Workers at a Pilkington glass factory in Melbourne, Australia have joined forces with their colleagues at two of the company“s Sydney sites by vowing to strike.
The decision followed a compulsory co…
Workers at a Pilkington glass factory in Melbourne, Australia have joined forces with their colleagues at two of the company“s Sydney sites by vowing to strike. The decision followed a compulsory conference before Commissioner Anna Cribb in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, which the Australian Workers“ Union said had proved fruitless. AWU glass industry branch secretary Paul Currie said the company had refused to negotiate unless workers abandoned their industrial action. “We“ve been negotiating with them for six months – we“ve stopped industrial action before to talk and they didn“t,” he said. “We“re not prepared to have a gun put to our heads.” The workers are reportedly upset by the company“s refusal to include a lucrative redundancy deal within their new enterprise bargaining agreements. Pilkington has announced 150 planned redundancies in Victoria and at Ingleburn in Sydney to be phased in over the next three years.