Two union delegates at a Woolworths liquor distribution centre in Melbourne’s outer west (MLDC) are facing the sack for union activity. 

The company gave the National Union of Workers delegates stand-down notices on 23 May after they spent the morning handing out leaflets and talking to their workmates in the tea room. Their activity was part of a union-initiated campaign to protect the job of an injured worker who had earlier been stood down by management. 

The company’s treatment of injured workers is a major issue at MLDC, where strain injuries are common. The two delegates had been campaigning about workers’ right to privacy after Woolworths management admitted that it was disciplining the injured worker because of secretly recorded mobile phone footage obtained of her engaging in recreational activities in her own time. 

The union’s “Woolies stop spying on us” campaign was only days old when the company retaliated against the delegates involved. The two who have been stood down were also leaders in a four-day strike at MLDC last August that took the company by surprise. The walkout – over the introduction of labour hire at the distribution centre – stopped liquor supplies to Dan Murphy’s and BWS stores across large parts of the country. 

With enterprise agreement negotiations at MLDC set to begin early in 2017, the company is looking for opportunities to break the union’s strength and prevent any future industrial action that could again cripple its liquor supply network. It will be a significant win for the company if it gets away with picking off union delegates for engaging in union activity.

 The campaign continues to save the delegates’ jobs and union strength at MLDC. Site meetings are being held to discuss how workers will respond to the company’s attack. Union members at MLDC know that any move against the rights of delegates to do basic workplace organising is an attack on the entire union movement.

Already, the MLDC delegates being targeted have received solidarity messages from workers in other distribution centres across the country, including Barnawartha and Hume in Victoria and Warwick in Queensland.