NSW: Beer-drinking newspaper printers win back their jobs

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NSW: Beer-drinking newspaper printers win back their jobs

By Kylie Walker, Industrial Reporter

SYDNEY, Aug 27 AAP - Four Nationwide News printers planned to celebrate with tea andbiscuits after today winning back the jobs they lost for drinking beer during their lunchbreak.

The printers were fired in mid-2002 after they were caught on video drinking beer duringwork hours, just days after the company told employees it would not tolerate any consumptionof alcohol at its new Chullora plant in Sydney.

Today Nationwide News - which prints Rupert Murdoch's The Australian and The DailyTelegraph - lost its appeal against an order made by the Australian Industrial RelationsCommission (AIRC) in February that the men be given back their jobs.

The men were keen to return to work after being at home on full pay for the six monthsit took for the appeal to be heard by the full bench of the AIRC, the Australian ManufacturingWorkers' Union printing division secretary Amanda Perkins said.

"They are really keen to work so we'll be contacting the company to talk about howthey are going to return," Ms Perkins told AAP.

"They're not going to be celebrating with a drink though, more like tea and biscuits."

The full bench upheld Commissioner Frank Raffaelli's finding that the terminationswere "harsh" given the four workers' length of service and the lack of previous warnings.

However, the AIRC agreed Nationwide News had a valid reason for firing the men.

"The commissioner ... said that he endorsed the (company's) determination to enforceits no drinking policy," the AIRC decision stated.

"He said that in the future, if employees subject to the policy were found to havebreached it and had their services terminated, they might be advised not to waste theirtime and effort making application to the commission.

"We endorse the comments made by the commissioner."

Regardless of the warning, Ms Perkins described the decision as "a fantastic victory".

"We beat Rupert Murdoch," she said.

"The union supports drug and alcohol policies and we don't support drinking duringwork hours but the policy has to be fair and applied equally."

Nationwide News was expected to comment on the decision later today.

AAP kbw/nf/cjh/de

KEYWORD: BEERS