Boeing Australia Employee Contracts

Mr JOHN BARTLETT (Port Stephens) [5.09 p.m.]: Today I speak about a David and Goliath conflict that has arisen in the Port Stephens electorate. Boeing Australia does the deep maintenance and upgrades on the FA-18 aircraft at RAAF base Williamtown. Over the past four years it has had working on these aircraft some 60 people on common law or individual contracts. Over the past three years or so workers have found that working under these individual, common law contracts has not been to their liking. Half of those people, who are presently stood down and on a picket line outside the gates of RAAF base Williamtown, have a military background. They were hardworking, conscientious people from the Army, Navy and Air Force. They are not from a strong union background but they know, after three or four years of common law or individual contracts that this is not the way they want to spend the rest of their lives. They have literally had enough.

These workers are not allowed by Boeing to have an enterprise bargaining agreement [EBA]. As they are under Federal legislation, they have no right to an EBA. Last Friday Boeing finally talked to the Australian Workers Union [AWU], which was representing these workers. At that time the workers had been stood down for 2½ weeks. For 3½ years they have been on individual contracts and they want to get off them. For three years they could not solve the problems caused by those contracts. For a start, these workers have to work 86 hours a fortnight before being paid overtime. They have performance-based contracts, yet they do not know what anyone else is paid who is doing the same job. A clause in the contract says they are not to speak to anyone else about their contract, but because they are performance-based contracts and are reviewed every year, there are now discrepancies in their pay. Workers from different trades are working alongside one another, and over the past three to four years the pay discrepancy has increased.

Boeing employs something like 150,000 workers worldwide in 60-odd countries. It has revenues of $52 billion a year. How does a 20-year-old on an individual contract, or a worker who has been in that industry for, say, three years and who does not like the contract conditions, negotiate on a one-on-one basis with a company the size of Boeing? It is ridiculous. There is no opportunity at all. Basically, if you do not like it, you have a choice, and that is the only choice in the negotiations. So there are 40-odd workers outside the gates of RAAF base Williamtown who want an EBA. They want some control over their wages and conditions and not be cut out one by one. They want a transparent process, not a secretive process that is discriminatory against some workers, and they want certainty, not uncertainty. It seems to me there is nothing philosophically wrong with any of those statements, yet this is the system these people have been on for 3½ years and which the Howard Government will try to bring in some time after 1 July through its industrial relations reforms.

As I said, until last Friday Boeing had refused to negotiate with the AWU. Last week it had some conversations with the AWU. Boeing has EBAs in other States of Australia. It has EBAs through De Havilland in Sydney and EBAs at other sites such as Exmouth. It has EBAs with other sites in America. The picket line is on Medowie Road, a fairly busy road, and 50 per cent of vehicles passing by beep in support of these workers. The Labor branches in Port Stephens are adopting a family each to help during the strike. I was very proud of the Parliamentary Labor Party members yesterday when everyone donated $100 towards the cause of these workers, who were absolutely delighted with the response from the members of the Parliamentary Labor Party.

Ms ALISON MEGARRITY (Menai—Parliamentary Secretary) [5.14 p.m.]: I thank the honourable member for detailing the situation of the Boeing workers. We should take every opportunity to put on the record the serious threats to workers entitlements proposed by the Howard Government's industrial relations "reforms". Many hard-won conditions are being threatened by what is on the table. These workers are standing up for their rights and we applaud them for that. Again I thank the honourable member for taking this opportunity to make sure their struggle is noted in this place.