By Paul Oboohov
SYDNEY — Lion Nathan Corporation, owner of Toohey's Breweries, has been able to sack 192 workers and conduct a massive restructuring of its plant at Lidcombe following the collapse of strike action at the plant.
The Liquor Trades Section (LTU) of the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union (NSW) (LHMU), came to an agreement with the company early on the morning of August 30. At lunchtime the Liquor Trades workers, who are the vast majority of the workers at the plant, accepted the redundancies and restructuring deal almost unanimously at a meeting at Auburn Soccer Club.
They also voted to respect the continuing picket by maintenance workers. Within an hour, the maintenance workers who remained on strike, having learned of the vote, and also under threat by the company of forced police removal of the picket, accepted the redundancies by a vote of 40 to three.
During the previous week the company had attempted to break the picket line with assistance from police. Fifty middle-management scabs were bought in from Lion Nathan breweries in New Zealand, and scabs were recruited locally from four Sydney locations, including two universities.
A picket line was also in place at the Grafton Toohey's brewery where 28 Liquor Trades jobs were on the line. At the Newcastle Toohey's distribution centre, a picket was established by three Lidcombe workers and local metalworkers union officials, who stopped attempts to move a large amount of beer stock held there.
The metalworkers union (AMEU) in Sydney received a fax on August 31 from the United Food, Beverage and General Workers' Union workers at Speights Brewery (part of the Lion Nathan empire) in Dunedin, New Zealand. The New Zealand union congratulated the Toohey's workers on their stand on jobs, and condemned Lion Nathan for the use of middle-management scabs from New Zealand. It called for greater communication across the Tasman, and said that the dispute was one battle in an ongoing war.
The human aspect of the defeat is devastating. Quite a few of the younger workers will lose their mortgaged homes. Some skilled technicians may never work again. It is unlikely that the contractor taking over maintenance, Skilled Engineering, will rehire any of the original maintenance workers. The unskilled Liquor Trades workers will have to fend for themselves at a time of high unemployment.
Despite the average redundancy payout being in the vicinity of $30,000, excluding accumulated monies, it is understood that the Department of Social Security expects sacked workers to live off their accumulated annual and long service leave money before they can claim the dole.
A remarkable aspect of the deal offered by the company to the Liquor Trades section of the LHMU was a payment of $10,000 in "flexibility" money per worker, employed or sacked, to accept the redundancy and restructuring plan. This was not offered to the maintenance workers, and it no doubt played a big part in making up the minds of the Liquor Trades workers to accept the company's offer first.
With the elimination of the metal unions at the site, the right-wing Liquor Trades section of the LHMU now has a virtual monopoly of coverage of workers on the operations side of the plant. It was the Liquor Trades officials in Brisbane who also did a quick deal with management at the Fourex Castlemaine (Lion Nathan) brewery.
The defeat finalises a round of sackings by Lion Nathan at its breweries in Australia, including Swan in Perth, Fourex in Brisbane and now at the Toohey's plant. The only one that has not reported sackings is Lion Nathan's latest acquisition, SA Breweries in Adelaide.