The Canberra Times & AAP http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news2/news2.shtml Tuesday, 1 February, 2000 Unions hail moral, legal victory over contracts By TREVOR CHAPPELL MELBOURNE Unions praised yesterday a Federal Court decision temporarily stopping mining giant BHP Iron Ore Pty Ltd from offering individual contracts to iron-ore workers in Western Australia. The Australian Council of Trade Unions described the court decision as a moral and legal victory for union members who wished to determine their workplace conditions under collective agreements rather than individual contracts. Five unions representing BHP workers in the Pilbara had sought an injunction following the company's decision to offer the individual agreements to more than 1,000 "award employees" and its refusal to negotiate a new collective agreement. The unions had argued that BHP had "singled out" iron-ore workers who had not switched to individual contracts and had offered sweeteners in the new contracts to induce workers to staff agreements, thereby inducing them to break away from their unions. Justice Peter Gray granted unions an interlocutory injunction halting BHP's push for industrial change pending a trial over claims that the company had breached the Workplace Relations Act. Justice Gray said there was a case to be tried that BHP had contravened sections of the Act by "injuring" award employees in their employment or altering the positions of award employees to the prejudice of those employees. "There is some evidence of overt discrimination by the respondent [BHP Iron Ore] against those who continue to be its award employees," Justice Gray said. Justice Gray said there was an arguable case that BHP Iron Ore's conduct had caused significant numbers of employees who had accepted individual contracts to resign their union membership. ACTU president-elect Greg Combet said the court decision represented "a very important legal victory" for the workers in the Pilbara and for other workers confronted with similar situations. "It's also an important moral victory, I think, that says there's some justice for working people when they're confronted with a situation where there's obviously discrimination against their right to collectively bargain," he told reporters outside the court. BHP has said it was vital to the company's international competitiveness to move to individual contracts, and that about half the 1,000 workers offered the deal had already signed up. BHP Iron Ore president Graeme Hunt said the company would seek advice on whether to appeal against the court decision. He told reporters that BHP would not accept a collective agreement unless it provided the same efficiency benefits as individual contracts. Mr Combet said BHP had contacted the ACTU yesterday to see if some solution to the dispute could be found. Unions only wanted to be able to negotiate with the company on behalf of workers who wanted a collective agreement, Mr Combet said. - AAP ************************************************************************* This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
