Sunday, November 13, 2005
DON’T BULLY THEM
While academics fuss and fret over planned industrial law changes, workers themselves are urging a tougher approach to wayward employees:
Scores of factory workers say they don’t want to work alongside the thugs who bashed cameramen outside a court where nine men were facing terrorism charges.
Three of five men who savagely beat a Channel 7 cameraman and hit a Herald Sun photographer outside the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday work at the Safeway distribution centre in Broadmeadows.
The centre, which employs more than 500 workers, has twice been brought to a standstill this week as management tries to ease rising tensions.
The company is standing up for the bashers:
At a crisis meeting yesterday dayshift workers were warned they faced the sack if caught bullying or harassing the men.
But one angry worker told the Herald Sun he could not understand why parent company Woolworths was protecting them.
“We don’t want them here,” he said. “Not all Muslims are terrorists, we know that. But beating up television crews ... that’s just un-Australian.
“This is the country I love ... the company needs to take a stance to protect us.”
Police vowed to track down the five goons. That was on Wednesday. By Friday, nothing had happened:
Staff at the Safeway distribution centre contacted Crimestoppers yesterday, urging authorities to arrest three co-workers as they arrived for duty.
The three were allegedly part of a group of five men who savagely bashed a Channel 7 cameraman and hit a Herald Sun photographer outside Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday.
The group was in court to support nine men facing terrorism charges.
“But it looks like nothing is going to happen to these guys,” one disgruntled worker said yesterday. “They came back to work laughing all the way to the bank. It’s a disgrace.”
Police were quicker to act last year when a Richmond fan was filmed spitting at players.