforts in
lobbying the Federal Government on
behalf of WA shipbuilders.
We urge all members to keep track of the
latest campaign developments through
the campaign Facebook site and email
updates.

A CAMPAIGNING UNION
STATE SECRETARYS REPORT
lthough the North West has seen a huge
efforts of
Astill a frontier in many ways, especially Instead, through thefriendly thethousands of
amount of development in recent years,
dedicated workers, we got
roster down
its
to a more family
level. But after
when it comes to Australian employment. I
remember working on North West projects
through the 1980s and 1990s. Back in the
day the industry standards were 16 weeks
on and one off, and I am proud to be part
of the struggles that led to our current
standard construction FIFO roster of four
weeks on one week off.

It wasnt easy, and we had our share of

setbacks. At the time, people were saying
we should be grateful to have a job. That
there were other people whod put up with
the conditions. That we shouldnt rock the
boat. That the changes we wanted would kill
investment in resource development. The
truth is that if wed listened to them wed still
be on 16 and one.

Up at Cape Lambert with National

Secretary Paul Bastian talking with
members

more than a decade, the mood for change

is in the air again.

Will the
bosses just roll
over out of the
kindness of
their hearts? Of
course not.
We know a lot more about the effects of
FIFO on family, on divorce rates and on
mental health. We know that air travel is the
cheapest its ever been. We know that well
rested workers are more productive and
less likely to be injured at work.
Over the past few weeks National Secretary
Paul Bastian and I spent a fair bit of time
visiting and consulting our hardworking
construction workers in the North West, and
the clear indication from members is that we
should be moving to a three and one roster.

New Metals at the Jet Sprints

ur latest New Metals event was at the

finals of the West Coast Jet Sprints at
Baldivis Water Park.
With new faces and new shops sending
reps along, we are building momentum and
were confident the group is shaping up as
real voice for young members within our
union and beyond.

Of course younger workers share

industries and priorities with the rest of
the workforce, but there are youth-specific
issues too. From here the challenge is to
grow our social events into workplace
and community activism. New Metals is
about recognising that younger members,
especially apprentices, can be particularly
vulnerable in the workplace. Its about

providing
protection,
education
on
workplace rights and connecting members
to each to develop solidarity across
industries.
As New Metals member and BP Refinery
trades assistant Andrew Pearse put it:
New Metals is a great initiative because it
gives younger people a place to have a say
within the union and connect people who
are experiencing similar issues at work.
If you are a member under 30 and are
interested in future New Metals events, or
have an idea for the next one, let us know
by sending an email to newmetalswa@
gmail.com, through the AMWU WA Branch
Facebook page or call the East Perth office
on 9223 0800 from 8:30am until 5pm.

Will this just happen? Will the bosses roll

over out of the kindness of their hearts? Of
course not. The Cape Lambert crew are
the first off the rank in a struggle that will be
resisted by the bosses at every opportunity.
Hats off to them for being the first to take
a stand. Yet again the NW is setting the
standard for the rest of the country.
Just as with all struggles, we will succeed or
fail based on our unity and solidarity on the
ground. It means keeping people informed,
it means talking to your mates and it means
setting up workplace structures that bring
people in and give people a say.
If our history teaches us anything, its that
we win together. Weve done it before and
we can do it again.
In unity

Steve McCartney

AMWU Perth office: 121 Royal St, East Perth

Telephone: (08) 9223 0800
Fax:(08) 9225 4744
www.amwu.org.au

The pride of the labour movement was on full display at May Day 2014

wo hundred AMWU members joined

friends from across the movement
for the midday march through the streets
of Fremantle down to the Esplanade
where members and their families were
welcomed with food, fun and festivities.
In particular, the Retired Members Division
of the AMWU put in a great performance,
taking part in the march and bringing
along their families to celebrate.
As usual the blue collar unions were out
in force and I was proud to see so many
proud AMWU members flying the flag for
our union, said AMWU State Secretary
Steve McCartney.
The origin of the May Day celebration
stemmed from a union conference in
North America in 1884, which resolved

that May 1st 1886 would be the date to

start the Eight Hour Working Day.
In Australia, the first places to achieve the
8-hour working day were in Sydney and
Melbourne in 1856, while WAs first May
Day celebration was in 1897.
May Day is a great chance for workers
from every industry to get together with
friends and family to celebrate what
weve achieved by standing and fighting
together, said Mr McCartney.
It was great to see so many AMWU
members come along with their friends
and families, and it gave everyone the
chance to catch up with some long lost
friends and comrades from right around
the labour movement.

