Anti-Loggers Locked in Behind Pickets
1/27/99
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Anti-Loggers Locked in Behind Pickets
Source: David Syme & Co
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 1/27/99
Byline: Andrea Carson
An anti-logging group is considering legal action against Otway timber
workers using a picket line to block its members from leaving a logging
site near Apollo Bay.
An Otway Ranges Environmental Network spokesman, MMr Adrian Whitehead,
said four protesters had escaped the enclosed site by trekking through
the bush yesterday, but eight protesters were still trapped behind the
picket lines with limited food.
Mr Whitehead said the logging protesters had set up a camp in the coupe
on Sunday to protest against the logging of hardwood in regrowth areas
of state forest.
``Our main concern is native logging in an area where the main employer
is tourism,'' he said.
The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, forestry division,
responded to the environmentalists' protest camp by
setting up picket lines on Monday. ``Since Monday they have not let any
of our members in or out,'' Mr Whitehead said.
The union's state secretary, Ms Jane Calvert, said timber workers were
``fed up'' with protesters disrupting their workplace and affecting
their livelihoods. ``It is an issue of safety for our members,'' she
said. ``The protesters lock on to machinery and camp outside the coupe
... and with protesters nearby you can never be too sure when they will
get in the way. It is not a safe place to work
in,'' she said.
Ms Calvert said about 200 loggers and allied timber industry workers
from the Colac Otway Shire, were manning the pickets around the clock.
She said the picket lines along Seaview Ridge Road stopped protesters
from leaving the logging site. Ms Calvert said it would remain until the
environmentalists promised to cease protest blockades in the
Otways.
``The workers have had enough. Logging is a seasonal job ... the men are
paid piece rates and have families to support,'' she said.
``The conservationists should direct their views at the decision-makers,
not the workers.''
Mr Whitehead said the loggers had verbally abused network members.
Both groups had reported vandalism on their property.
Apollo Bay police were patrolling the dispute.
(c) David Syme & Co 1999.