Claims in The Daily Telegraph are wrong

15 June 2006

Piers Ackerman, columnist for The Daily Telegraph, has incorrectly linked Australian Workplace Agreements (AWA) with employment conditions at Kimberly-Clark Australia’s Millicent Mill.

Kimberly-Clark has no AWAs with any production worker at any of its mills throughout Australia.

The wages and conditions of employees at the Millicent Mill are currently established under an Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA) negotiated in 2003. This EBA is in the process of being constructively renegotiated in good faith between Kimberly-Clark and the CFMEU.

EBAs were introduced under the Labor Keating government and allow employees, represented by their union, to negotiate with employers for higher wages and benefits in exchange for improvements in productivity and flexibility. Under the Millicent Mill EBA, employees are substantially compensated by a per shift allowance in exchange for the traded in award conditions.

EBAs are substantially different in nature to AWAs, the latter making it illegal to negotiate certain workplace conditions and against the law to bargain collectively (or even for employees to discuss between themselves the details of their workplace agreement).

The EBAs in place at our manufacturing facilities have helped make them flexible, competitive and easier to manage. As a result the Millicent Mill is a world class manufacturing site, one in which Kimberly-Clark has been happy to invest over $300 million over the last 5 years, ensuring 600 jobs remain in regional South Australia.

Full sick leave and holiday leave entitlements are enshrined in the Millicent Mill EBA, continuous shift workers even get 5 weeks holiday leave per year and the Mill is completely shut for 2 days over Christmas, not 1 as stated in the article.

These holiday and sick leave provisions are in line with workplaces around Australia.