Buckley workers win first collective

12 May, 2008

Workers at high-tech manufacturer Buckley Systems ratified their first ever collective agreement on Monday after union membership grew from three members to nearly ninety in a period of eight months.

The collective includes protection for a lot of the terms and conditions members were already getting under their individual agreements but were in danger of losing due to new management.

EPMU delegate and Buckley worker Kenny Medley says that workers called the EPMU after historically good terms and conditions were removed from individual employment agreements last year. "The management took things like long service leave out of the individual agreements and put them into policy so we were still getting them but only at management's discretion."

"We were also having our start-times and break times changed without being consulted and could see the way things were going," says Medley, "so many of us refused to sign the new individuals and got the EPMU in instead."

EPMU membership was high enough by late last year to initiate bargaining and the process took seven full days of negotiation spread over four months.

"Now we've got the deal we're looking forward to getting on with the job," says Medley, "but there a few things we didn't get this time that we'll be looking for next negotiations."