Strike by more than 1,500 Woolworths warehouse workers enters second week

More than 1,500 workers at four Woolworths warehouses in Victoria and New South Wales (NSW) are continuing an indefinite strike that began on November 21. strike since November 22.

Additionally, workers at Woolworths’ Heathwood Chilled and Frozen Distribution Center (HCFDC) in Queensland walked off work for 24 hours yesterday.

Workers at the Woolworths warehouse in Heathwood, Brisbane, are on strike. (Photo: United Workers Union)

The strike has been called off due to workers’ demands for real wage increases in new enterprise agreements and an end to Framework’s punitive and dangerous performance monitoring system. Woolworths, Australia’s largest private sector employer and which reported a net profit of $1.71 billion last year, offered workers a nominal annual pay rise of just 3-4 per cent.

The continuation of the strike into a second week reflects the workers’ determination to fight. But this will require a rebellion against the United Workers Union (UWU) bureaucracy, which was working to secure the deal before the workers even walked off the job.

In the days leading up to the strike, UWU secretary Tim Kennedy publicly stated that Woolworths would only need to increase its meager offer of a 1 to 1.5 percent pay “rise” per year. In other words, the workers’ demands for an annual wage increase of 10–12 percent were abandoned even before the strike began.

The UWU’s petition to Woolworths CEO Amanda Bardwell makes the same point and makes no mention of wages at all. Instead, the petition plaintively calls on Bardwell to “meet with (union members) and listen to their stories” about the Framework.

Under this “framework”, Woolworths sets benchmarks for how long it should take to collect items from warehouse shelves, and then workers must complete their tasks within a set time to achieve a rating of 100 percent. Anything less than 100 percent is considered a failure, at which point workers are “consulted and may be subject to disciplinary action.” For many temporary employees working in Woolworths warehouses, this could mean redundancy.

At the end of each shift, workers’ evaluations are displayed on screens for all to see in an attempt to humiliate them into submission. This is intended to put maximum pressure on workers, increase productivity and allow the company to cut jobs without reducing production.

Working conditions, safety and harsh measures introduced to extract ever greater productivity and profit from workers are a major concern for workers at Woolworths, Lineage and the wider warehouse industry.

But workers should not have to pay for humane working conditions with real wage cuts. The UWU’s emphasis on the Framework, to the exclusion of wage discussions, is a clear sign that such a concession is in the works.

According to an article dated November 28 in Red flagWoolworths offered workers at its Erskine Park site in Sydney a “reduced system” that would see mandatory productivity requirements reduced from 100 per cent to 75 or 85 per cent. Given that what constitutes “100 percent” is constantly changing and is entirely in the hands of management, such a change would be essentially meaningless.

Although this was strongly rejected by workers, it illustrates the nature of the negotiations that take place behind closed doors. The UWU leadership and bureaucracy are trying to determine how much nominal change to the hated Framework is necessary before workers will reluctantly accept it.

But the insatiable demand for speed, close monitoring of workers, and harsh discipline of those deemed inadequate did not begin with the introduction of the Framework. These are the core practices of industrial capitalism, in place for over a century, and exacerbated since the 1970s by the globalization of production, computerization and, increasingly, systems driven by artificial intelligence.

The UWU opposes the widely hated Framework not because the bureaucracy resists management’s ever-increasing demands for productivity, but because the automated nature of the system threatens to exclude it from the process of imposing them, as all unions do. have been doing for decades.

This means that the only way to end these practices and achieve decent pay and conditions for warehouse workers is by fighting capitalism itself. This view is fought for by the Socialist Equality Party, and is one of the reasons why UWU officials go to great lengths to prevent striking workers from talking to AKP activists on picket lines.

The UWU’s hostility to the AKP is also based on the party’s exposure of the union’s rotten history of betraying and selling out workers in one major dispute after another, and a call for workers to draw the necessary conclusion from that history – that workers must take matters into their own hands.

