CTU MEDIA RELEASE
24 July 2007

Victory for low paid workers over aggressive health contractor

“Spotless Services should never have dragged the chain over government funding that was not theirs to hold out on, and this was a completely unnecessary lockout,” CTU president Ross Wilson said today.

"Hospital kitchen staff, orderlies and cleaners are some of the poorest paid workers in the country. Many of them have been reliant on movements in the statutory minimum wage to see any increase in their pay."

“Public funding to lift their wages had been provided by government and this funding boost always needed to go straight to all workers, current and future, not sometime down the track at Spotless’ discretion.”

“It was unconscionable for the company to try and hold out on the hospital workers getting their pay increase.”

“These workers stood strong collectively in their union and wouldn’t let the company starve them back to work. Good on them,” Ross Wilson said.

ENDS

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