Bluescope Steel faces more industrial strife after union delegates voted in favour of a 24-hour stoppage next Monday and to notify the company of possible strikes every day next week.
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Delegates at a meeting at the Australian Workers Union's Wollongong headquarters yesterday heard that the offer on the table from BlueScope would effectively mean just an 8 per cent pay rise over four years.
That was because the steelmaker wanted annual pay increases negotiated over the past eight months to be paid each November, rather than each February as in previous enterprise agreements.
The steel unions want the first 3 per cent increase to be paid this month - or when the agreement is signed - followed by agreed 2.5 per cent increases in February or March for the next two years.
AWU Port Kembla branch secretary Wayne Phillips said union negotiators had told the company when talks began in February that they wanted to include an end date for the new award.
"We know the last few EBAs have always been around February or March and that's when it has to be," he said.
"It's not our fault the company dragged out negotiations. They could have settled this ages ago.
"All they had to do was leave our current [conditions] alone, and then to abuse that by trying to extend this ... out by another eight months is not acceptable at all."
Mr Phillips said members had not received a pay increase since February 2011.
Union delegates yesterday voted unanimously in favour of a stoppage and mass meeting next Monday. They also agreed to send a message to BlueScope notifying the company of seven consecutive 24-hour strikes.
The move comes just weeks after steelworkers voted to accept an in-principle offer and end their campaign of rolling stoppages.
Delegate Risto Tancevski's supported taking action and said "enough is enough".
"Blokes in this company have bent over backwards and sacrificed to keep this place going and through bad decisions it just keeps going downhill," he said. "The directors and staff and solicitors have all collected their money and it's only the Port Kembla workforce that have suffered out of this.
"Nobody wants to go on strike and nobody wants to see the company fold, but nobody is going to accept being treated like a second-class citizen."
