Welshpool firm James Hardy and Co is set to become the 50th Western Australian company to have negotiated an enterprise agreement with its staff.
When the company's application is ratified by the Industrial Relations Commission, it will bring to around 35,000 the number of West Australian workers who have exchanged productivity gains for pay or work conditions.
Productivity and Labour Relations Minister Yvonne Henderson will visit the firm's hardboard factory this morning to celebrate the milestone in improved work practices and productivity in this State.
Mrs Henderson will meet the workers who got together with their union and management to strike a deal on top of their award pay and conditions.
They have accepted a pay rise in exchange for higher production targets.
Mrs Henderson said that WA firms had registered 46 enterprise bargaining agreements in the WA and Australian Industrial Relations Commissions since July last year.
They included such companies as West Australian Newspapers, Swan Brewery, Coates Hire, CSBP and Farmers Ltd., Alcoa, Worsley Alumina Refinery and Westrail.
"The success of enterprise bargaining agreements supports the Government's consultative approach to workplace change and improved productivity," Mrs Henderson said.
"It is happening in this State, quietly and successfully, and all Western Australians are benefiting from improved worker morale and improved productivity."
Mrs Henderson said Western Australia's growth in productivity had been higher than the Australian average over the past 10 years - 1.8 per cent growth compared with the Australian average of 1.1 per cent.
It had no doubt also contributed to the State's lowest ever rate of days lost through industrial disputes.
The latest ABS dispute figures of 91 days lost per thousand employees, was the lowest since monthly disputation records were first kept in 1959.
Mrs Henderson said disputes would increase in number and duration under a Liberal government, which planned to do away with compulsory arbitration.
Worker morale would decrease dramatically with the uncertainty of individual contracts and this would reflect on the State's good standing in productivity growth.
