Melbourne leather workers lose jobs

Date: 03 June 2003

The Howard Government should call to account the big auto manufacturer Mitsubishi for helping to destroy the jobs of Australian workers by using cheap overseas labour to supply the upholstery in Australian-made cars.

The major Australian supplier of quality leather upholstery to the auto industry, Howe Leather, in Melbourne, will be retrenching about a quarter of their workforce this Thursday because they have lost contracts to supply Mitsubishi.

" The Federal Government has shoveled millions of dollars to Mitsubishi to keep them manufacturing in this country.

" Mitsubishi has paid Australia back by sending leather production for Australian-made autos to South Africa, where production is based on third-world wages," Brian Daley, LHMU Victorian branch secretary said today.

Melbourne tannery workers employed at Howe Leather are also angry that their employer had not let them know about the crisis, and the effect on their jobs.

Astounding disloyalty

" It is a display of astounding disloyalty after years and years of demanding co-operation," Brian Daley said.

" The union's members only discovered this week that Howe Leather had a secret plan to make nearly a quarter of the staff redundant.

" They had know for a while but they were not going to tell them until the last minute.

Union support

" We've worked together to lobby MPs to fight off the Howard Government over tariff policy.

" These campaigns throughout the 90's have been a success, despite the WTO huffing and puffing and trying to blow away Australian jobs.

War on Iraq and SARS

" The members were unhappy about it but we co-operated, " Brian Daley said.

The volume of hides being produced at Howe Leather has declined by around 30% in recent times with the company only producing around 3000 hides per day on a four day week with around 400-450 hides being cut in their components section. On a five day week Howe Leather would normally see 3800-4000 hides produced every day. The factory has the capacity to produce 5000+ hides per day.

" At a meeting on Friday with the union, the delegates were to ask management what were Howe's long term plans because the people employed there were getting concerned about their job security.

" It was at this meeting that the company informed the union that redundancies would occur," Brian Daley said.

" During the course of the meeting it become blatantly obvious the company had no intention of telling the workforce about the redundancy until Thursday, when they were going to tap them on the shoulder and say bye bye.

" If the union hadn't called the meeting the company was not going to tell anyone about their plans until the end of Thursday's shift.

" The delegates were outraged that the company had always leant on the union for support in this tough industry and they had no intention of telling the workers anything before redundancy day."

The LHMU has an enterprise agreement which delivers a better than normal redundancy package - but that is a small victory for the workers, the LHMU's Brian Daley said.

The LHMU proudly represents around 130,000 hard working women and men throughout Australia

For further info: Brian Daley, LHMU Victoria Branch Secretary, 03 9235 7777 or 0425 755 901

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