NSW: STP workers strike, entitlements deal up in the air

AAP General News (Australia)
12-22-2000
NSW: STP workers strike, entitlements deal up in the air

SYDNEY, Dec 22 AAP - More than 200 Steel, Tank and Pipe (STP) workers across Australia
are on strike today as a deal to secure their $3.4 million in entitlements remains up
in the air.

AMWU organiser John Parkin said workers had been promised the money under a deal between
the banks, administrator PriceWaterhouseCoopers and the union.

But yesterday the company owners, the Weeks family, had refused to sign off on the
deal, Mr Parkin said.

The workers were bracing themselves for a devastating blow only days out from Christmas.

"Imagine how these workers feel," he said.

"You think you have lost everything, suddenly there's hope and now this.

"It was looking really promising when we got the banks and the receivers to agree but
then the Weeks family stepped back and the whole thing fell apart."

Employees of STP have been fighting for their entitlements since early November, when
it was revealed that the Weeks family had employed them through shelf companies with no
assets.

The workers had returned to work after a month of strike action when on December 5
a deal was brokered to secure 100 per cent of the workers entitlements.

But workers have today voted to take indefinite strike action until the family honours
the agreement.

"We are waiting to hear if they are going to honour the promise they made publicly
in the press," Mr Parkin said.

"Now that they have the opportunity to make that money available they have decided not to."

But a spokeswoman for the Weeks family today denied the family had backed out of the deal.

"The family has said to the union `You've just given us this legal document let us
have some time to read it'," she said.

The spokeswoman said the family wanted to resolve the matter as soon as possible but
that the delay was as simple as the family wanting to read a document.

AAP nd/sb/mk

KEYWORD: STP (CARRIED EARLIER)

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