The Guardian 29 August, 2007
Esselte picket continues
After 10 weeks on strike, the 15 workers employed at Esselte at Minto in Sydney’s South-Western suburbs have pledged to continue their picket at the company’s warehouse, protesting against individual agreements and demanding the employer negotiate a union collective agreement.
The Esselte workers are taking a stand for all workers in their struggle against the Howard Government’s Australian Workplace Agreements. For more than two years the workers’ union, the National Union of Workers (NUW), has been trying to renegotiate an enterprise bargaining agreement. The employer, Esselte a US-based stationary manufacturer and distributor, the second largest in the world, has refused to negotiate a collective agreement and has insisted the workers sign AWAs. Under the AWAs the workers would lose between $50 and $60 a week.
The Esselte workers have first hand experience of the bullying tactics of the Office of Workplace Relations. A number of them were removed from the workplace prior to the strike and intimidated by officials from the OWR in an attempt to get them to say the union and its delegate were standing in the way of them signing AWAs.
Six weeks into the strike, unions organised a solidarity rally on the picket line with hundreds of supporters turning out. The employer used the occasion for a media beat up, claiming that a unionist in a balaclava used physical violence against a truck driver going into the workplace. The media photo appeared to be taken away from the picket line: no one could recollect any worker wearing a balaclava. Everything pointed to the employer setting up a scene to slander the unionists as thugs.
Several weeks after this incident workers found a listening device and the employer admitted to using electronic surveillance against the picketers, despite the fact that the picket line was on public land and far removed from the company’s premises.
As well as the picket line, workers are campaigning at Officeworks, the main retail outlet that sells Esselte stationary products. The workers are asking Officeworks customers to boycott Esselte products until the dispute is resolved and they have a collective agreement.
The public can support the Esselte workers campaign by targeting an Officeworks outlet in or near your suburb, by asking people to sign a postcard committing to boycott Esselte products.
Moral and financial support is needed to continue the struggle to a successful end. You can visit the picket line at 395 Pembroke Road Minto between 7am — 4pm, Monday to Friday. You can donate to the Esselte distress fund care of the National Union of Workers.