US giant attacks Aussie workers

Armed security guards are threatening violence against locked-
out Hunter Valley workers fighting attempts to force them onto 
AWA individual contracts (Australian Workplace Agreements).

The employer of the maintenance workers, P&H MinePro, is part of 
the US multinational, Harnischfeger group — the company behind 
the long running Joy Dispute in the Southern Highlands in 2000.

"We know we're in for a long hard fight", says P&H MinePro worker 
Mark Makin, who, along with his workmates, remains determined to 
win the dispute.

For the last seven months the workers at the company's Mount 
Thorley and Hexham sites have been trying to negotiate a new 
collective agreement.

P&H MinePro had offered to abide by the result of a secret 
ballot, but when the workers rejected individual contracts by a 
vote of 52 to 10 the company refused to negotiate. Instead, the 
company repackaged the AWAs as a collective agreement and offered 
it as a take-it-or-leave it deal.

"They wanted an AWA clause", said Mr Makin. "They also wanted to 
link Key Performance Indicators to increases, which is a bit hard 
when we have no control over that".

Intimidate workers

The company has been trying to intimidate workers, interviewing 
them individually and asking them if they would take legal 
industrial action.

"We told them that is our right", said Mark Makin.

Since being locked out only six of the 62-strong workforce have 
crossed the picket line.

"Six guys are scab labouring. They're hurting the cause but they 
are a minority. We're the majority".

Employees involved in a peaceful protest outside the company's 
site at Hexham have been threatened with violence by security 
guards employed by the company.

"This is a pattern of behaviour by Harnischfeger in attacking 
ordinary Australians", says Tim Ayres from the Australian 
Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU). Most of the employees at the 
company are members of the AMWU, with a small number being 
members of the CFMEU.

"This is not a dispute about an agreement", says AMWU State 
Secretary Paul Bastian. "This is nothing less than an attempt by 
the company to crush the unions and impose AWAs on its workforce. 
P&H MinePro workers will not accept the Americanisation of our 
industrial relations system. The company lost at Joy and it will 
not win at Mount Thorley".

Workers from P&H MinePro will be visiting workplaces in Sydney 
this week. The AMWU has called for support from other workers for 
P&H MinePro employees at Hexham and Mount Thorley by inviting 
them to speak at workplaces, pass resolutions in support of the 
workers or visiting either of the company's two sites.