{"id":68761,"date":"2025-09-04T06:09:32","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T20:09:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging2\/?p=68761"},"modified":"2025-09-11T16:20:48","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T06:20:48","slug":"udder-chaos-fonterra-dairy-workers-on-strike-over-two-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging2\/media-release\/udder-chaos-fonterra-dairy-workers-on-strike-over-two-days\/","title":{"rendered":"UDDER CHAOS: FONTERRA DAIRY WORKERS ON STRIKE OVER TWO DAYS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\nWhat:\u00a0<\/strong><\/td>\nFonterra dairy workers take strike action over Fonterra\u2019s refusal to provide a secure future for workers as company sale looms<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 When:<\/strong><\/td>\nThursday 4 September, Friday 5 September: Multi-hour stop work: 1pm to 3pm and 4pm to 6pm<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\nWhere:<\/strong><\/td>\nFonterra Bayswater: Unit 1\/48 Jersey Road, Baywater VIC, 3153<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\nWho:\u00a0<\/strong><\/td>\nUnited Workers Union dairy workers, United Workers Union South East Dairy Organiser Dave Harris<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

With the sale of Fonterra Australia to French dairy juggernaut Lactalis looming, dairy workers at Fonterra\u2019s Bayswater site aren\u2019t backing down from their fight for a secure future in the dairy industry.<\/p>\n

United Workers Union members will walk off the job today (EDS: Thursday 4 September) and tomorrow (Friday 5 September) as the standoff over improved pay and conditions at the site intensifies.<\/p>\n

Fonterra Australia, valued at $4 billion, has so far failed to provide an updated offer since the first walk out on August 22.<\/p>\n

United Workers Union members are pushing for a 4-year agreement, to give workers stability across a time of uncertainty with the company\u2019s looming sale.<\/p>\n

Members are also fighting for an increase to the redundancy payout by 8 weeks to 60 weeks, as well as work health-and-safety improvements, including heavy-lifting equipment, a heavy lifting allowance and chemical allowance.<\/p>\n

As it stands, Fonterra\u2019s current offer fails to address workers concerns about insufficient redundancy payouts, and urgent work health and safety improvements needed by Bayswater workers.<\/p>\n

The two-day strike action will see over 80 workers walk off the Baywater site in a resounding rejection of the company\u2019s current offer.<\/p>\n

United Workers Union members at Bayswater have reserved their right to take further protected industrial action, unless an agreement is reached.<\/p>\n

Attributable to Neil Smith, United Workers Union National Dairy Coordinator:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOur members at Bayswater are resolute; they want to see Fonterra Australia commit to the workers who built this company that they will provide them with a financially secure future. This means agreeing to an improved redundancy payout and addressing work health and safety concerns at the site.<\/p>\n

\u201cFonterra recently said in the media that they make \u2018improvements to health, safety and wellbeing procedures based on their teams\u2019 recommendations’.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, your team on the floor running the day-to-day operations of your business have been telling you for the past 6 months that it\u2019s a work health and safety risk to be lugging 20kg of cheese, unassisted, and that they need lifting devices.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, Fonterra management get to walk away with a nice company buyout and hefty bonuses, while our members are left to keep the milk flowing and butter churning. All our members are asking for is a secure future for them and their families. That is why they are taking this stand today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What:\u00a0 Fonterra dairy workers take strike action over Fonterra\u2019s refusal to provide a secure future for workers as company sale looms \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 When: Thursday 4 September, Friday 5 September:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":68474,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[104],"class_list":["post-68761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media-release","tag-dairy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68761"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68767,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68761\/revisions\/68767"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}