Inquiry To Be Told of Hidden Dangers In Individual Contracts

Australian Workers' Union National Secretary Bill Shorten is scheduled to give evidence at the NSW Industrial Relations Commission Inquiry, Level 3, 50 Phillip Street, Sydney after 12.30pm TODAY.

Mr Shorten said the engineers had learnt from bitter experience that individual contracts held hidden dangers for unprotected workers.

"Back in 2002, these maintenance engineers at Boeing Williamtown accepted individual contracts which provided for a modest salary increase in exchange for them working unlimited unpaid overtime," Mr Shorten said.

"They thought it was a fair offer at the time, because they were only working a small amount of overtime.

"However, when the workers lost their access to overtime pay, the amount of overtime required skyrocketed. In many cases the extra salary was much less than the amount that would have been earned in overtime.

"The contracts also did not provide any compensation for working in confined spaces, which did not concern the engineers at the time because they were not required to work in such conditions very often.

"However, soon after the individual contracts were signed, Boeing began to require many of its employees to perform large amounts of work in confined space."

Mr Shorten said the engineers were resolute in their struggle to have their union negotiate a collective agreement on their behalf, despite the unpleasantness of being involved in a dispute during the festive season.

"After all the months on the picket line, our members still haven't received a reasonable explanation from Boeing as to what is wrong with them having a collective agreement."