OAKDALE 6.3 MILLION reasons to belong to the UNION Screening 8.00 PM Monday March 6th FREE @ The Builders Arms Hotel (gerturde st fitzroy) and on Channel 31 Melbourne, same time SYNOPSIS: On the 9th of June 1999, 125 underground coal miners at the Oakdale Colliery, West of Sydney, were told that the mine was closing and there was no money to pay them the $6.3 million in entitlements they were owed. Some with almost 40 years service at the mine wwere owed up to $100.000. Most of the miners were family men with mortgages who, without a job and robbed of their entitlements, faced ruin. This 24 minute video records the development of the Oakdale campaign from the first day and the magnificent role played by the rank and file Oakdale workers and their families. It highlights the strong national community campaign mounted by their Union, the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU). The CFMEU, with the support of the Australian trade union movement, went head to head with a hostile conservative Federal Government for nine weeks before a national coal strike and widespread public anger, forced the Govenment into a dramatic backflip and the payment of the entire $6.3 million to the Oakdale miners. With up to 20.000 Australian workers robbed of similar benefits every year, the Oakdale campaign also forced a commitment from the Federal Government to finally introduce a national employees entitlements protection scheme. While the Government is looking at a minimal scheme, the CFMEU asserts that no Australian worker should have to settle for less than the Oakdale miners Won - every cent of their entitlements. -------------------------- http://www.accessnews.skatv.org.au email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone (61) 3 9663 6976 fax (61) 3 9662 9106 mail to: SKA TV p.o box 1252 st kilda sth, 3182 victoria, australia -------------------------- LL.VC -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