Union
wins!
Union win for
apprentices
The union had a nice for win for two
Skilled Offshore adult apprentices based
at Coates in Belmont recently. Ryhim
Hajinoor and Jarad Pemberton were told
by Skilled that they were covered under a
different EBA, which meant, you guessed
it, less money in the back pocket.

A bit of digging from East Metro Organiser

Gary Carozzi uncovered an HR mistake,
which backdated to July 2013 meant a
payout of more than $5,000 each upfront
and the correct rate of pay into the future.
Just another example of how it pays to be
union.

Jarad and Ryhim after their win

AMWU forces
HEA payout
Redundancies are a fact of life, and
without union protection, companies can
and do hold employees over a barrell.

Heat Exchanges Australia employee

Mark Burr is one member who can attest
to the benefits of union membership at a
time of uncertainty.
After putting his hand up for redundancy,
Mark was only paid out a fraction of what
the company agreed to.
With excuse after excuse from the
company taking its toll, Mark sought
advice from the AMWU about how
to progress his claim. A few friendly
reminders later and Mark his his full
payout.
Theres every chance Mark would still be
waiting without union support!

A CAMPAIGNING UNION
Hockeys Horrorshow Will Hurt Battlers Most
ONE of the true tests of a government of its priorities, its values and
even its ideology is the Budget, writes ACTU President Ged Kearney
A Budget is where a government gets
to make its stamp on the nation, and
its decisions about how to spend tens
of billions of dollars tell us much about
its agenda and the type of Australia it
wishes to have.
That is why Budgets are so important,
and why the media devote so much
space and energy to covering them.
This is even more so when a
government is new, and relatively
unknown.
Last night Joe Hockey delivered the
first Budget of the Abbott Government,
and the document he released has
confirmed what we already suspected:
that Tony Abbott and the Coalition are
no friends of working people and their
families.
Before last years election, Tony
Abbott promised to be the best friend
Australian workers had ever had.
He paraded around in a high-viz vest
day after day to prove his credentials.
But a real friend doesnt cut hundreds
of millions of dollars from industry
programs and apprentice training that
support hundreds of thousands of
decent jobs.

for Australian workers is now crystal

clear: its a future for this nation built
on insecure work, with people shunted
through inappropriate training to
unsustainable jobs until their bodies
are broken at the age of 70, while
hitting them with extra costs at every
turn for healthcare and medicine, for
education, and for petrol.
Low and middle-income earners
hard working people who ask nothing
more than dignity, respect and a fair
go are being asked to bear the brunt
of the Budget, while big business
avoids its load.
Everyone is being told to tighten their
belts. Families will be slugged with
extra costs of living, new holes are
being punched in the welfare safety
net, and thousands of jobs are being
cut to fund Joe Hockeys self-created
Budget emergency.
The age and disability support
pensions will be cut over time. Access
to family benefits will be tightened.
Young job seekers will be punished
by having financial support with-held
for six months, and then forced onto
work-for-the-dole schemes to earn

an already inadequate Newstart

allowance. University students and
apprentices will be saddled with heavy
debts for their studies and training
which will take years to pay off.
But when Joe Hockey said the age
of entitlement is over, he certainly
wasnt talking about his mates from
the big end of town.
The Government still went ahead
with a $4 billion company tax cut.
It did nothing to change the diesel
fuel rebate that benefits the mining
billionaires by millions of dollars a
year. It left untouched the generous
superannuation tax concessions for
the wealthy, while removing the Low
Income Super Contribution scheme,
and freezing the increase in the Super
Guarantee at 9.5% until 2018.
It is not the role of government to hand
big business a blank checque in the
form of a company tax cut.

A real friend doesnt hit struggling

families with higher medical, fuel and
education costs.
And a real friend doesnt turn their
back on the aged, disabled and
unemployed when they need a hand
to get up off their knees.

No real plan for job

creation
Tony Abbott has had eight months
to come up with an economic plan
to deliver on his election promise to
create a million new jobs in five years.
Instead he has flagged cutting 16,500
public servants and has ripped
hundreds of millions out of skills and
innovation.
The Abbott Governments prescription

Illustration by Sam Wallman (www.penerasespaper.com)

AMWU Perth office: 121 Royal St, East Perth

Telephone: (08) 9223 0800
Fax:(08) 9225 4744
www.amwu.org.au

This Budget is a recipe for the

Americanisation of Australian society,
with wide disparities of inequality and
huge pockets of poverty and working
poor.
It is the biggest attack on the social
wage this country has ever seen.
Tony Abbott wants to take us
backwards, to force ordinary people to
accept that they can no longer have
the Australian way of life.

