McCain Workers in Tasmania Are Fighting for Equal Pay
On average, Tasmanian workers are paid 10 percent less than mainlanders. After making huge sacrifices to maintain food supplies during the pandemic, workers at the McCain Foods plant in Smithton are now taking a stand for dignity against their bosses.
Manufacturing workers in Tasmania earn 10 percent less than the national average. (Photo via @MundayJessica / Twitter)
Workers at McCain Foods in Smithton, Tasmania, are fed up with being treated like the poor cousins of mainland Australian workers. They’re now demanding equal pay for equal work. Organized by the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU), the industrial action by about one hundred workers kicked off on July 22, on a gray and wet morning outside the factory gates.
AMWU organizer Mick Wickham received word that McCain had refused the workers’ demands for a modest pay raise and improved conditions to bring them in line with McCain workers in Victoria. According to Mickham, the union at the plant is strong: it was unionized before McCain took it over. Management’s counteroffer was below inflation: it would have left maintenance workers around $91 per week worse off, and production line workers at least $72 per week worse off.
When the AMWU members rejected this proposal, McCain ordered a lockout. The workers responded by planning a series of measures including refusing overtime, taking breaks at the same time to disrupt production, and declining to take calls during breaks.
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