Workers at Caltex’s lubrication manufacturing plant and distribution centre in Brisbane are on strike indefinitely. They are protesting a proposal by their employer which will cut effective pay rates on site by 15 to 20 percent.

The site is solidly unionised with the National Union of Workers. It is the first time on strike for nearly all involved and morale is high. Workers are confident that the company needs their labour, and laughed when recounting how they walked off a few hours earlier than the bosses had anticipated, derailing the company’s plans to squeeze out a few last minute orders.

On the first day, 24 October, numerous truck drivers, who often knew the workers by name, turned their trucks around rather than cross the picket line. Other trucks were defiantly blocked and left empty handed.

The workers produce all of the lubricants and motor oils for Caltex in Australia. Billy, a worker in the oil gantry who spoke to Red Flag estimates that the site produces around 400,000 to 500,000 litres of oil every week, with many trucks leaving the site bound for mines across Queensland and interstate. Caltex Australia is a fuel industry giant, posting a profit of $522 million in the last financial year.

Despite the Brisbane lubrication plant producing a significant portion of these profits, the company has this year decided to drastically reduce staff numbers. Thirty workers have been forcibly made redundant over the last two years, including 11 just after negotiations for a new enterprise agreement started six months ago.

The key element of the agreement proposed by Caltex is a reduction in the working week from 42 to 38 hours. The proposal includes scrapping two hours of overtime work paid at 160 percent of the standard rate. The company is also trying to cap redundancy payouts at 55 weeks, down from 63, and cut superannuation contributions. In contrast, the workers want to retain existing conditions and win inflation-level pay increases.

A worker in the grease plant described how the workload has intensified after the recent sackings, and that a further reduction in hours would make the pay and conditions unbearable. Temperatures in the grease plant regularly surpass 60 degrees, while managers “work” in air-conditioned offices.

The National Union of Workers is encouraging all those willing and able to offer solidarity to get down to 1 Tanker St, Lytton Brisbane to stand with workers battling to retain hard won wages and conditions.