On Monday, July 11, a worker at the Denmark Rd dairy manufacturing facility was terminated by Lactalis, allegedly over claims of bullying and harassment.
The Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union and other staff believe the woman was terminated simply because she represented the union.
AMWU Victorian state secretary Tony Mavromatis attended the Echuca site on Wednesday, July 13 to have discussions with the workers before they decided to cease work.
“They know they are attacking a delegate who’s done nothing wrong. We asked the company to share the details (of the termination) and they haven’t done it,” Mr Mavromatis said.
“We don’t like to see workers on strike. We are asking for the company to uphold their EBA [enterprise bargaining agreement], which says delegates and shop stewards should be able to do their job as delegates and shop stewards.”
Mr Mavromatis said the woman had “never received a written warning in her life”.
Two days after the termination of the woman, who had apparently worked at the Echuca site for 12 years, the AMWU went to the media with a leaked email.
In the email — titled ‘WW3 Minute of our meeting last week’ — a Lactalis Australia employee summarised an internal meeting held about the union.
Dot points revolved around how Lactalis could “take the power back” at the Echuca site against a “union driven site model”.
Ideas included how Lactalis could “deal with the bad ones (between 5 to 10)”, change their management style from avoidance to facing difficult conversations so they could “test the reaction of our union delegates”, making managers and front line staff “stand in front of the union delegates” and preparing an “ambitious log of claims to make Echuca a workable place”.
“It was very disheartening to read because you think you’ve got a good working relationship with these people and they’re saying things like ‘WW3’,” Mr Mavromatis said.
“I rang the company today and I said it doesn’t have to go this way — just do the proper dispute procedure. Show us the details where our representative has harassed or bullied someone.”
Some staff ceased working on Thursday, July 14 and planned to keep putting pressure on Lactalis until the enterprise agreement is respected.
The strike ended on Saturday after the Fair Work Commission fast-tracked the unfair dismissal hearing involving the Lactalis Echuca worker.
Lactalis Australia, formerly Parmalat Australia, was contacted for comment.
