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More industrial unrest at Sunbeam Foods

Posted on October 28, 2011

DEAL, OR NO DEAL: Australian Workers Union Victorian secretary Cesar Melhem.

By BEN PISCIONERI

Forty-five Australian Workers Union members employed by Sunbeam Foods’ processing arm took industrial action for the second time in four days this week, stopping work for four hours on Tuesday.

The first stop-work action took place last Friday.

And the company has been threatened with more industrial action if an agreement over wages and redundancy conditions isn’t reached soon.

A union claim for a four percent annual pay increase and a 52-week cap on redundancy payouts for the duration of the three-year Enterprise Agreement lies at the heart of the dispute.

AWU Victorian secretary, Cesar Melhem, said while there has been some progress since negotiations started in June this year, Sunbeam Foods hasn’t increased its offer of 3.25 percent in the first year followed by a 3.5 percent and 4 percent increase in the second and third years.

Sunbeam Foods has also offered a 45-week cap on redundancy payouts, instead of the 52-week cap the AWU is calling for.

Mr Melhem said the belief that wages should generally be lower in country areas than in metropolitan centres may be behind the Sunbeam offer currently on the table.

“It is difficult not to reach the conclusion that the company is attempting to hold out these workers because they are employed in a regional area,” he said after last week’s first round of stop-work action.

“It’s always been the view of some businesses that workers in regional Victoria don’t have to be paid as much as in metropolitan areas.

“In some cases it costs more to run a household in regional Victoria than in the big cities, with the price of fuel and access to services, so we’re saying if anything that regional workers should be paid more not less.”

Mr Melhem said this week’s second round of industrial action had failed to produce any movement in negotiations.

He said Sunbeam should be prepared for more disruptions if an agreement couldn’t be reached.

“Regrettably more industrial action will take place until a satisfactory agreement is reached in relation to wages and redundancies,” Mr Melhem said.

He said this could include an escalation in industrial action “in the next couple of weeks” that “could be four hours or it could be all day or various other forms of action.”

Sunbeam Foods was contacted in relation to this story but chose not to comment on the issue.

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