13 December 2010

Police break up Visy workers' strike



Police have been accused of using heavy-handed tactics to arrest 29 protesting workers outside packaging giant Visy's Melbourne plant.

But police say no one was injured and they had no choice but to forcibly remove demonstrators after they refused to leave the entrance of the Dandenong plant.

Almost 400 workers at Visy sites in Victoria and NSW began striking 10 days ago.

They are angry about the company wanting to freeze the hourly pay rates of casual staff for the duration of a new enterprise bargaining agreement.

"We're not criminals, we're human beings," one protester shouted, as police dragged the workers into divisional vans on Monday.

"Shame Visy, shame," some 90 workers chanted, as they sat locked arm-in-arm outside the Dandenong plant's Greens Road entrance.

Australian Manufacturing Workers Union national secretary Dave Oliver said it was inappropriate for police to become involved in a "peaceful" industrial dispute.

"They were within their rights to be there participating in a protest," he told AAP on Monday.

"They were fighting for their conditions, and yet the police saw fit to physically remove them from the premises."

Negotiations between Visy and the union began in July.

Visy won a Supreme Court injunction on Friday, which was extended on Monday, banning union officials from hindering access to the company's Dandenong site or encouraging any person to do so.

Mr Oliver said he had written a letter to Police Minister Peter Ryan asking why the police became involved in the dispute.

"I can't recall seeing such a thing since the days of the Kennett government," he said.

A spokeswoman for Mr Ryan said the minister had not yet received a letter and therefore would not comment at this stage.

Mr Oliver said police had used "strong-arm" tactics, and one of the workers was run over by a truck and taken away in an ambulance.

Comment was being sought from Ambulance Victoria.

Inspector Chris Major said the police had no choice but to physically remove the protesters.

"Despite repeated requests (to move) they were endangering their own lives by remaining seated on the roadway and we moved them in a manner as best we could without causing any injury to themselves or the police members attending," he told reporters.

Late on Monday police were still in the process of charging the arrested demonstrators with creating an undue obstruction and besetting premises.

Senior AMWU officials will meet with Visy at 6am (AEDT) in Sydney on Tuesday.

"I've been a union official for 22 years, and no dispute gets resolved through strong-handed tactics such as this.

"The way disputes get resolved is by people getting around a table and negotiating an outcome."

Visy spokesman Tony Gray would not comment.

"Our long-standing policy is that we don't comment on industrial disputes," he told AAP.

The union wants a five per cent pay rise for full-time workers each year over three years, while Visy is offering four per cent annually.

Also at issue is whether the union should be consulted on issues such as rostering changes.


13 Dec 2010

The Dawn of a New Age is upon us.

Any act of defiance against the ruling elite will be met with hostile force.

The right to free speech is gone, and the New World Order is born.

Richard Pratt convicted of fraud and subsequently fined $36 million dollars.

The fraud that was alleged against him was to the value of over $700 million.

The amount that he was 'fined' (read slap on the wrist from his cronie colleagues) was 5%, an amount BETTER than tax.

Fraud and consumer rip off is favoured amongst the Anglo-Masonic Law System of Australia.

Richard Pratt has a child outside of wedlock with his mistress Shari-Lea Hitchcock.


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