Workers at Baiada Poultry will take indefinite protected industrial action in their campaign for secure and permanent jobs starting THIS WEEK. 100% of returned ballots have indicated a 'yes' vote for industrial action, meaning every single worker in the plant has voted to strike!
Baiada is a company that murders workers in order to maximise profits. In August this year, Sarel Singh, 34, was killed instantly when he was sucked into a machine and decapitated while working at the Laverton Baiada poultry processing plant. Singh is a casualty of a management that in its race to cut costs, has forced workers to clean machinery running at full capacity.
Baiada is also notorious for employing sham contracting, cash paid workers, over-casualisation and piece rates in order to undermine the job security of workers. Workers are demanding an end to unethical and unlawful employment practices in the poultry industry.
A National Union of Workers picket line will begin at 6pm, Wednesday 9 November in Pipe Road, Laverton to ensure that not one truck leaves the facility until the workers of Baiada win all their demands
Baiada management have reportedly told workers at Laverton that they will "go to war" with them if they strike. The workers need your support, show your solidarity with the 99% on the picket line!
Occupy Laverton!
Comments
Management engaging 30 - 50 security guards on the gates
Baiada Laverton workers report that management will be engaging 30 - 50 security guards on the gates for the indefinite strike starting Wednesday 6pm.
Basic fact sheet on Baiada Laverton
Workforce/Ethnicity
There are approximately 430 workers regularly employed at Baiada Poultry in Laverton. Approximately 150 or 40% of these workers are employed as either cash in hand workers, contractors or labour hire workers. The NUW has had regular contact with contractors and cash in hand workers but has struggled to represent them because they lack basic collective bargaining rights enjoyed by other workers in Australia.
According to our site audit, 70% of Baiada Laverton’s workforce is Vietnamese with African, Indian and continental Europeans also strongly represented in the workforce. Only around 5% of the workforce is Anglo Saxon.
Workers employed as contractors, cash in hand and labour hire employees to work in Baiada’s Laverton plant are mostly migrants and a large percentage of them are also international students.
The NUW has lobbied the Federal Government to improve the Migration Act, the Migration Amendment Act, the Independent Contractors Act to ensure companies like Baiada cannot intimidate and exploit vulnerable members of the Australian community and prevent them from collectively bargaining for a living wage and better working conditions.
Baiada’s indirect employment model has lead to two deaths in six years, one on a farm and one in the Laverton processing facility, Baiada was considered culpable and was charged and fined by Work Safe Victoria for both incidents.
Bargaining
The NUW is bargaining with the company for a new agreement for the 284 workers directly employed by the company after the previous agreement expired on the July 31 2011. 210 of these workers are members of the National Union of Workers.
The NUW and Baiada have held four bargaining meetings.
The agreement put forward by the company includes significant reductions in conditions. The company wants to take away any form of meaningful protections in terms of minimum site rates, and conversion to permanent employment.
Our log of claims includes accountable regulation of contracting on site.
Protected Action
- A ballot was mailed out for protected action on the 18th of October
- The Ballot closed on November 2.
- 70% of the workers voted in the ballot and all 100% of those that voted support indefinite strike action
- Indefinite strike action will commence at 6pm Wednesday 9th November
Animal Rights Issues
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is currently taking Federal Court action against Baiada Poultry for misleading the community over their animal welfare standards. Animals Australia and other animal welfare and consumer advocate groups have welcomed the action.
Community Support for Baiada Workers
Vietnamese Western Suburbs Community Leader Tram Nguyen has worked closely with the National Union of Workers on our campaign to help Baiada Workers. Tram is employed as a Vietnamese Multicultural Aid at Sunshine Primary School and has also worked closely with the Brimbank Council. Community groups including the International Student Legal Advice Clinic (ISLAC) and the Victorian Immigrant and Refugee Women's Coalition are also partnering with the NUW to provide support for poultry workers including those employed by Baiada.
Baiada Company Profile
Baiada Poultry was established by Celestino and Giovanna Baiada in the late 1950s and the company is still owned by the extended Baiada family, which includes Simon and John Camilleri, grand children of Celestino and Giovanna Baiada. The Baiada family’s wealth was estimated at $495 million by BRW Magazine in June 2011.
Baiada Poultry is Australia’s leading poultry company and controls approximately 35% of the market and had revenue in 2009-2010 totalling $1,195 million, which will have significantly increase in 2011 after the company completed a significant takeover of a major competitor Bartter. Baiada are a private company and the directors and owners are very secretive about their financial position. Annual profit figures and executive pay details are not available. Simon Camilleri and Jean Mercieca are listed as the current Directors of Baiada Poultry.
