"Now that Holden has announced its departure, we need to consider the Toyota situation, which will come to a head with a vote on its enterprise agreement tomorrow. In September 2011, thousands of Toyota workers went on a protracted strike to get a 12 per cent pay rise. The company caved in; a deal with a 13 per cent pay rise between then and March 2015 was given. Base rates for technical and trade workers are in the $65,000 to $97,000 range with generous allowances, loadings and penalties on top.
The Toyota enterprise agreement lists its “purpose” as “to achieve TMCA’s success as a Global Company” yet no single business contract could guarantee its failure more. This document, as much as Holden’s, reflects an extraordinary level of union control over daily workplace organisation.
When Toyota wants to hire someone, a union (employee) representative must sit in every single job interview as “an observer”.... A table in the agreement sets out exactly how many union representatives the company has to have in every section of the workplace and 10 paid union training days a year is given to union reps.
Toyota is allowed to hire casuals only from “time to time” and not at all without union agreement, although agreement must not be “unreasonably withheld”. Casuals can perform only the “agreed specified tasks” for the “agreed specified period” mandated by the union. “The maximum period for which a Casual Employee can work continuously on a full-time basis is one month” and any casual around for six months must be made a permanent employee.
Contract labour can be hired only after Toyota reaches “agreement with the relevant Union official and Employee (union) Representative”. Contractors around for 12 months must be made permanent employees.
This means Toyota can never really have a hiring freeze but are continually bound to a destructive cycle of taking people on before eventually having to make them redundant....
Over-staffing must be a big problem because the agreement mandates one team leader to look after “between 5-7 process workers”. Supervisors, whose base rates range from $75,000 to $103,000, are forbidden from helping with workloads…
If Toyota needs to dismiss someone, an outrageous procedure of at least three years and three months continuous disciplinary action is required before dismissal can occur. This defies belief.". . . . holden seemed to have a similar deal - the unions in effect are running the business - . frankly, who would want to invest under those conditions. there is very little chance of someone buying the holden plant and using the facilities for some car manufacturing purpose - because the unions would simply make it a problem - better to make the cars in thailand.
it seems that the federal and victorian governments - about 6 months ago offered a 275$m deal, which was supposed to keep holden operating in australia for 10 years. napthine just revealed that the victorian contribution was reliant on some commitments by holden - and holden never made the commitments - so victoria did not hand over any money - not having made the commitments, was probably code that holden was thinking about pulling out - a long time ago
