A crowd of workers was outside timber company Carter Holt Harvey to protest against what they said were unfair negotiations with the company. Source: Caboolture News
It comes after the company started to write letters to families stating workers could be locked out or lose wages if they continued the enterprise bargaining according to Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) southern district secretary Steve Baker.
AWU members represented the 115 workers at the protest.
“We are here to help as this sort of behaviour is deplorable,” Mr Baker said.
He said that 12 months of negotiations were now exhausted.
“The organisation is being extremely unreasonable and unwilling to negotiate in good faith,” Mr Baker said.
“As a result, negotiations have been exhausted and members have gone through a protected action ballot to try and get Carter Holt Harvey to negotiate in good faith.”
Mr Baker said the company originally put forward a 0% increase in pay for workers which then was changed to 1.75%. The workers have rejected this.
“They (workers) see it as a slap in the face,” Mr Baker said.
“The company went through a tough period after a fire went through the business.
“The staff helped the company and put in a lot of hard yards, and now they won’t negotiate for the rewards they put in.”
Southern district organiser Wally Boulton said the members had been willing to agree to a percentage less than CPI but Carter Holt Harvey won’t negotiate.
“Many feel they are not valued by the company. It is a common theme that they should be valued and they will not expect anything less than what they deserve,” Mr Boulton said.
One worker said he was disappointed with negotiations.
“It is not being dealt with in the proper spirit of negotiation. I personally would like to get back to the table without the bad language which has been happening and give us some respect,” he said.
