Labor’s IR spokesperson, Julia Gillard, has met the 35 Tristar factory workers still waiting for a fair outcome after new workplace minister Joe Hockey failed to secure their entitlements in a meeting with company director Andrew Gwinnett last week.In an embarrassment for the government, Mr. Hockey was unable to get the company to agree to pay the workers their entitlements and was forced to admit that its tactics of paying workers to do nothing for months on end until their entitlements expire were perfectly legal under his IR laws.
It is cheaper for the company to pay its workforce to do nothing until next year when their collective agreement will expire, leaving the workers, some with more than 40 years service, with redundancy packages as low as $8 000 under the new laws.
The company has insisted that it must remain open and has new work on the way, despite the fact that most of its machinery has been removed and the Marrickville factory has stood idle for months.
Julia Gillard said that Labor would rip up John Howard’s IR laws and ensure this situation never occurred again.
“A Labor government will never allow a company to treat hard working Australian families so unfairly again.”
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