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Uniting Food, Farm and Hotel Workers World-Wide


Industrial Action Coming at Foster's Yatala

Posted to the IUF website 04-Oct-2007

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A majority of the 300 Yatala workers have voted for industrial action after eight months of refusal by Foster's management to negotiate a union collective agreement. A first 4-hour work stoppage is scheduled for October 5 and will include a rally at Foster's Brisbane headquarters. Further action may follow. Yatala is the largest of the three facilities operated by the Australian brewer in its home country. (To read the background of this struggle click here).

While the majority of Yatala workers clearly expressed support for union representation and a union agreement by rejecting the company proposal for a non-union agreement in a company-controlled ballot last September 3, Foster's holds to its anti-union position.

According to LHMU Queensland Secretary Ron Monhaghan, "The vast majority of Yatala brewery employees want their wages and conditions set by a union collective agreement. That's the choice they've made, yet Foster's is ignoring that choice".

An international solidarity campaign co-ordinated by the IUF has so far generated more than 2000 protest messages to Foster's headquarters and local management and regularly informed affiliated unions at Foster's in other countries. (To send a protest message to Foster's corporate and plant management click here).

The Australian unions continue their nation-wide campaign, which includes a petition in support of the Yatala workers' demands and leafleting at Foster's-sponsored sport events to educate the wider Australian public about the fight for union rights at Foster's.