The latest example occurred yesterday at the Heathwood site, where UWU officials immediately tried, but failed, to stop workers taking World Socialist Website articles and communication with AKP supporters.

The UWU organizer said: “These are our people. They decided not to talk to you, so go away.” Officials stood in front of the team, eager to block any discussion.

The young worker nevertheless made comments to the WSWS before being deliberately interrupted when UWU representatives suddenly called a meeting of workers on the picket line.

“It’s ridiculous that a billion-dollar company can’t scrape together enough to give us a fair deal,” he said. “They spend thousands of dollars on security and moving products, but for what?”

Some workers at the Heathwood site have read the WSWS before. One commented on the fact that senior UWU officials and other officials sit on the board of one of Woolworths’ largest shareholders, Australia’s Super Pty Ltd, giving union leaders a vested interest in increasing investment returns and therefore corporate profits.

The worker recalled that it was the Labor governments of Hawke and Keating in 1983–1997 that introduced the compulsory pension system. Under this scheme, workers’ real wages were slashed in favor of supposed employer contributions to these joint employer-union investment funds, resulting in billions of dollars being poured into the stock market. As a result, he said, the workers’ situation was much worse.

Another worker said the warehouse’s flat rate is only $33 an hour, which is not enough for workers with young families to live on. He said a recent study showed many people in Australia were even skipping meals.

In contrast to the anti-democratic actions of UWU officials to prevent workers from debating with the WSWS team, the same officials welcomed the presence of half a dozen members or supporters of the pseudo-left Socialist Alternative (SA), which defends the pro-union enterprise apparatus.

When these SA representatives were asked to speak out against UWU political censorship, they refused to do so. Instead, they declared their support for an attempt to ban any discussions with the WSWS team.

In addition, the UWU’s red carpet event at its Sydney and Melbourne sites this week was attended by numerous Labor MPs, as well as Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) secretary Sally McManus and president Michelle O’Neill.

ACTU Secretary Sally McManus addresses the media at Woolworths Erskine Park (Photo: United Workers Union)

Speaking at Erksine Park yesterday, McManus offered nothing but empty platitudes, telling workers: “I just want to say on behalf of every union that we stand with you.” The fact is that neither the ACTU nor any union did anything for the striking Woolworths workers. No other section of the workers was mobilized to support their struggle. This includes tens of thousands of other warehouse workers covered by the UWU, including at more than a dozen other Woolworths sites across the country, whose continued work will ensure that disruption to the company’s operations and profits is kept to a minimum.

The Labor government has overseen the worst hit to working class living conditions since the 1950s, with workers’ purchasing power falling by around 9 per cent over the last three years.

The ACTU, having intensified this crisis through divestment agreements across all industries, is now repeating Labour’s fraudulent claims of real wage growth. In an ad campaign launched recently with the slogan “Don’t take a chance on (federal Liberal Opposition Leader) Dutton”, McManus states: “We have to protect what we won.” Aware of the growing hostility to the federal government, the Labor Party is not mentioned by name, but the message is clear.

This should come as no surprise: the ACTU, like the UWU, is an integral part of the Labor Party and its pro-business government.

The UWU’s fraudulent promotion of these figures as allies of striking Woolworths workers – and the AKP as their enemies – should be seen as a dire warning.

To avoid another sell-out, striking Woolworths workers need to take matters out of the hands of the UWU bureaucracy. This means creating independent grassroots committees controlled by the workers themselves.

Such committees could appeal to Woolworths workers across the country for united action, as well as Coles workers and warehouse workers in general, who are all under attack. They must formulate demands that reflect the needs of the workers themselves, rather than what union officials and management think is possible. Workers should not be forced to pay for their safety and employment through real wage cuts!

First of all, a united struggle is required, based on a new political perspective – the struggle for workers’ governments pursuing socialist policies. Woolworths and Coles, along with other large corporations and banks, should be brought into public ownership and under democratic workers’ control.

Strike by more than 1,500 Woolworths warehouse workers enters second week

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