CUB’s plan to ‘shoot and starve’ workers out

A Carlton & United Breweries manager has suggested the company should ‘starve out’ workers during an industrial row.

Carlton & United Breweries has distanced the company from leaked documents in which a manager wrote the company should “shoot the shit out of” workers and “starve them out” to win an acrimonious industrial dispute at its Abbotsford brewery in Melbourne.

Leaked notes revealed at a Senate inquiry hearing yesterday were written by the brewery’s plant manager, Sebastian Siccita, last year when the company faced a damaging boycott of its beer products.

On a page headed “Win a War”, he allegedly wrote “shoot the shit out of them” and “cut their supply lines and starve them out”.

Quizzed during the hearing, Mr Siccita took questions about the document on notice.

But in a later CUB management statement, the company said: “The notes were written by one of the managers at the brewery during a difficult time in the dispute and did not reflect the strategy of CUB management, and were clearly not borne out by any actions that CUB took during the dispute.

“While it is disappointing that the manager’s missing notebook has been used in this fashion in a Senate committee, CUB and its new management team is ­focused on the future and good relations at all its worksites.”

The dispute was sparked when CUB changed contractors and 55 maintenance workers were offered their jobs back on substantially reduced pay. After the company’s new management approached Fair Work Commission president Iain Ross to broker a settlement, the 55 workers returned to their positions under what the ACTU called “fair and decent union terms and conditions”.

Electrical Trades Union Victorian secretary Troy Gray said the documents revealed the depths large corporations were willing to go to punish loyal workers, cut wages and ratchet up already skyrocketing profits.

“In 30 years I’ve never seen such a detailed, cruel battle plan from a manager so focused on cutting the wages of loyal, skilled workers who have given them decades of service and millions in profit,’’ he said.

“What these secret documents reveal is what overly powerful corporations are prepared to do when they think no one’s watching — when the system encourages them to go after working people and there aren’t the rules to rein them in.

“This is a glimpse into what unions are ­defending workers from every day. These ‘shoot and starve’ tactics are allowed by our current laws.’’

CUB’s representatives told the inquiry the company should have taken a more collaborative and consultative approach last year. The company now held monthly meetings with unions, and contractors were required to use enterprise agreements voted on by a representative sample of workers.