A union delegate addresses the scientists
CSIRO scientists, researchers and admin staff assembled outside the company’s Clayton laboratories today. The action was part of a nation-wide series of stoppages at 43 CSIRO sites, aimed at forcing management to negotiate in good faith.
The scientists explained that their most important demands include a greater involvement in decision making at the company and the resolution of issues relating to redundancy packages for over-65s and parental leave. They also spoke of an insidious internship-like program, which sees work increasingly allocated to severely underpaid international students and junior scientists.
The stoppages are the first in CSIRO’s history. Some of the scientists today even described themselves as ‘industrially conservative.’ Yet again and again the workers explained how their key demand was greater democracy at CSIRO (a bold and legitimate demand not often heard on picket lines these days).
"Consult, not insult!"
One man who had worked at the site for 18 years explained that in earlier days scientists were regularly consulted by the chief, but that he had never even met the last two CEOs. Other workers described how the current CEO Megan Clark - a former Vice President with BHP Billiton – has overseen the increasing direction of funds away from research, while further excluding researchers from any proper consultation process.
The breadth of scientific research undertaken at CSIRO is truly stunning. That the scientific elite would be treated with such contempt by a ex-mining boss is outrageous and unacceptable. These supposedly industrially inexperienced workers made a brave show today of their opposition to idiotic cost cutting and their commitment to quality research and democracy in the workplace.
Listen to the 3CR podcast on the dispute here.
Workers Solidarity Network strongly supports the striking scientists and their co-workers in this ongoing dispute!
