Corporate greed leads to closure

Victorian Trades Hall Council Secretary, Leigh Hubbard, has condemned 
Geelong Wool Combing's decision to close its Lara plant as based on 
corporate greed.

The closure on October 1 follows the company's five-month lock out of 100 
workers who refused to accept a 25 percent pay cut, unreasonable changes to 
rosters and the casualisation of the workforce. The workers had not taken 
any industrial action at the plant prior to the lock-out.

"This decision is indicative of a culture of greed that currently dominates 
multi-national companies where shareholder value is considered more 
important than the lives of workers and their families", said Mr Hubbard. 
He also criticised the Federal Government for attempting to shift the blame 
for the closure onto the workers involved in the five-month lock out.

"The workers and their union made repeated attempts to negotiate in good 
faith with the company and insisted that they were ready to return to work. 
The reality is that the Federal Government's Workplace Relations Act has no 
provision for good faith bargaining and the company repeatedly refused to 
allow the workers back in the gate."

He said the workers should be congratulated for their strength and 
determination to resist the company's efforts to reduce their living 
standards and working conditions to an unacceptable level.

"The Federal Government's militant approach to industrial relations has 
sent a message to employers that brutalising workers and their families is 
acceptable behaviour. While it is only a handful of rogue employers lacking 
a sense of fairness and justice who will take up this attitude, it is 
nevertheless taking industrial relations on a dangerous and destructive 
route.

"While the Geelong Wool Combing workers will be even more disappointed by 
this decision, they can remain proud of their efforts to resist the push to 
reduce Australian workers' rights and conditions".