Union Guilty Of Doing Secret Deal to
Dud Workers
The Federal Magistrates Court yesterday found that the National Union of
Workers (NUW) and DHL Exel Supply Chain colluded to place employees at the
company's Matraville site on a poor agreement they did not negotiate. A TWU analysis has revealed that the Matraville agreement:
- Cut pay by $95 per week, when compared to agreements applicable at
other DHL sites;
- Reduced entitlements payable when an employee is made redundant;
- Slashed night loading rates by 5%;
- Cut afternoon shift loading rates by 2.5%.
The court found as fact that DHL management chose the NUW as the union it
wished to deal with, presented to its employees an agreement secretly
negotiated with the NUW without worker involvement or the involvement of their
chosen union (the TWU) and implicitly invited the employees to join the NUW and
cease being TWU members by restricting TWU officials at the site.
According to Federal Magistrate Smith: “a disturbed atmosphere at the Matraville workplace arising from DHL Exel's
secret negotiation of the agreement, its discriminatory restriction on access
by the employees' union recognised in the 2005 agreement, and its
promotion of a different union with no historical connection to the workplace"
forced workers to vote on an agreement.
"DHL Exel's whole strategy to move employees to a union collective
agreement with the NUW can be characterised as having, among other
objects, an object of inducing the employees as individuals to cease to
belong to the TWU and to belong to the NUW."
Furthermore, the court found that DHL had lodged an unapproved industrial
agreement that did not give employees in the company an opportunity to make a
decision, in breach of sec.341 of the Workplace Relations Act.
TWU Assistant Secretary Wayne Forno said:
"At a time when the union movement has worked with working families to defeat
John Howard's unfair industrial laws, the NUW has put the interests of workers at
DHL last.
"The fact that the NUW secretly dealt with DHL without the knowledge of the
workers so they could steal members from a union that they had freely joined to
is against every principle in the Union movement
"Every worker should question why their bosses would secretly choose to sign an
agreement with another union? What other deals were done to at the expense of
their pay and conditions for this favor?"
DHL Matraville employees Marlene Arkai and Joe Taurima, who gave evidence
in the case said:
“We believed in the TWU and we stood up for what we believed in. We are happy
with the outcome. This could be the start of getting better working conditions.”
Media Inquiries Josh McIntosh 0408 463 199.
21 May 2008
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