Cochlear workers lobby Canberra

Date: 01 October 2008

Cochlear workers' battle for a union collective agreement has taken them to Canberra, where a delegation met with Labor MPs and pressed for the rights they were promised last election.

Over the past eighteen months, Cochlear workers have voted in favour of a union collective agreement in 5 separate ballots but the company refuses to come to the negotiating table.

AMWU National Secretary Dave Oliver said the workers were very frustrated by the lack of legal protection for their situation.

"These workers want a union collective agreement. They have voted in 5 democratic ballots in favour of it, and they want laws that ensure the company has to respect that democratic process."

The Cochlear workers and many others need Labor to understand the importance of having provisions in the laws that ensure an independent umpire can step in where good faith bargaining is breached.

Delegate Cuong Nguyen said they were hopeful that the new Government's laws would ensure the company had to deal with them fairly.

"From the last election we hoped the Labor Government would have some proper laws to give us the democratic right for a union collective agreement," he said.

"Cochlear workers were quite prominent in the election campaign. Their situation is a good example of why we need this right made part of the new rules", Mr Oliver told reporters.

"Cochlear workers have a right to a collective agreement and that right should be enshrined in law."

Mr Nguyen said workers had a collective agreement, negotiated by the union, prior to early last year when the company moved to place workers on individual common law contracts.

Mr Nguyen also said over 200 workers had signed a petition raising the issue, which would soon be given to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. The petition asks the government for laws that assist workers when faced with a predicament like theirs.

For further information

Contact:	Dave Oliver
Union:	AMWU
WWW:	http://www.amwu.org.au/

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