Coles locks out 350 workers for three months over wage rise demand

Industrial action by Coles workers prompts an extraordinary three-month lockout of staff.

Coles workers at a Sydney distribution centre face being locked out until February over wage demands. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

The United Workers Union has threatened to escalate its dispute with Coles after the supermarket giant locked out 350 distribution centre workers in Sydney until February and accused the union of “holding Christmas lunch ­hostage”.

Coles took the extraordinary action in response to legal industrial action by Smeaton Grange employees, who are demanding 5.5 per cent annual pay rises and redundancy entitlements equivalent to up to two years’ pay.

Coles chief operating officer Matt Swindells accused the union of “brainwashing” the workers and said Coles had moved to “protect Christmas” by making alternative arrangements to ­ensure its full range of products would continue to be offered to customers.

But ACTU secretary Sally McManus blasted the company’s conduct, labelling lockouts ­“un-Australian” and vowing that ­unions would back the workers.

“These … people worked tirelessly to carry the whole country through the pandemic, going to work when it has been dangerous to support us all,” she told The Weekend Australian on Friday.

“Now Coles is automating their jobs and locking them out over Christmas. The union movement will not let these workers, heroes of the pandemic, be treated in this way. We urge Coles to change their course of action and return to negotiations”

Coles has offered a 3.5 per cent annual pay rise to the Smeaton Grange workers, who are the highest-paid of any of its distrib­ution centre employees.

The company has also offered to increase redundancy provis­ions from a maximum of 52 weeks’ pay to a maximum of 80 weeks’ pay for involuntary redundancies resulting from the expected closure of the site in 2023.

Both offers have been rejected by the workers, with the UWU’s director of logistics, Matt Toner, slamming the three-month lockout as “unprecedented” in his time as a union official.

He accused Coles of an “aggressive” escalation of the dispute. Mr Toner said the locked-out workers had the support of other Coles employees, who had pledged financial aid. “The longer these disputes go on, the more they get escalated. It’s a well-known industrial fact,” he said. “It’s in everyone’s interests to ­resolve it.”

Mr Swindells said Coles was not prepared to have “Christmas lunch held hostage by the ­unreasonable demands”.

He said the union had been warned for months that the workers would be locked out if it ­embarked on the strikes.

In a notice of “employer response action” sent to the union’s national secretary, Tim Kennedy, Coles said the lockout would continue until February 11 next year “unless otherwise advised”.

Describing Smeaton Grange as a “rogue site”, he said the 3.5 per cent pay offer was “generous” in the current economic climate and Coles would not be changing its position. “The ball is in the union’s court,” Mr Swindells said.

Mr Toner said Coles had no right to complain about the 5,5 per cent pay claim when its chief executive increased his remuneration by 29 per cent in a year, and Coles had made “mega-profits on the back of its essential workers throughout the pandemic”.

He said Coles was building a new automated warehouse but had refused to give its skilled and long-serving warehouse workers in Smeaton Grange an opportunity to be redeployed there.