Last week the Howard Government introduced its much-awaited WorkChoices legislation into Parliament amid scenes of political hysteria and overblown rhetoric.
Opponents of WorkChoices argue that the current industrial relations system is working well. But in the same week, another Victorian car components manufacturer hit the wall. Another 80 jobs have vanished.
The company wasn't the victim of cheap Chinese labour, corporate downsizing, bad management or even globalization. This time the blame for the job losses sit squarely at the feet of the unions.
Kemalex Plastics was based in Dandenong. It's a family business running a struggling plant that needed improvements in work practices to survive. As part of the improvements the company had been using independent contractors for over two years. The National Union of Workers had agreed to this. But early this year a new enterprise agreement had to be negotiated and the NUW said the independent contractors had to go. The owner said no.
In late April this year, the NUW organised a strike with about half the workers. The rest of the workers continued working alongside the owner, Richard Colebatch. Mr Colebatch's family business had been running for more than 50 years and he had never experienced a strike. He didn't know what was about to be unleashed upon him. The union movement had decided that the little Kemalex plant would be used in a national, political campaign against the Howard Government's industrial relations reforms.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has one of the largest media units in the country. They spun out a media line that Richard Colebatch was forcing workers to become independent contractors. This was a total lie but a great story lapped up by many media outlets.
But when some of the striking workers began to wander back to work after a week, the unions got worried.
They moved in the heavy strike team. They allegedly paid the Kemalex strikers more than $200 each a week to stay on strike. They blocked the movement of the company's truck. Police had to be called constantly. Cars and trucks were vandalised. Windows of the plant were smashed. Kemalex staff who continued to work were shoved, threatened and abused. The media circus continued.
No big business association came to assist Kemalex. Mr Colebatch was on his own. Then, after 10 weeks of violence, intimidation and media hype the strike suddenly stopped. Why? On June 30, the unions held a mass rally in the city protesting against industrial relations reforms. Three Kemalex strikers stood on the podium and one gave a rehearsed speech to the crowd about how evil was Kemalex. The following day the strike ended.
The unions had used Kemalex entirely in a prolonged public relations stunt. Mr Colebatch has put the Dandenong plant into administration.
The plant is broke for one simple reason. The strike cost the family business more than $1.1 million in legal fees, lost production, lost sales, plant and truck damage, excess transport fees, sabotage resulting in poor quality product and excess overtime during and since the strike. The Dandenong plant only turned over $12 million a year. Any business that has imposed upon it a one-off, unexpected cost, equivalent to one twelfth of its yearly revenue, cannot survive.
Australian unions are campaigning hard against John Howard's industrial relations changes. They claim that, without unions, workers will be exploited and they need the right to strike.
But until now the industrial relations system did more than legalise strikes, it gave unions cover to break normal laws giving them mafia-like power when they wanted. In this instance the unions have won. They have destroyed a business that would not do as they said.
But the workers at Kemalex have learnt that unions are only interested in workers if bosses run businesses the way unions demand. It's either the union way or no way. And the workers jobs can go down the drain if the bosses don't bow to union demands.
The current system is not working well, as the jobless Kemalex workers will testify. The system needs reform urgently.
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