Workers claim win as 30-day paper mill lockout ends
The workers were locked out for a month in response to legal industrial action by just seven workers for six hours.
An extraordinary 30-day lockout of 300 workers by one of the nation’s largest paper and packaging companies has ended after a settlement that will see employees increase their ordinary hours in exchange for higher pay rises and retention of key entitlements.
ACTU secretary Sally McManus said the deal between Opal, the local subsidiary of Japanese paper giant Nippon, and the CFMEU manufacturing division was a victory for the union members who had been locked out without pay from the Maryvale paper mill in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley since mid-January.
The workers, who earn annual salaries ranging from $65,000 to $128,000, were locked out for a month after legal industrial action by just seven workers for six hours, relying on $600 weekly payments from the union to support them and their families.
The workers had opposed a company proposal to extend weekly ordinary hours from 35 to 38, believing it would translate into a 10 per cent pay cut due to the potential loss of existing overtime arrangements.
The union had sought annual pay rises of 5 per cent, 4.5 per cent and 4 per cent over the life of the new agreement; the company had offered three annual increases of 3 per cent.
Under the deal, workers have agreed in principle that Opal can move to a 38 ordinary hour week in the future but the company has said it has no immediate plans to enact the proposal and it would be subject to consultation provisions.
In the immediate term, day workers will continue to work 36 hours and continuous shift workers will work an average 37.1 hours, with the time above 35 hours paid at ordinary hours and no longer treated as overtime and paid at double time.
Day operators and 10-hour shift operators will receive annual pay rises of 4 per cent, 3.5 per cent and 3 per cent over three years.
Continuous shift operators will receive a headline 7.1 per cent pay increase in the first year but that amount equates to a 2.8 per cent wage rise when factoring in the loss of overtime. They will also receive a one-off $2500 sign-on bonus, followed by pay rises of 3.5 per cent and 3 per cent in the second and third years of the agreement, according to the union. Opal refused to discuss details of the agreement, including the pay rises.
Workers have retained a series of entitlements, including redundancy provisions that pay four weeks for each year of service, income protection insurance, the pay out of personal leave, and the existing annualised wage formula.
For the first time, workers will get access to time off in lieu and a meal allowance increase, as the existing payment had fallen below the award minimum.
Denise Campbell Burns, the Construction Forestry and Maritime Employees Union manufacturing division’s pulp and paper district secretary, said the union was pleased members had a “deal they felt comfortable with” and were looking forward to returning to work.
“It’s the only lockout that I have been involved with in the pulp and paper industry and I have worked in this industry since 2001. They are very few and far between,” Ms Campbell Burns said. “The Maryvale guys had never taken industrial action in the last few decades so it was a disproportionate response by the company but I think that’s what Opal management is like now.”
She said the relationship between management and workforce was “definitely damaged”.
“Yesterday a worker sent me a photo. He was unpicking the Opal embroidery off his uniform,” she said.
Ms McManus said the union members stood firm in the face of the extreme and unfair behaviour of their employer which saw them, their families and their community deprived of income for more than a month.
“Because of their resoluteness they have won,” she said. “Clearly, this multinational underestimated these union members and their community.”
Opal said it negotiated in good faith for an enterprise agreement that was fair and appropriate to the mill’s operations “which were forced to change significantly due to the sudden end of wood supply from Victorian government-owned VicForests”.
“Opal is focused on the future of the mill, which remains an important asset for our growth as a major manufacturer of quality cardboard packaging products in a competitive market,” it said.
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