Baiada is the primary poultry provider for Coles supermarkets. Baiada’s other major customers include, Coles, Woolworths, Aldi Nandos, KFC and Red Rooster. The company has processing operations in every Australian mainland state so a lock out at Laverton may not necessarily disrupt supply of chickens to Coles but would mean the company would have to transport poultry from interstate to service their Victorian supermarkets as well as the company’s other customers. Baiada workers in WA, SA and Victoria are represented by the NUW while workers in NSW and QLD are represented by the AMEIU.
Donations sought for the picket line
DONATE TO THE BAIADA PICKET LINE:
Donations are gratefully accepted by Workers Solidarty Network to provide support to the Baiada Laverton Picket Line. Donations to Workers Solidarity Network (Baiada Strike) should be deposited to:
Carboni Workers Club
... BSB: 803226
Acc: 10077
After union pickets' violence I say let them starve
After seeing the violence perpetrated by union members on the picket line I say let them starve. Violence has no place in Australia.
Pretty close to slave labour of new migrants
Don't agree with violence? Is decapitation violent enough for you? Let's not forget this isn't just about wage rights. Someone lost their life due to a company's loyalty to financial savings not safety.
As for a comment about people wanting to work to feed their families. Did you read the information above? 100% of staff wanted to strike. Of course they want to provide for their families, the point is to earn the rights and wages that they are entitled too, in line with other industries in Australia.
What is happening at Baiada is cutting pretty close to slave labour of new migrants. Taking advantage of people with limited options for corporations financial gain. It disgusts me, as do ignorant comments.
Bottom line: call in workplace health and safety or find new job
You can't condone violence because of workplace accidents. How about the army shoots civilians because it lost 3 more soldiers recently or the members of the transport industry bash motorists because yet another truck driver died on our roads (something which by the way is regarded as a road toll statistic instead of a workplace accident and which also I must point out these drivers die due to trying feed their family in an ever increasing effort by the major companies to increase their profits by decreasing everyone elses).
As for your comments about keeping wages inline with other industries, which industries do you mean. Mining, I.T, teaching etc. They are all different wages, but if you your willing to pay 40$ for one frozen chicken perhaps Baiada can increase their wages to $30 per hour for the staff. But yet again if they struggle for a fair pay how can they afford to strike and receive no pay at all?
This is just un Australian, we do not support this type of behaviour and as for the knuckledragging union officials on this picketline, they should pull there head out of the sand and wake up to themselves.
Bottomline is, job unsafe call in workplace health and safety. Not enough pay, find higher paying job. As for slave labour, the government calls that minimum wage. I stopped working for that years ago and educated myself for a better life so I can move forward.
Maybe this makes too much sense what I've written, so lets all go join the picketline and start thumping innocent security guards trying to earn a reasonable living(the same reason these people are striking).
Just wake up you rockapes and sort your shit out in a more professional approach and you might just get what you are entitled to.
Cowardly morons damaging that dude's car lost me as a supporter
Agree Outraged. There is no place for it. Cowardly morons ganging up and damaging that dudes car lost me as a supporter.
What about those who want to work and feed their families?
what about other people who wont to work and make money to feed there family. not right by union ,union is after baiada people not employees of laverton plant shame on you idiots
Time to come clean NUW....this is just a grab for more money
There are two sides to every story.
Funny how the union want increased revenue via fleecing the pockets of the workers under various masks.
How do I know, I used to be a union offical.
Time to come clean NUW....this is just a grab for more money from hard working australian families.
Ten times the pay back in Da Nang or Hue just a few weeks ago
The morons of the NUW (Now Unemployed Workers) and their rent-a-thugs won't be content until not just those poor Vietnamese chaps who didn't understand what they're signing up for, but the 400 other workers and staff have lost their jobs.
And they haven't realised yet they made themself unemployable at any job agency between here and the Limpopo river. Baiada is not the State Government, you don't pissfart around with a private family company of that calibre. They pull the plug in a whiff and you can eat frozen chicken from China. Nobody wants to invest and produce in Victoria under those conditions.
If you want to picket someone, go picket Coles and Wollies, who buy a kilo of chicken fillet for $5 - and want it cheaper every month - and sell it to you for twice and thrice that much. Don't you think Baiada would love to sell it for more and pay everyone that works there a bit more? Bloody mindless dumbwits those union thugs are.
Yes, it's bloody cold in there to keep the meat fresh, and it's not a nice place to work aand not much of a pay. But what do you expect for unqualified people to earn who have no qualification and can hardly speak the language? It's still ten times as much as just a few weeks ago back in Da Nang or Hue. Get real!
Community picket for Baiada poultry workers - Silly NUW
I agree with the two previous comments.
The union don't give a sh#t about workers or their rights. The union cares about two things, power and money. Period.
The unions thuggery hidden under the base lies of 'workers rights', 'safety' etc, drummed up with the 1880's class war of bad bosses and exploited poor workers...is, unfortunately, hypnotic to those who know no different.