Tony Abbott
wants to take us
backwards, to
force ordinary
people to accept
that they can no
longer have the
Australian way of
life.
Ordinary people who go to work every
day in pain because they cant afford
the medical bills to see a doctor or
have an operation.
Ordinary people who pass like ships
in the night, handing the kids over
from one parent to another as mum or
dad heads off to their next shift in their
second or sometimes third casual
job to make ends meet.
Ordinary people who want to spend
their later years enjoying the rewards
of their hard working life, but now face
the prospect of working until they are
70.

A lost generation of young

job seekers
Its young people entering the
workforce who I worry about the most.
By removing the safety net for
young job seekers, the Abbott
Government has effectively given
the next generation a sink or swim

ultimatum with no room for failure,

while simultaneously making it harder
for them to gain employment or earn
enough.
It is setting up a generation of young
job seekers to be confined to poverty
with all the risks this entails for social
cohesion.
By scrapping apprentice tools
payments and loading them with debt,
making university more expensive
while simultaneously dissolving
universal health care and welfare
safety nets we are pushing these
young workers to the edge and in
some cases over.
Increasing homelessness, poverty
and stress is no recipe to improving
work participation.
And this is just the start because the
Abbott Government also have in their
sights workers wages and conditions.
Coalition MPs and business groups
are openly campaigning to abolish
penalty rates and cut the minimum
wage.
Reducing penalty rates and the
minimum wage would hurt all workers
but especially young workers.
Proposed amendments to the Fair
Work Act would see the widespread
use of Individual Flexibility
Agreements, which would once again
allow employers to dictate pay and
conditions to workers with little regard
for a collective agreement or Award.
And the Productivity Commission
review into the workplace system
will be another Trojan horse to
continue the project that began with
WorkChoices.

And Pigs Might Fly

It was crisis day in Parliament
The house was hushed and still,
As a Member rose with a question:
Are we doomed to go downhill?
I am confident of an upturn.
The PM made in reply:
If workers pay is held at bay
Well all be home and dry.
How true! How true! cried the workers,
Lets end this wicked strike,
We dont want a rise in wages,
They can stick it where they like.
Thank God! Thank God!
Sobbed the bosses.
Theres faith on the factory floor,
And now weve got his extra lot
Well give it to the poor!
They filled their pockets with money,
And ran with eager feet,
Pressing their surplus profits
On people in the street
They moved among the dole-queues,
And boarded every bus,
With streaming eyes and heartfelt cries:
You need it more than us!
Soon all the people prospered,
And the devil became a saint,
Now that the sober unions
Had exercised restraint,
And the cities were filled with singing
and the
Sound of laughter spread,
As hand took hand in golden land
And pigs flew overhead.

The Commission of Audit drew

up the plans, and Tony Abbott
and Joe Hockeys Budget last night
has laid out the wood and the nails.
Together they are building a coffin for
the Australian way of life.
Only by standing together can we
protect this way of life and continue to
build a better one today, and for years
to come.
This article first appeared on
workinglife.org.au on May 14 2014

Poem by Ted Wilshire, first published in AMWU

publication, Australia on the Rack in 1982

A CAMPAIGNING UNION
Workers Memorial Day 2014

On International Workers Memorial Day, the message

was to mourn the dead, and fight like hell for the living

t was a solemn and moving ceremony at

Solidarity Park on April 28 as we paused

to remember those who lost their lives

while making a living and providing for
their families.

Together with the CFMEU and ETU we

were able to raise about $130,000 for
members and their families, which has
now been disbursed.

State President Tony Hall laid a wreath

on behalf of our members and all workers
who have been killed at work, for their
families who have to continue on and
for those injured and sick from earning a

In 2013, 13 manufacturing workers and

living.

a total of 186 workers did not go home to

So far this year, 2014, 46 Australians

have been killed at work.

their families at the end of the day. There

are 58 workers compensation claims
accepted every day from manufacturing
industry, the second highest of all
industries.
And while we remember the dead, the
message of the day was to keep on
fighting like hell for the living. Unions give
workers the power to stand up and say
no when safety is in question. Workplace
safety is everyones responsibility. Make
sure its yours too.

Vale John Sharp-Collett

Our former State Secretary will be remembered as a

committed unionist and a man of ability and dedication
On 11 May this year our esteemed
former WA AMWU State Secretary John
Sharp-Collett passed away.
John was not only a compassionate
man, he was also a very committed trade
unionist. The AMWU was fortunate to
have someone with his commitment and
acumen at the head of the WA Branch
during the fractious days of the 1990s.
From 1990 to 2000 during Johns
stewardship, the AMWU faced up to
the election of unremittingly hostile
conservative governments at both
Federal and State levels. It is due to
Johns organising and resistance, along
with the union he so capably led, that we
were able to come out the other side with

Thank you to every

AMWU member who
contributed to assist the
117 workers battling huge fines from the
Australian Building and Construction
Commission.

our organisation intact and campaigning.

