The MUA says protests against the sackings of 97 workers in Brisbane and Sydney will continue, after shipping giant Hutchison Ports Australia dumped nearly half its workforce in late-night text messages and by email.
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“The company is downsizing its service offering to the market”, chief financial officer Chee Keong Chan wrote. Mr Carnegie vowed to continue the picket into Tuesday and called for more workers to join on Tuesday.
“We won’t be giving in until they come to the negotiating table and act in a reasonable manner towards our people”.
“We will win this dispute because our resolve is stronger, our belief is total, we are the wronged party”, he said. Every senior union delegate has been sacked and the company is trying to break the MUA’s influence, Mr Carnegie said. “We say automation without negotiation is anti-union and won’t be tolerated”.
Meanwhile, Labor and the MUA have attacked as “heartless” a comment from the federal employment minister, Eric Abetz, that the sackings by text message may be appropriate. Senator Abetz said on Friday he was unaware of the specifics of the sackings, but it was important for employers and employees to treat each other with respect. His Labor counterpart, Brendan O’Connor, called the comment heartless and said it showed the government was out of touch.
The ABC has contacted Hutchison for comment. “I can understand this is a particularly hard time for the workers involved”, he said in a statement on Saturday.
The workers are defying a Fair Work Commission order, issued on Friday evening, to return to work. The Fair Work Commission hearing into the sackings was due to start at 5pm in Sydney.
The MUA said it has lodged an injunction in the Federal Court in an effort to halt the redundancy process.
“What we have seen is a very big contrast between the support from the Palaszczuk Government and the non-support by the Abbott Government”, Mr Pitt said. “We have 50 families who are crushed”.
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“The members who are rostered on have gone to work…as a collective they have made the decision that when they walk into the terminal, that they would only work if they were offered a safe working environment, which it isn’t”, he said.