It smacks of union exploitation of the workers to extract money from them.
Now we have another union blackmail (Oops FWA) situation. Great a kangaroo court filled with ex-union officals!
Baiadia...stick to your guns. Close the plant down if required and re-located to NZ.
Australia is known throughout the world as a difficult to set up business due to it's IR environment....do what other organisations do....by pass Australia.
The Unions have helped off shore call centres, manufacturing.....soon it will be the vehicle industry...then, maybe, the chicken processing industry.......Send it to China. (maybe the corrupt union officals are actually sit in's for the Chinese Communist Party...and this is all a ploy to send work to China)
The sooner Australia is rid of this union vermin the better.....then we can start to reclaim the mantle of The Lucky Country.
Thanks NUW...your doing a great job fu##ing up Australia.
China...The Rucky Country.
If you love this country, stand with workers for fair pay
If someone attempted to run me over with their car, I'd throw a few punches as well.
Of course companies will look to bypass Australia we pay our workers more. It's cheaper simple economics. None of this should override the fact that if you love this country and believe in it's principals then you should stand with workers attempting to earn a fair days pay for the work they do. If some of the people responding here were to actually have thing their way, do they seriously understand what would come about? I think not, Actually I don't think any have done a hard days work in there lives, if they had they would understand something of what is going on here.
You know there was once a time when we celebrated unions for giving us the 8 hour working day. Yet in 2011 we now see people working far longer shifts, there is less permanent work and more and more of us are being pushed into casual and part-time employment so before shooting off at the lip because you think the 'reds under the bed' are trying to kill our Nation actually take a look at your fellow Australian, your middle class wage earner ask him how he's doing. See if he could use more breaks, better pay, and a safer work place because Mstes it's the unions who will fight for him, and you.
Good 100 year ago, unions are now just farking us all over
Were you even watching what happened with that guard? He'd stopped at the picket. It was the thugs on the line that ratchetted that situation up. They took his keys and laid into him. How could he attempt to run them down with a car that wouldn't start and on a flat driveway?
100 years ago we would have been farked without the unions, yes they did some good but now they're just farking us all over.
They wouldent even take phone calls as no one wanted to strike
I am a worker at baiada, Some point to tell you are the union is full of shit, 430 workers only around 50 are out on strike the rest dont support them,The union got everyone to vote to strike so they could use it as a bargining tool in the negotiations and then we dont here from them for weeks and then they send a text saying we are going on strike,they wouldent even take members phone calls as no one wanted to strike.and for sarel singh i was there on the night he died and it was up to the cleaning company to stop the machines and this was just an accident now the union is trying to use it to there adventage. and these migrant worker are hired though agences not directly by the company so the union should attack the agences not the company and for all the casual workers well thats just the way australia is going and belive me there is plenty of perment workers there.The union and some media are just trying to spin this story to make baiada some horrible company but they are good to work for and i hope the rest of us workers dont lose aw jobs because of the union. Or all of you guys will be paying us the dole
Most companies won't have a bar of strike enforcers
Well done union & profession protesters.not only 430 process workers losing their jobs,so will the farm hands,admin staff and truckies.
All chicken will now come from interstate.
union officials now barred from site are doing their 9 to 5 jobs easy now they have incited the mass(who mostly don't work at the plant).I hope the NUW has positions for all these unemployable people now as most companies will not have a bar of anyone known to be a strike enforcer.
Huge Bendigo meat factory died because of union antics
Last Friday, the situation was very clear. The 'union officials' supposedly evicted from the picket line have been replaced by 'organizers' from the NUW from other places. I met one of them, was followed by another, and they tried to 'manage' information with extreme tactics. The LAST think they want, is for some person to actually tell some truth to the strikers.
As another commenter said "Power and Money" that's it. I wonder if the outside Union 'supporters' (in fact 'organizers/string pullers') are willing to bring along their real pay slips or tax returns from the last financial year?
The violence by serial pest "fat boy not so slim" in the blue shirt (he has a very noticable face) has not gone un-noticed nor un-reported (for his vicious, violent and criminal attack on the security guard.) I hope he familiarizes himself with available defences to "Affray, Riot, Assault, criminal damage"...he might need to.
I wonder how peaceful the workers will be if a bloke rocks up with a megaphone and educates them about what they'll do for work when Baiada does in fact follow the advice of a previous poster and shuts down and relocates ? Whine alllll you like.. they won't come back and you WON'T have a job! Call the union then to pay you... Baiada won't.
If anyone doubts that this could happen.. they need only go for a drive to Bendigo and see the decaying carcus of what was once Castlemaine Hams... a huge factory MUCH bigger than Baiada... empty.. dead... rotting.. all because of Union antics. Sad but true.