Inghams facing more strikes as tensions flare over offal

The United Workers Union announced more strikes at Inghams chicken processing sites as tensions flare over stinking offal.

United Workers Union national secretary Tm Kennedy.

Union members at Australia’s largest poultry producer, Inghams, have threatened rolling 24-hour strikes throughout this week, casting fresh doubt on chicken supplies, as tensions erupted over a large bin of stinking offal left near a union picket line.

The United Workers Union has given notice that members at the company’s South Australian operations intend to keep striking until Saturday while workers in Western Australia will strike for three days from Tuesday.

Inghams has commercial partnerships with Woolworths, Coles, Aldi, KFC, McDonald’s and Subway, and the union claims the industrial action will impact chicken supplies.

The Fair Work Commission will convene a conciliation hearing in Adelaide on Monday that will also consider a company application to end the strike action.

Union members are seeking an 18 per cent pay rise over three years – 6 per cent annually – while the company has offered pay rises totalling 10.9 per cent over the same period.

Tensions flared on Sunday when workers accused the company of placing a large bin of stinking offal metres from workers on the picket line in SA.

Union officials said temperatures reached 28C, intensifying the unpleasant odour.

An Inghams spokeswoman blamed union blockades, saying they resulted in the company not being able to “safely remove the offal processed on Friday”.

“Some of the offal has spilled from the trucks and been transferred to intermediate bulk containers and moved away from the main building to reduce concentration of the odour,” she said “Blocking access or egress to our site is not in line with planning, environmental, emergency protocols or safe work procedures and we are disappointed we have been forced to close the site.”

She said the SA plant was closed and would not be operational on Monday.

“We have a meeting with the Fair Work Commission at 9.30am Monday to attempt to negotiate a deal in good faith,” she said.

UWU national secretary Tim Kennedy said work would continue in Perth on Monday.

“If we don’t reach agreement tomorrow, there’s another 24-hour stoppage commencing there at midnight Monday night,” he said. “Both parties are in the commission tomorrow and we’re going there with a view to see if we can get a sensible outcome from the company.

“The discussions that have occurred indicate there is a willingness to try and resolve this so we’re hopeful tomorrow we can make some progress but you just don’t know.”

Mr Kennedy said the strikes would continue until there was a settlement. “Our view is we need to reach agreement for the ­actions to stop now,” he said.

“The workers are quite angry. They’re very upset.”

He said the company’s “management culture for a number of years has been quite brutal”, citing the example of workers who say their toilet breaks are either timed or request denied.

“This (dispute) is around cost of living but it’s morphing as ­people are angry with local management who have bullied them and now they are focusing on them,” he said.

“The longer this goes, all that pent-up anger about being treated appallingly with no respect whatsoever, and just treated like cattle, is all coming out.”