Live Breaking News & Updates on Coles Smeaton Grange|Page 5
Stay updated with breaking news from Coles smeaton grange. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
Australia: McCormick Foods workers strike after five-year wage freeze Nearly 100 workers at the McCormick Foods factory in the Melbourne suburb of Clayton began indefinite strike action on February 26. The industrial action follows a five-year long wage freeze and company plans to slash conditions and penalty rates of the workforce, which is covered by the United Workers Union (UWU). McCormick Foods Australia is part of a US-based Fortune 1,000 corporation that is one of the largest producers of herbs and spices in the world. Globally, McCormick has 13,000 employees and annual revenues of more than $4 billion. As well as processing McCormick-branded spices, the Melbourne plant supplies condiments to fast-food outlets KFC, McDonalds, Hungry Jacks, Subway and others. Supermarket chains Aldi, Woolworths and Costco also source food products from McCormick, with Keens mustard, Aeroplane jelly and Gourmet Garden among the lines produced at the Clayton factory. ....
SEP meeting in Australia discusses political issues facing locked-out Coles workers and the need for independent rank-and-file organisations Last Saturday, the Socialist Equality Party held a well-attended public meeting to discuss how to take forward the struggle of the Coles Smeaton Grange warehouse workers in southwest Sydney and to consider the political issues confronting the working class. Over 80 people from all Australian states, including workers, students and youth, participated. The full video of the meeting can be viewed below. The meeting was held five days after the Smeaton Grange workers, who have been locked out for almost three months, voted down yet another attempt by the supermarket corporation and the United Workers Union (UWU) to impose a sellout enterprise bargaining agreement. ....
The working class everywhere must come to the defence of the locked-out Smeaton Grange workers and begin preparing concrete actions to strengthen their fight and break the isolation being imposed by the union. ....
Australia: Peters Ice Cream workers reject wage cutting drive wsws.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wsws.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Coles’ approach stands in stark contrast to its rival Woolworths, which recently set aside $50 million to help transition its employees. Workers at Smeaton Grange recently narrowly voted against a Coles agreement offer for the sixth time. This was despite the company putting forward a $1000 sign-on payment as an enticement for support. United Workers Union members (the main union covering Coles workers) are urgently calling on the union to activate a strike fund to help them and their families survive against Coles’ blatant attempt to starve them out. One Smeaton Grange warehouse worker told a rally against gas in Sydney on February 5: “Giant corporations like HSBC, JP Morgan, Citigroup and National Nominees, which own Coles, are the same mob which own the Big Four [banks]. They also have money entrenched in the gas industry. ....