The workers that make well-known brands such as Old El Paso and Latina Fresh pasta will start indefinite strike\u00a0action today after negotiations over pay and conditions broke down. Workers are members of the United Workers\u00a0Union (UWU) and have been negotiating with the company since the beginning of this year. There are\u00a0approximately 150 workers at the factory.<\/p>\n
General Mills is one of the largest food manufacturing companies in the world, owned by a US company that\u00a0made over $26 billion in 2019-2020. Over the last decade, workers at Rooty Hill \u2013 General Mills\u2019 only Australian\u00a0factory \u2013 have experienced increased casualisation and sluggish wage outcomes. Throughout the COVID-19\u00a0pandemic these essential food workers worked extra-long hours to keep up with increased demand. Negotiations\u00a0should reflect their hard work through this high risk, high stress period.<\/p>\n
However General Mills came out swinging with a plan to vastly reduce workers\u2019 rights and conditions, increase\u00a0obligations for weekend work, no new permanent jobs and a final wage offer of 2%, 1.25%, 1.25% over three\u00a0years, with no back pay. General Mills\u2019 global profits have increased by almost 40% over the last five years.<\/p>\n
Many workers at General Mills have been employed for decades and helped the company build a large and\u00a0profitable Australian operation. Casual labour hire workers, including many who have been stuck in indirect\u00a0insecure employment for more than five years, have moved through two or more different agencies and\u00a0desperately want to be employed directly by General Mills in secure jobs.<\/p>\n
Quotes attributable to Susie Allison, UWU National Director of Food and Beverages<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWorkers\u2019 demands are simple: a fair and respectful wage increase and access to permanent secure jobs for all\u00a0workers.<\/p>\n \u201cInsecure work hurts workers and families, having a pathway to secure, permanent jobs should be a minimum\u00a0standard at a large and profitable company like General Mills. The way the company is behaving is an absolute\u00a0disgrace.\u201d<\/p>\n Quotes attributable to workers that want to remain anonymous for fear of recrimination:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWe worked so hard during the pandemic, risking our health and the health of our families. All our efforts were\u00a0not valued but General Mills \u2013 they made a huge profit and are treating us like we are nothing.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are essential food workers. We kept producing food for everyone during the pandemic and now the company\u00a0thinks I\u2019m worth only 51 cents more! I am so angry, everything is so much more expensive and I struggle to pay\u00a0my bills and buy food. The company made a fortune and this is what they think of us.\u201d<\/p>\n WHEN: 8 am TODAY, Friday 4 June<\/p>\n WHERE: 16 Kellogg Road, Rooty Hill NSW<\/p>\n WHAT: Food workers strike indefinitely for secure jobs and a pay increase.<\/p>\n WHO: UWU spokesperson Tom Sayers<\/p>\n ENDS<\/p>\n Media Contact: 1300 898 633, media@unitedworkers.org.au<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The workers that make well-known brands such as Old El Paso and Latina Fresh pasta will start indefinite strike\u00a0action today after negotiations over pay and conditions broke down. Workers are members of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[202],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21471"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65310,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21471\/revisions\/65310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}