The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF) has launched an online campaign calling on New Zealand’s Open Country Cheese company to end its lockout and desist from intimidating its workers from joining a union.

Open Country Cheese locked out its Waikato workers for six weeks for seeking a collective agreement with basic redundancy and transfer of undertakings protection. After having the employment court rule the lockout illegal Open Country Cheese then suspended 36 of the workers instead. The company maintains that all workers are suspended pending an investigation of alleged sabotage, though neither the union nor any of its members have received suspension letters and the union strenuously denied any involvement in alleged sabotage.

The Dairy Workers Union has not been involved in a strike for 20 years. Dairy Workers Union national secretary James Ritchie outlines the moderate claims the workers are seeking:

“There is no wage claim on the table. Workers are seeking a collective agreement which protects them from being made temporary or casual at any time. They want a say on how their rosters and hours of work can be changed so their family lives are not disrupted without notice and consultation. They want temp workers to be paid the same rate for the job after 3 months. They want temp workers to be made permanent after 11 months service. They want redundancy compensation if made redundant and they want to be paid for a meal break if they can’t leave the plant. Most of all they want to be treated as human beings – not a commodity to be tossed aside when no longer required. They want decent jobs.”