The Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union has called on the government to provide certainty to the local auto industry after General Motors Holden workers voted to accept a variation to their current enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA).
The variation, which includes changes to shift and hours arrangements and the foregoing of a guaranteed 3% pay rise in November, will only come into effect if Holden commits to building new generation beyond 2016 (the year rival Ford closes its local factories) to 2022 and will only affect the Adelaide, South Australia workforce. Holden’s main plant is in the suburb of Elizabeth.
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Union national secretary Paul Bastian said the willingness of workers to give consideration to where savings could be made with the automaker to save jobs could still be undermined with the coalition threatening to “gut” the auto industry by stripping away A$500m in government co-investment should they win office.
“Throughout negotiations, workers made clear that Holden’s more excessive demands of pay cuts and reductions in redundancy were not negotiable and the union has been able to modify the company’s position.
“It is important to understand that the variation still allows for wage increases to be gained if all parties work towards lifting production levels. But this takes all parties – Holden, government and workers – to lock in the right settings for the industry.
“As part of that process it is also critical to note that the variation will be void and conditions will revert to the EBA should Holden not commit to the next generation of models and to manufacturing vehicles here for the next decade.
“Workers have been considering the variation over the past week and they have had a very tough decision to make. This is about their jobs, their pay, their families. But they have also had to consider the implications for the tens of thousands of other workers across the auto sector.
“It is a horrible position to be put in and they deserve enormous respect for the burden they have been asked to shoulder.
“It’s now time every other stakeholder stood up and provided certainty to the sector. That means governments and those aspiring to government, the coalition, providing the certainty of funding needed to keep Holden and the auto sector operational in this country.
“The coalition’s restated policy of ripping $500m out of co-investment up to 2015 and providing no certainty beyond that means hundreds of thousands of jobs remain at risk.
“[They] should not be allowed to get away with killing the car industry.
He said several coilition leaders had “often claimed that Australian businesses need certainty. Well so do their workers. The coalition must change its position and provide certainty to the auto sector and its workforce now,” added Bastian.
