Members at Tontine rest easy after redundancy win
Friday December 07, 2007
The Victorian Branch was celebrating this week after a Full Bench of the Australian Industrial Commission ruled the NUW members at Tontine in Mooroolbark should be paid a redundancy after the manufacturing business was moved to Coburg.
Tontine, a division of United Bonded Fabrics, had successfully argued in an earlier AIRC hearing that the workers had not been made redundant, as their jobs were available at the new Coburg site.
However, the NUW appealed to a Full Bench and received the good news on Thursday (December 6, 2007) that it had been successful.
The NUW argued that while the same jobs might be available, it was unreasonable to expect employees to travel upwards of 80km extra per day to attend work.
The union also argued that for many, this extra travel time constituted more than 90 minutes each way, which would have a detrimental effect on those with family responsibilities and medical complaints.
And while the company had eventually offered to put on free bus transport for workers to and from the new site for 12 months, or provide some monetary compensation to them, it was insufficient to compensate for the loss and inconvenience they would suffer.
New workers at the Coburg site also receive a lower rate of pay than at Mooroolbark.
So while transferring workers’ wages were protected they would have had to endure a wage freeze until the new workers at the Coburg site caught up to their rate of pay through normal Collective Agreement increases.
The pay scales vary between $48 and $128 per week, meaning transferring workers could have waited several years before receiving any kind of wage increase – effectively then receiving a wage decrease in real terms.
Victorian Branch Industrial Officer Adam Portelli said while the AIRC initially ruled the employees were not redundant because their jobs were available at the new site, he was thrilled with the Full Bench decision which recognised the unreasonableness of expecting the workers to travel more than 80km extra per day for effectively a wage decrease.
“For most of these workers it was simply impossible to get to the new site. While they might have been able to catch the free bus in the short-term, it did little to alleviate the inconvenience and burden of suddenly having to travel more than 90 minutes extra to work each day, and the difficulties that would have had on those workers with family responsibilities.
“Other members also provided the Commission with medical evidence that that they were physically unable to travel that extra distance for work.”
NUW National Senior Advocate Tim Lyons, who played a key role in the appeal, agreed.
He said, “It would be a different situation if the company was moving a couple of suburbs. But it is not. It is moving 40km away and it is unreasonable to expect the current workforce to move with it, and for a real pay cut.
“The Full Bench did rule that there should be an alteration to the current redundancy package in light of the fact that all employees were offered similar positions at the new factory.
“This means the workers will receive three weeks per year of service rather than four, however, we believe this is a fair result in light of the distress being forced to travel to Coburg would have had on the members and their families.”
Last modified 2007-12-07 02:46 PM
