Bread Women write to Holmes A'Court

Date: 13 December 2000

BREAD CARTERS WIVES APPEAL TO
AUSTRALIA'S RICHEST WOMAN

Mrs Holmes A'Court is a director of the Goodman Fielder company which owns Buttercup.

The company is currently trying to contract out the jobs of about 20 drivers in the Australian Capital Territory. The union believes if they win in the ACT they will spread the strategy to all states and territories.

" Mrs Holmes A'Court is the only woman on the Goodman Fielder Board of Directors," Lyndal Ryan, the LHMU ACT Assistant Secretary, said today.

" The Buttercup wives are asking Mrs Holmes A'Court to intervene in a long standing dispute which threatens to slash family incomes.

" The company is taking a harsh stance - they are now threatening each of our members with legal action because they have organised community protests outside the gates of the Buttercup factory in Canberra's Fyshwick.

" The company is using every legal weapon given them by the harsh anti-union laws that Peter Reith has introduced.

" Mrs Holmes A'Court has a reputation for believing in the fair go. We don't believe she is in the Peter Reith mould.

" Her family traditions are steeped in the value of working people acting together collectively to improve their lot, to get a fair-go.

" We hope she will stand up for those Australian traditions now and stop the company taking such harsh action - especially with Xmas around the corner."

The LHMU proudly represents more than 150,000 hard working women and men throughout Australia.

For further info: Lyndal Ryan, ACT LHMU Assistant Secretary, 0411 643 982

Copy of Letter to Janet Holmes A'Court attached

------------------------------------------------------------

12th December 2000

Mrs Janet Homes A Court,

Chair,

Heytesbury Pty Ltd.,

PO Box 7225,

Cloister Square,

Perth. WA. 6850

Dear Mrs Holmes A Court,

We are the wives of the drivers who work for Goodman Fielder Buttercup in the ACT.

We are writing to you in your capacity as a Director of Goodman Fielder and the only woman on the board. We are hoping that as a woman you can best understand what has happened to our families as a result of the action Goodman Fielder have taken against our husbands.

In August of this year Buttercup management told our men that they were no longer wanted as employees. They could if they wished, form individual companies and apply for their jobs, not as employees, but as contractors. Why? Because Goodman Fielder say that contractors work harder and better than employees.

What an insult! What a nonsense! Turn a worker into a contractor and by magic he will become a better man!

This has been our husbands' reward for up to 20 years of delivering bread for Goodman Fielder. This is what we are told after years of hearing them get up in the middle of the night to turn up at work by 2.00 am (or some other ungodly hour) five or six days a week.

The very powerful and profitable Goodman Fielder Group have made us feel worthless. As if all this weren't bad enough Buttercup have refused to pay redundancy money to anyone who may consider driving as a contractor. To have our families livelihood under threat for months now is causing intolerable strain, to be facing such uncertainty without even the benefit of minimum redundancy pay is like losing your job and then being robbed.

We are now facing Christmas, our lives on hold since August. What are we to do? Take the kids to the coast? Can we afford it? Buy them a new bike - we might need the money later? Accept the bloody contract? Give up our legal rights? Accept the Buttercup lie that as workers our husbands are second rate but as contractors they will be acceptable?

We want you to intervene in our plight. We want you to make it your business to find our what has happened and is happening to the Canberra drivers, our husbands - and to stop it.

We have read the Goodman Fielder annual report. It is full of statements about increasing profits. It says nothing about treating people fairly and rewarding loyal service. Are these things important to you?

We desperately hope that you can see that profits should not be the only consideration.

Please help us, our children and husbands.

Intervene on our behalf. Help us to have a happy and peaceful Christmas.

Yours sincerely

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