100 signatures reached
To: Jacinta Allan, Premier of Victoria & Damien Wells, Managing Director (CEO) of Coliban Water
Stop punishing Coliban workers for standing up!
Workers at Coliban Water, a state-owned corporation in Premier Jacinta Allan’s own electorate, have voted overwhelmingly to take protected industrial action after years of below-inflation pay offers. Now management is threatening to dock workers' pay and send them home just for trying to take minor, non-disruptive actions like setting an email auto-reply or chalking a message for 15 minutes.
We’re calling on Coliban Water and the Premier to:
- Stop the anti-union approach to bargaining and retract the threat to stand workers down for taking non-disruptive, low-level protected action.
- Give these workers a real pay rise for the first time in five years so they can start to get ahead in this cost of living crisis.
- Respect workers’ legal right to take protected industrial action without intimidation.
Why is this important?
Coliban Water workers are the engineers, hydrologists, scientists and managers who keep safe, reliable water flowing to 180,000 people across the Bendigo and Castlemaine region. They’re delivering a $500 million infrastructure program to upgrade water and sewer systems that communities depend on every day.
For five years, these regional professionals have watched their real wages go backwards while Coliban charges its customers the highest water prices in Victoria. Bills went up 4.5% last year alone, but the workers who keep the system running were offered just 2% annual increases. In real terms, that’s a pay cut of more than 10%.
Now, instead of bargaining in good faith, this state-owned corporation is trying to bully workers out of exercising their legal right to take protected action. Threatening to stand workers down for setting an email auto-reply is not the behaviour of a responsible public employer. It’s union-busting, and it’s happening in the Premier’s own backyard.