About 60 workers at the Port Kembla Coal Terminal (PKCT) were locked out again on February 15 as the company tries to force workers to accept cuts to their wages and conditions. PKCT is locking out workers every time a ship arrives and replacing them with a temporary workforce to operate the terminal. This is their new corporate strategy — revealed in leaked documents that outlined a plan to sack and casualise the workforce. The lockout is an attempt to starve workers into submission.
lock out
Workers at the PPG paint manufacturing plant at Villawood have been locked out for more than three months in a bitter dispute over pay and conditions.
The multinational company, which makes Taubmans, Bristol and White Knight paints, locked out 57 workers on August 10 after they refused to cancel legal industrial action during negotiations for a new enterprise agreement.
Multinational timber industry giant Carter Holt Harvey has indefinitely locked out about 150 workers who are members of the Electrical Trades Union; Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union; and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union at the company's Myrtleford plyboard manufacturing site.
The lock out began at 2.30am on April 19.
It follows a breakdown in enterprise agreement negotiations between the company and unions.
About 65 workers at the Parmalat dairy factory in Echuca, Victoria, have been locked out since January 18 in a dispute over the company's plan to radically slash pay for new employees.
Parmalat is a national dairy company, whose brands include Pauls, Oak and Vaalia. In February last year it was bought by French-based company Lactalis, the largest dairy manufacturing company in the world. Emmanuel Besnier, CEO of Lactalis, has a personal worth of $6.7 billion and in 2015, Parmalat Australia’s sales revenue was $1.65 billion.