In case you hadn't heard, Australian Unions (and the AMWU in particular) are calling for a boycott of Streets Ice Cream this summer.
Apparently the Enterprise Agreement Streets had with their workers was paying them 46% above the award - and Streets wants to terminate the Agreement and revert to the award rate.
I want to know, will you be supporting the boycott?
(In other words, will you cheapness override your sympathy for workers getting a big pay-cut?).
You seem to have missed that the enterprise bargaining agreement period was not just months in, it was over. Why would you take an old expired contract to Telstra?
Streets abided by the Agreement. It has now expired. They're not renegotiating a new agreement.
Honest question is this $67000 wage based on 38 hour day work which seems hell high
Or rotating 12 hour shifts which sounds fair enough
It's not just dollars folks.
you don't know what conditions were given up for the extra pay.
They may have had RDOs, or a great redundancy or super or health package for example, that they gave up for dollars in the pay slip. going back to the award, do the lost conditions return, I bet not.
If it keeps going down this path then all the workers will be out on the streets!
I am astonished saddened by the self-righteous self interested attitudes on display here.
I wonder how many of the union bashers are being paid vastly more than an award wage and how many would/could survive on an award wage (or for that matter the outrageous $68k p.a. that these greedy Streets workers are allegedly paid)?
I also wonder how many of them would gracefully accept it if their employer cut their wage to nearly half because the employer said it was "necessary"? The same wage that had been agreed between employer and employee.
Not a word of criticism for the employer - the owner of the business - who agreed to pay workers a rate but has decided that it no longer wants to pay that rate and would prefer to pay a whole lot less. I think we need to see a whole lot of information before that sort of backflip can be regarded as justifiable or acceptable
Your astonishment and broadcast sadness arise from not getting your way. You are experiencing a tantrum.
JESUS H CHRIST. THE AGREEMENT HAS EXPIRED. STREETS paid EVERY DOLLAR of the Agreement while it was effective. Now they're re-negotiating.
These guys are working in an icecream factory, right? What we'd consider unskilled, and without additional degrees / diplomas?
If their hourly rate was $34/hr, then they were getting paid more than junior doctors in a hospital.
Granted the Dr might earn more in the long run, but that Dr also worked hard in highschool, uni, exams, training, registration fees, etc. They're working on our health and lives, not in some ice cream factory.
So now the ice cream workers are getting paid what they should've been paid…
… what's the issue?
I wish everyone unskilled / no degrees could have $100+k jobs, 2 new cars in the garage, 2 overseas holidays a year, but that's not realistic. They've now been pulled back into reality… and wwant everyone to feel sorry for them by boycotting their employer… ummm, no.
Why the hell is the default position to cut these people down when they have something better than the norm?? Why cant the default position be, hey lets try and emulate that?
We are seeing the effect worldwide of stagnant wage growth and yet company profits are going through the roof. These two facts are out of whack!
That's not the default at all. But if you're trying to argue you're entitled to 67k pa, or $34-$37/hr, you better damned well justify why you're worth that money and not just expect people to shovel cash at you.
You said it yourself, they are junior doctors. Junior doctors make $60-$80,000 per year and also have access to salary packaging which effectively increases their income. With overtime they make more. Their earning capacity in a relatively short period of time dramatically increases. It doesn't make sense to compare the 2 employment situations as you just did.
We also don't know the conditions the Street's workers have traded for their wage. They weren't asking for $100,000+.
They also spent a lot more time on their training and mistakes that they make can cost lives.
Not only that, but have you looked at HOW MUCH a medical degree costs these days? Whereas the training to work in an ice-cream factory would be, what, working in the ice-cream factory?
Yes, a medical degree is very expensive. Have a look at how much taxpayers (such as these exhorbantly paid Street's workers) subsidise a medical degree and fund the associated Hecs debt:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/factcheck/2017-06-14/fact-check-d…
In $'s subsidised it's at the top of the list.
Within a few years the doctor's salary will be a lot higher than the Street's workers salary will ever be and they will have the capacity to pay back the fees.
Students don't repay the subsidized portion of their education. They repay about 1/3 through HECS. The rest is paid by the tax payer.
