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N O R T H W E S T R E P O R T<br />
with Phil Kennedy<br />
Workers stand together and WIN!<br />
Solomon Crew<br />
The collective wins...<br />
Since the start of the project at<br />
Solomon the rank and file have seen<br />
union involvement starting to<br />
increase on the project. At the<br />
Christmas break RCR had a big<br />
influx of labour hire companies, a<br />
total of 7 came in, and they were all<br />
paying different rates. i.e.: flat rates<br />
of $65 dollars, some no 25%<br />
loading, no penalty rates, no<br />
progress incentive payment, no<br />
redundancy and the extra travel time<br />
above the 20 minutes each way. So I<br />
got a lot of calls from the lads out on<br />
the project over the Christmas break<br />
and told them I’d be out after the 7th<br />
of January and start to get it all<br />
sorted out.<br />
First meeting about 30 people<br />
turned up and all I said to the rank<br />
and file was we needed more to turn<br />
up because RCR won’t fix stuff up at<br />
all, just get lip service. I told them I<br />
would be back on Friday and get<br />
everyone to turn up. One of the rank<br />
and file member’s said they’d get as<br />
many as possible, and wrote down<br />
their <strong>issue</strong>s on the new spread sheet<br />
made up over the break for all<br />
contact details of the members. I<br />
met with RCR management and they<br />
said there were no <strong>issue</strong>s with their<br />
subbies and I highlighted all the<br />
<strong>issue</strong>s to them.<br />
At Fridays meeting I was taken to the<br />
meeting room, the rank and file said<br />
‘this is not big enough’ they were<br />
sitting on the floor, standing and<br />
there was a massive overflow<br />
outside, so we stopped and moved<br />
out into the ambulance bay area.<br />
They were all totally revved up for a<br />
blue. RCR realised they’d better sit<br />
down and work out all their problems<br />
on site and fix them up! The workers<br />
have had wins with pay, hours,<br />
conditions and loads of back pay on<br />
pip, up to 10 swings which is worth<br />
$1950. It was a lot of money the<br />
companies were fleecing the<br />
workers. MEMBERS GET ANY<br />
EMPLOYEES WHICH HAVE LEFT TO<br />
CALL ME SO I CAN GET THEM<br />
FIXED UP.<br />
Other companies have been put on<br />
notice to fix things up.<br />
You only have big wins like this by all<br />
standing together and making a<br />
strong collective stand. The delegate<br />
structure put in place now with the<br />
safety rep is going great guns. The<br />
rank and file is running this job now,<br />
with the non-members, who were<br />
having a swipe at the members<br />
about the union, now getting told<br />
“SIGN UP OR SHUT THE F--- UP!”<br />
The members are pushing<br />
membership forms for the union.<br />
Membership on the job has had<br />
ground swell with the older rank and<br />
file believing it should be turned<br />
back to “NO TICKET NO START”.<br />
To achieve things like this we need<br />
to get good structure in place and<br />
vote in members to represent<br />
workers and conditions on site.<br />
Page 46 Construction Worker – <strong>Autumn</strong> 2013
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