Ford, Holden & Toyota Production May Cease As Strikes Threaten Aussie Car Industry

[JoeT]

More Strikes Threaten Car Industry

AAP
23 August 2007
www.smh.com.au

Up to 2,000 Ford workers could be stood down in Melbourne from Friday as yet another industrial dispute threatens to cripple the car manufacturing industry.

Production at Ford will cease on Thursday and Holden and Toyota are expected to follow as a strike shuts down a major plastic component supplier.

Venture Industries' 242 workers have mounted indefinite strike action over a dispute about employee entitlements.

Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) Victorian secretary Steve Dargavel said staff stopped work at 6am (AEST) on Friday.

They would not return until Venture guaranteed the $25 million owed to employees in entitlements would be paid.

"The company's said they're going to have large numbers of redundancies and they're going to avoid paying them their redundancy payments ... so they're (workers) on an indefinite stoppage as of this morning," Mr Dargavel told AAP.

"It's a classic sort of rort in corporations law that the federal government regularly lets go."

Venture produces plastic components for the car industry, including bumper bars, door trims, dashboard consoles and interior panels.

Ford spokeswoman Sinead McAlary said the strike would shut down production on Thursday but no employees would be stood down until Friday.

Ford buys 1,500 different Venture parts and employs 4,000 people at its Broadmeadows and Geelong plants.

Click here to continue article

Ford Confirms 2010 Closer For It's Australian Engine Plant - 600 Jobs To Go
Car Makers Ask For Higher Tariffs To Save Local Industry
Australian Car Industries Uncertain Future

[KUZCO]

-typical retard union basher on this site-" fire all of em ship em to papau new ginea and bring in aborigines to work for less"....... haha

[rsbaker]

Toyota is Unionized in Australia? How did that happen?...And why hasn't it happened here?

[JohnPetrosky2k]

better not slow down the g8 from getting here

[377Z]

Originally Posted by Rick Wagoner

"Taste my pain, b!tch!

[hq308]

Originally Posted by rsbaker

Toyota is Unionized in Australia? How did that happen?...And why hasn't it happened here?

It's the supplier that's unionized, not sure about Toyota though. The supplier's employees have gone on strike so the manufacturers are missing components to put their cars together. It's that whole "just in time" thing, basically they get the components as they need them and when something like this happens it shuts them down.

[JoeT]

Talks On To End Venture Strike Action

Simon Mossman & Jeff Turnbull
27 August 2007
www.drive.com.au

Talks to try to end a strike now affecting thousands of car industry workers are continuing before Australia's industrial tribunal.

More than 200 workers at Melbourne-based Venture Industries walked off the job last week in a row over $25 million in entitlements after the firm announced it was relocating to a different site.

The dispute caused instant chaos at manufacturing giant Ford, which was forced to stand down almost 2,000 assembly line and engine workers at its Broadmeadows and Geelong plants without pay until the strike action was resolved.

On Monday afternoon, Ford lodged a submission with the industrial relations commission (AIRC) in Melbourne calling for the union-led protected action to be suspended.

"We presented a summary of our case outlining the issues affecting our business, which was favourably received, before the commissioner went into talks with the union and Venture," Ford spokeswoman Sinead McAlary told AAP.

"Now it is very much a wait-and-see but of course we hope the two parties will be able to resolve things soon. At least they're talking and that is a step forward."

Click here to continue article

[JoeT]

119 Ford Jobs Go Offshore

Dewi Cooke
13 September 2007
www.drive.com.au

More than 100 Ford manufacturing jobs have been outsourced and sent overseas.

Ford told 119 workers on its upholstery trim line in Broadmeadows yesterday that they would be taken off the job and redeployed within the company following a decision to outsource to local automotive supplier Futuris.

It is understood Futuris has plans to have most of that work done in Thailand.

AMWU state secretary Steve Dargavel welcomed Ford's commitment to find alternative work for the employees but said the company had been put in an "impossible position" due to cost-cutting by its US head office.

The decision would also leave it vulnerable to any problems in its supply chain, he said.

Click here to continue article

Ford workers leaving Broadmeadows