The Guardian 14 June, 2006
Component maker’s AWA "rort"
Twenty five Melbourne workers might have been conned into signing away half a million dollars when they put their names to one-page AWAs. The fears were raised when Finlay Engineering boss, Jim Sutton, confirmed his auto components company was going into administration.
He made his announcement five weeks after sacking the shop steward and another union activist, for smirking, then hitting the remainder of the workforce with sub-standard AWAs.
Twenty five of the 28 remaining staff signed contracts that contained barely 140 words and reduced redundancy entitlements from three weeks a year, to 14 weeks maximum.
The Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU) has asked the Office of Workplace Services to investigate individual contracts that strip employees of around $500,000 they would have been entitled to under their union-negotiated collective agreement.
AMWU Victorian secretary, Dave Oliver, called the move a "rort".
"You only have to look at the sequence of events. He sacks the delegates, introduces AWAs the same day, then closes the door five weeks later with a minimum saving of half a million", Mr Oliver said.
"This is John Howard’s new world where genuine agreements can be undercut at will. Where’s all the protections he spent $55 million advertising last year?"
When Sutton sacked the delegates, and another worker on sick leave, he gloated on radio that Howard’s regime had given him unprecedented "control of his workforce".
A community protest forced him to reinstate all three men and, last week, he blamed the AMWU for the closure and job losses.
Dave Oliver called that claim "political grandstanding".
He said mismanagement, lack of investment, and the Federal Government’s open door policy to cheap auto components were the real reasons behind Finlay’s demise.
Oliver described conditions inside the West Heidelberg factory as "Dickensian".
Other factors that Sutton appeared to have overlooked included:
His insistence, to the Industrial Relations Commission 13 months ago that he wanted out and the business was on the market;
The fact that Finlay Engineering had been in administration as recently as two years ago;
The agreement of employees to accept a five-year wage freeze;
The fact that, at the time of closure, staff had been whittled down to 28, from around 100, and that only four of those remaining were union members.