Invite to Kevin and Julia to check out perpetrators of workplace thuggery

Below is a disturbing letter from Michele O'Neil, Assistant National Secretary Textile Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia (TCFUA).

Following yesterday’s announcement of Labor’s industrial relations policy it is important that as many people as possible receive this information. I strongly urge that you forward her letter to your friends and colleagues.

Michele’s information about the day to day working life of textile workers details how the Labor leadership have failed to wind back Howard’s industrial relations regime.

This letter is disturbing. It details a side of Australia that many people never see – workers experiencing thuggery from their employers and paid $5 an hour to do some of the toughest jobs in the country.

It is essential that the Howard government is defeated at this coming federal election. But we need to push Labor to ensure working people have decent working conditions. Labor’s current IR policy is not balanced and fair – if it is allowed to stand it will perpetuate some of the worst aspects of WorkChoices.

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An open letter to Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard from Michele O'Neil, Assistant National Secretary Textile Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia (TCFUA)

Dear Kevin and Julia,

Don’t you get it?

I represent some of the lowest paid workers in the country. They sweat in backyard garages, shopfronts, and factories to make the clothes on your back. Some of our members have now faced three years without a pay increase. If they are still getting the minimum rates, and many are not, they take home about $460 each week. If they work at home as outworkers they likely get $3 to $5 an hour.

Yesterday one of the union’s officials described how after a call from a worker, she went to a factory and the employer made her sit for two hours in a small room. The boss said that if any worker wanted to see her they were welcome. He didn’t tell the workers the union was on site. He wouldn’t let the union notice advising workers that the union was coming, go up on the notice board. And he sat a supervisor at the door of the room. No worker came to the room.

A worker rang the union describing payment of $4 an hour. For us to inspect the time and wage book in the factory I have to name the worker, something she doesn’t want me to do as she says she’ll be bullied and sacked. She’s scared and asks me, “why cant you fix this without the boss knowing that I rang the union?” Under the Right of Entry Laws you’ve promised to keep, I cannot.

Earlier this year, one of my members was badly injured when the company under those same Right of Entry Laws, forced him to walk outside in the dark during a nightshift to a room 10 minutes away from where he worked to speak to his union. He fell and broke both his hands and doesn’t have good prospects of returning to work.

Last week we received two calls from women workers in tears because they were being forced to give up their rights by signing an AWA in order to keep their job. They signed the AWA because they were threatened. The same AWAs which you will now leave in place for five years. Under those Right of Entry laws, because all the workers are on AWAs, we have no right to enter that workplace or visit our members.

You know that television ad from the ‘Business Action’ coalition with 3 thuggish blokes turning off the power in a clothing factory? Did you believe it? Would you like to meet the women who work for this union trying to get into workplaces that exploit textile, clothing and footwear workers? You could listen to our stories about what really happens when we try to use ‘Right of Entry.’

My experience of violence and thuggery is of a company boss pulling a large chopping knife out of his draw and placing it on the desk between us as he explained that he didn’t employ any outworkers and that I should leave his factory now.

We like other unions, have spent our hard earned union members’ money on the ACTU’s campaign which has increased your chances of being elected. How do I keep explaining to them what a vote for you will mean? They can’t wait until 2010 for justice and fairness or rights – that’s like asking them to wait for another election. They need them and deserve them right now. Stand up for the members of my union or don’t expect us to stand up for you.

I invite you both to take a day to spend on the road with an official of my union visiting factories and sweatshops, so you can understand and reconsider today’s announcement.

In unity,

Michele O'Neil

Victorian State Secretary

National Assistant Secretary

Textile Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia (TCFUA)

For further information or comments:

Michele O’Neil - 0419 338 853

TCFUA Media Officer, Tommy Clarke – 0409 550 460