International Workers Memorial Day 2017

(ACTU) secretary Sally McManus on termination of Enterprise Agreements

McManus reveals number one workplace law priority

Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) secretary Sally McManus has told striking Fletcher Insulation workers the peak body will demand changes to the Fair Work (FW) Act to stop employers threatening to cancel enterprise agreements (EA) during bargaining.

Speaking at the Fletcher picket on April 6, McManus said unions had to continue defeating employers "on the ground" every time they threatened to cancel EAs until the law was changed.

Fletcher applied on March 28 to have its EA terminated after workers had been on strike for some 40 days (WF 30/3/2017).

Fletcher and the union were in Fair Work Commission (FWC) conciliation today (April 12) to try to resolve the dispute.

McManus said when Fletcher and other employers threatened to terminate EAs, "every other boss is going to think exactly the same thing that - 'we will sit on this EA and pretend to negotiate, then we will threaten to cancel it'.

"We cannot have the situation where employers can have in their back pocket the ability to threaten to cancel EAs while negotiating with workers," she said.

"Blind Freddie can tell that is unfair because it totally changes the bargaining power that you have got when you are sitting at the bargaining table.

"It was never meant to be that employers would have a lever of power that would threaten to have workers dropped back to award (rates and conditions).

"We have got to change the laws. This is the only solution to this particular problem.

"It is one of the number one things that the ACTU will demand of politicians to act on."

On March 15, AWU had told the Senate inquiry into Corporate Avoidance of the FW Act the default for EA bargaining breakdown should be FWC arbitration (WF 16/3/2017).

Fletcher blue ACTU's number one dispute

McManus said she attended the Fletcher protest to inform strikers the ACTU would ensure they had the support of the rest of the trade union movement.

She said ACTU would ramp up fundraising to help the strikers.

"We are going to take your story from one end of Australia to another so that everyone knows what is happening here on this picket line so you never feel alone," McManus said.

"As the leader of the union movement across the country - you are our number one dispute at the moment."