Press Release
Delayed rally reaction for warehouse workers
Thursday December 01, 2005
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NSW Branch Secretary, Derrick Belan
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Nearly 100 Sydney warehouse employees have received warning letters from their employer for attending the National Day of Community Protest on November 15.
The employees – who work at John Danks and Son, a hardware distribution company – were issued with the warning letters some two weeks after the Community Protest that was attended by over 500,000 people across Australia.
NSW State Secretary Derrick Belan said the employees had made a voluntary decision to attend the protest in light of the Howard Government’s proposed Industrial Relations changes.
“The employees at Danks feel very strongly about the changes to workers’ rights. They decided that they would forgo a day’s pay and join the day of action, like hundreds of thousands of people right across the country,” Belan said.
“We will take this matter to the NSW Industrial Relations Commission to seek to have the warnings issued to our members removed.
“This sort of action from employers is a disturbing sign of things to come under the Howard Government system, and it comes even before the legislation creating the system has been passed.”
The site Delegate was also told by the company he had no right to advocate on behalf of his fellow workers during disciplinary meetings.
Site Organiser Steve Cain said that a dispute between the company and the workers could easily be avoided if common sense prevailed.
“Our members at Danks are not antagonistic towards the company. By joining other concerned community members on November 15, our members were simply exercising their democratic right to make their opposition to the Federal Government’s IR laws – rather than the company – known,” Cain said.
“We certainly hope that more situations like this don’t eventuate under Howard’s new IR system.”
Last modified 2005-12-01 04:18 PM
