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Vol. 73/No. 41      October 26, 2009

 
New Zealand strikers
challenge dairy bosses
 
BY JANET ROTH  
WAHAROA, New Zealand—Dairy workers walked the picket line outside the Open Country Cheese plant here September 19 to defend their union and jobs against a belligerent employer.

Dairy Workers Union members at the factory had begun a strike three days earlier, set to last eight days. Workers on the picket line said that in retaliation, the company—owned by Talleys, a major New Zealand food company—said it would lock them out for six weeks once the strike ended.

Strikers told the Militant they oppose company plans to “restructure” that include laying off workers for months during each off-peak season, thereby ending their current year-round employment, and changing their rostered hours and shifts. “We want more job security,” said Richard Van Nistelrooy, emphasizing a central demand of the strike.

Around half of the 65 process workers are striking. Still working are permanent employees who did not join the union, temporary employees, and permanent workers the company brought in from other plants.

On the picket line workers told of the company’s aggressive stance. One manager is facing allegations of physically assaulting a worker. With five hours to go in their last shift before the strike, Tracey Van Nistelrooy said she and other union members were ordered to empty out their lockers and leave. “They don’t want a union in at all,” she said. “But we won’t be bullied or intimidated by them.”

Workers said Talleys has a long record as an antiunion employer. A woman at its fish plant won a sexual discrimination case against the firm in 2007 when boss Andrew Talley wouldn’t let her become a fish filleter. “Talley said fish filleting wasn’t a job for a woman, and that she should be a pole-dancer instead!” said Viv Hannah.

Open Country Cheese has since sacked a temporary worker who had joined the picket outside of his work hours, and Dave Te Iringi, one of the two union delegates, for an alleged incident on the picket.

Workers hired as “temporaries” are employed by a separate agency set up by the company, and are not in the union. They are paid lower wages and laid off when work dries up. As part of the collective union contract they are fighting for, picketers said they want equal wages and permanent status for these workers within a definite period of their starting work.

On September 25 the Employment Court ruled the company lockout illegal. In response, the company suspended all the union members on full pay, claiming it had to investigate “sabotage” before allowing them back to work.
 
 
Related articles:
Tire workers in France fight frame-up by bosses
UK: hundreds mobilize against right-wing thugs
UK sanitation workers strike against wage cuts
How miners won fight against WWII no-strike laws  
 
 
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