AMWU video deliberately misleading

Cochlear today rejected the AMWU's latest Real people, Real stories video as untruthful and a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts.

Says Dr Chris Roberts, CEO of Cochlear: "At no time has Cochlear management ordered people to speak English.

"At no time has any employee been threatened with any loss of pay for not speaking English.

"In fact, in 2006 almost all of Cochlear's production workers indicated they wanted English as the preferred language in the workplace. Cochlear manufacturing staff is made up of over 30 nationalities. In the light of this, the employees themselves suggested in the best interests of teamwork and workplace etiquette, that English be the language in which they conversed in the workplace.

"Unfortunately this is a classic case of a union-led smear campaign on the back of a disagreement we had with them some months ago about putting our workers onto individual contracts."

"Most disturbing is the AMWU's deliberate attempt, through today's video launch, to misrepresent the disagreement as somehow related to the current debate around WorkChoices. Moving our manufacturing workers onto individual contracts has absolutely nothing to do with WorkChoices, nor does it have anything to do with AWAs.

"If this Real people, Real stories video is anything but "real", what does this say about the other videos the AMWU are running under this campaign?

"Cochlear is an iconic Australian company. We pay our employees 40% above the award rate, have recently given our staff an increase of 4% with a further 4% guaranteed for June 2008, each employee has received a total of $15,000 in shares over the past eight years and we have a staff turnover of less than 5% with a waiting list of people wanting to join our company."

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Contact: Dr Chris Roberts, CEO Cochlear
02 9428 6360