Day 174 - 17 Oct 95 - Page 27
1
2 MR. MORRIS: Just one general question: you said there were a
3 lot of strikes around this period, and you said the
4 National Understanding or national wage agreement had
5 recently come in. Was that something which the unions had
6 been campaigning for? What I am saying is, all these
7 strikes, was that part of some general momentum to get a
8 national wage agreement?
9 A. There was a momentum to get a national wage agreement.
10 I cannot recall the details of -----
11
12 Q. That was -----
13 A. There was a momentum involved.
14
15 Q. That was a momentum from the unions, was it?
16 A. Momentum from employers, I would think, too. The
17 parties to the agreement were the government, the unions
18 and the employer bodies.
19
20 Q. But it resulted in improved conditions? When you
21 implemented the National Understanding, you said that the
22 conditions improved. So the national wage agreement, the
23 National Understanding, was something which improved the
24 conditions of employees generally in the country, did it?
25 A. It probably regularised the situation from the point of
26 view of wage increases. What I can remember of national
27 wage agreements at that time -- and it is a long time
28 ago -- is that inflation was running very high, the
29 government were anxious to try and have some control on the
30 wage agreements, so that they could get inflation under a
31 little bit of control. I cannot even remember at this
32 point the details of the agreements.
33
34 Q. The employers were also wanting to keep wage rises low to
35 reduce labour costs; yes?
36 A. I do not know. I mean, the situation was that -- what
37 I remember distinctly about the national wage agreement was
38 that the government were anxious to get an agreement on
39 wage increases that would apply throughout the whole
40 country because, prior to this, there were levels of wage
41 agreements; and that is what I remember of it.
42
43 Q. Anne Holmes -- do you recall her?
44 A. Yes.
45
46 Q. Is it right that she was the first picket from
47 Grafton Street to join the strike -- the first person from
48 Grafton Street to join the strike?
49 A. I cannot recall if she was the first picket, but I do
50 remember her picketing.
51
52 Q. She was the shop steward, was she, during that strike, to
53 represent the workers from Grafton Street?
54 A. I do not know. She never indicated to me that she was
55 the shop steward.
56
57 Q. Before the strike, she was a lobby hostess?
58 A. Yes.
59
60 Q. At the end of the strike, the Company said that she could
