Fair Work orders end to union pickets at Woolworths

The supermarket giant will use non-union staff to try to resume operations at a key distribution centre, as some industrial action continues.

A picket line continues in Dandenong South at a distribution centre for Woolworths ahead of a Fair Work commission hearing. Picture: David Crosling

The Fair Work Commission has ordered the United Workers Union to end unlawful pickets at Woolworths’ warehouses by Friday night, with the supermarket giant to use non-union staff to try to start resuming operations at a key distribution centre as son as practicable.

But protected industrial action by 1500 UWU members is continuing, meaning questions remain over the capacity of Woolworths to replenish shelves left bare by the dispute, how soon it can be done. and at what level the warehouses can operate while workers are on strike.

Woolworths will direct non-union staff stood down during the dispute to resume work at its major facility at Dandenong South in Melbourne.

Commission deputy president Gerard Boyce upheld the company’s application to clear entry to four centres, finding unlawful picketing at Dandenong had occurred.

He agreed with Woolworths’ argument that the unlawful pickets were capricious and unfair and the union was not meeting its good faith bargaining requirements under the Fair Work Act.

Woolworths had accused the union of putting a “metaphorical gun to the head” of the supermarket giant by conducting “obstructive” pickets that have prevented vehicles and workers entering and leaving the distribution centre.

Marc Felman KC, representing Woolworths, argued that the unlawful pickets undermined collective bargaining, and that there were a substantial number of workers who wanted to end the indefinite strike action and return to work at the distribution centres.

Mr Felman said the pickets were interfering with the company’s attempts to combat the industrial action and were designed to put pressure on the company to accede to the union claims. He said the parties should be free to bargain without a “metaphorical gun to the head of an obstructive picket that stops Woolworths getting team members back to work”.

UWU national secretary Tim Kennedy, speaking away from the hearing, said the company action in the commission was a distraction that would do nothing to settle the dispute.

 He said he believed the issues in dispute between the union and the company were narrowing but the parties remained far apart over the operation of Woolworth’s employee performance management framework.

Union officials are pushing for the softening of the punitive elements of the framework which, before it was put on hold, used engineered standards to discipline or even dismiss workers for not meeting company-stipulated speeds of working.

“This is a first in the way the Woolworths is applying it,” Mr Kennedy said. “the issue for the union is this: when you privilege speed over safety, you create a dangerous situation. These warehouses are dangerous places to work in. People get injured in them. They can actually get killed in them. And if you privilege speed over safety, you can actually do a lot of damage.”

Woolworths says the framework is intended “to enable us to work with each team member to the best of their ability to ensure a fair approach to standards is applied to any personal circumstances or abilities”. It says safety is implicit in the standards, and the union is seeking to deny the company the ability to measure performance or manage underperformance.

Mr Kennedy said after 16 days of the dispute the company should sit in a room with the union and work out a settlement.

“Workers are not robots and should not be treated like robots. But this is exactly what Woolworths has been seeking to do for thousands of workers across their warehouses,” he said.

“I want to say thank you to shoppers across Australia, who continue to support our members and their fight.”