By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
AN industrial dispute in Dandenong South that put the brakes on Victoria’s car makers is over.
About 140 of 165 aiDAIR Industries workers had taken strike on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Some had formed a picket line blocking truck movements to the car components manufacturer, which makes parts for Australian-built Ford, Holden and Toyota cars and their suppliers.
The dispute, which was over redundancy limits for long-serving workers, was resolved after six hours of conciliation talks at Fair Work Australia yesterday.
Workers voted to return to work today after the urgent compromise deal.
The company had wanted to bring in 52-week caps on redundancy packages. Long-serving workers who had uncapped redundancy packages more than 52 weeks were to have their entitlements frozen.
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union state secretary Leigh Diehm said his members were ‘‘rapt’’ DAIR Industries had conceded on the redundancy caps.
‘‘The major car companies were running low on supplies so we were concerned to get a resolution on the issue. We didn’t want to get members shut down at other firms across the state.’’
DAIR Industries state operations general manager Kevin Boyle said the three-day strike cost the company $170,000 in sales, with ‘‘another layer of costs to get back on track’’.
He described uncapped redundancy packages as ‘‘unheard of in this day and age’’.
‘‘People lost three days pay for the sake of 50 people who won’t need redundancies if our managers do their jobs properly.’’
He said the company was ‘‘meeting the challenge’’ facing the Australian car industry. Its plans are to diversify by making parts for caravans and agricultural vehicles as well as cars.
The state’s Manufacturing Minister Richard Dalla-Riva slammed the unions for ‘‘reckless and irresponsible’’ behaviour that put the car industry ‘‘on the brink of meltdown’’.
“The fact is it should never have come to this before sanity prevailed,” Mr Dalla-Riva said.
“The Victorian automotive industry and the whole supply chain were on the brink of meltdown yet the unions were unwilling to back down. As I asked yesterday, do the unions want a local car industry or don’t they?
