More lockouts and strike threats as IR trouble spreads

Industrial action continues to rise under the Rudd Government’s new Fair Work regime, with Melbourne-based packaging giant Visy shutting down one factory and car maker Ford Australia bracing for strike action.

Visy, which is owned by the family of the late paper and packing entrepreneur Richard Pratt, locked out about 100 workers from a plant in Melbourne as part of a dispute over a new bargaining agreement.

According to reports, the EBA governing the plant expired on 30 June and negotiations with the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union have been taking place since November.

Workers also remain locked out of a Campbell’s Soup factory in the regional Victorian town of Shepparton, where a dispute centres on the use of “flexibility clauses” that must be a part of every new agreement.

The flexibility clauses are designed to allow employees to negotiate individual working arrangements with their employer. However, the flexibility agreements cannot be approved by a third party such as a union.

“Effectively the main stumbling block (in the Campbell’s dispute) has been that the company wants to introduce flexibility arrangements that could be used to diminish people’s right to entitlements,” the AMWU’s Damian King told ABC.

“That really did not come out of the Howard Government reforms. Campbell’s would like to be able to introduce those sorts of changes in the workplace via the Fair Work laws. It is totally unacceptable to our members. Campbell’s needs to realise the world has changed and people have rejected that sort of attack on working conditions. People want a full collective agreement, where their rights and entitlements are protected.”

Today in SmartCompany, workplace lawyer Andrew Douglas reports there has been a sharp rise in industrial action under the new Fair Work regime, including paper work bans, bans on overtime and short strikes lasting a few hours.

“The result has been a quicker escalation of employer response action such as stand downs and lockouts. The battle is coming quicker, the fighting is more strategic and the atmosphere is more combustible,” Douglas says.