John was a long term member of the
union. He joined the then-Boilermakers
and Blacksmiths Society in 1968 and
became
shop
steward
(at Fabricated Products)
in 1970. From there he
became State Organiser in
1978. John led the union
capably from 1990 to 2000.
Johns active involvement
with the Union continued
in retirement with first his
membership, and secondly
his Secretaryship, of the
Retired Members Division.
John will be remembered

On behalf of the fined workers, in

particular we would like to thank our
members at Muja power station
Transfield, Alcoa, Premier and Griffin,
the AMC and those in NW construction.
We would also like to thank other unions
who contributed such as the Australian
Education Union.
Although they were only on strike for
eight days, the Commission insisted on
fines of up to $10,000 from individual
workers. These fines were vindicative,
punitive
and
unprecedented
in
Australian history.
The display of solidarity will help alleviate
the symptoms of this injustice, but a
cure will only be found in the abolition
of the anti-worker, anti-collective rights
and anti-fair go ABCC.
- State Secretary Steve McCartney
for his big hat and his wide smile, as
much as his capacity for hard work
and leadership. He was a dedicated
trade unionist and a man of ability and
dedication. With his wife and family, we
mourn his passing.
- National President Andrew Dettmer
and National Secretary Paul Bastian

Freds fight inspires win-win

for sick kids and workers
Not only did they negotiate a ripper EBA, UGL BP refinery
members put sick kids first too, writes Neil Wilson
KIDS fighting cancer will get a boost
along with AMWU members at BPs
Kwinana refinery from a
union
agreement which spreads the benefit of
a solid pay rise.
The health battle of AMWU refinery
delegate Fred McIvor helped inspire his
125 comrades working for maintenance
contractor UGL to the new pay deal,
which was conditional upon the boss
also contributing $10,000 to the Kids
With Cancer Foundation.

on behalf of AMWU members, said Mr

Allan.
Many of us have had a run-in with
cancer. Our delegates especially thought
of Fred McIvor and another one of the
people here whove suffered it, plus
theres been our own family members .
The idea was to help other people in the
community and that went over pretty well
with the members, they voted for The
Kids With Cancer Foundation as the way

to go.
Recently WA State Secretary Steve
McCartney was at the refinery for
the hand-over of a symbolic $10,000
cheque, which comes on the back of a
two-year agreement featuring an 8 per
cent pay rise.
Mr MacIvor, who has the all-clear from
his specialist and hopes to be back at
work soon, was chuffed.
Its very touching, these workers have
set aside their own interests, he said.
Im older, Ive had the treatment and it
is not nice at all. The thought of little kids
in hospital having to go through that is
terrible, so it is fantastic the guys decided
to do something for them.

The popular Mr MacIvor, a pipefitterwelder, headed the team which started

negotiations with UGL last year for a new
agreement but had to step aside when
he was disagnosed with a recurrance of
cancer.
Fred was our original delegate but I had
to take over and we brought in one of our
younger members Gareth Eardley, said
fellow delegate Gary Allan.
Talks had reached a critical point
where the members were considering
authorised industrial action, but also
knew they were extremely close to
reaching a pay deal with the company.
We werent getting much progress at
all but then came the suggestion for the
company to make a charity contribution

Like your union?

We have a couple of new initiatives to help
you stay in touch with whats going on in your
branch right around Western Australia.
Weve just launched our new App for Apple
and Android, which you can find by searching
amwu wa at either store.
Its got the latest events, member news,
media, benefits, campaigns and more. Its free
too so get on it.
Weve also got a new Facebook page up and
running so head on over and like the AMWU

A great win-win for our union and the kids!

your union!
WA Branch to stay in touch.
We want your pictures and stories too - after all
you are the union. So send photos and stories
to tom.palmer@amwu.asn.au or message our
Facebook page.
Its all part of making sure we keep in touch
with our members and give you what you
want.
And if technology isnt your thing, well still
have printed copies of Manufacturing Matters
every couple of months!

A CAMPAIGNING UNION

You already know your union

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But as of January 1 2014, AMWU

membership also gives you...

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Join today | 1300 732 698 | amwu.org.au |

*Please read Product Disclosure Statement for full terms and conditions, available at
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