46% above award seems absurdly high. I can see why Streets wants to slash/reduce it. Would you rather they take all production offshore and no one gets a job?
I for one will eat my Ice cream happily
For the proposed cuts to be 46% from the current levels to the proper award rate, that means currently Streets workers are paid 185.2% of award.
The anti union posters here don't realise their pay and conditions were hard won by persistent union action over a long time, before most of you were born.
I work in the car sales industry. In WA that means we're open for 60hrs/week over 6 days. We work every one of those hours. RDOs only became commonplace in the last few years, but generally aren't in any workplace agreements (more of a handshake agreement).
We don't have a Union.
I sold cars for Holden until recently. A company who's production factory workers were Union based. Their wages and conditions were so high, GM were forced to just import from overseas. End result, factory closes, jobs are lost.
It's all well and good for Unions to negotiate, however when they push for drug money in certain industries and then businesses have to close, do you think the Union bosses lose their jobs…? Not at all, they go to work like business as usual.
Unions are a necessary evil, but they aren't 100% in the right. Boycotts like this prove that.
I don't know the details of the boycott and nobody here seems to either, neither am I particularly interested in it. My point is entirely about the anti union sentiment expressed here, I suspect by people who don't realise they only have acceptable pay and conditions because they stand on the work that has been done for them in the past.
I know human nature, give a man some power and given enough time and opportunity more often than not he will abuse it. Some more than others. But on the whole we benefit from the good work others have done and do to mitigate against the inevitable clawback.
It's the perennial battle of forces and around the world clearly the tide has turned against the social good, considerations of a common humanity. People forget and have to learn again what matters. But that's another story.
Sorry, but your statements do not reflect all jobs. I owe the unions no thanks whatsoever. Craig Thomson should be thankful. Kathy Jackson should be thankful. Unions have brought uncompetitiveness and disrepute on themselves.
The union's agenda has changed alot over the years. Workers rights are not their best interest anymore.
@VBO: yeah, these days unions only care about umm, they care about… nope, unions stand up for workers, and despite the anti union propaganda printed by Murdoch and spouted by the liberals, that hasn't changed.
Well said, JH100.
<RANT>
If it wasn't for past union actions:
the working day would still be 12 hours (actually it was often sunrise to sunset, as originally dictated by agricultural work, so much longer in summer and more like now in winter)
NO minimum wages
NO protection from sackings at any time (eg when due for promotion, when really sick, etc)
NO paid holidays
Nothing CLOSE to equality in employment - rampant sexism, racism, and any other ism you can think of
Almost ALL worker benefits originated in union action, before becoming enshrined in law.
How would these union-haters (non-members all, I presume) like it if their bosses just said "we're going to be slashing your salary because we can"?
Disclosure: I have never worked in or with a union, been a union member or even worked in an industry with unions - so don't even go there.
</RANT>
It just creams my corn when people dismiss history with ignorance…
I have never been active in a union either, may have been a member but never had to call on them, mostly have had my own businesses throughout my life. I do have a sense of justice though that, like most others who do, I sometimes have to work at implementing.
I agree that we absolutely need unions, especially in the face of the dangerous "rich are getting richer" trend we see these days, which benefits no-one (not even the rich, though some of them are naive enough to not realise it).
But that doesn't mean we can magically increase wages forever with no end. It doesn't work like that.
$67k is pretty high for an unskilled factory job. If they can get that elsewhere, they should. If they can't get that elsewhere, maybe it was a bit higher than everyone else and they should be grateful.
The fact that 67k is an almost unliveable wage in Sydney is mostly due to crazy high rent/property prices, and that's an entirely separate issue…
If streets is struggling so much financially I'm sure their executives will take a proportional pay cut
/s
Union fatcats are on big money as well.
I guess there is no need to stop buying Cailipos. They are made in China. As for Cornetos, they are made in Indonesia. Many of the exotic Magnums are made internationally too.
Globalisation of dairy products? Hmmm I think I would rather buy generic or Bulla products anyway. At least they are locally made.
I prefer Peters Drumsticks to Streets Cornettos anyway…
Its very hard to survive on an award wage. Gas, electricity, housing, healthy food and then throw some kids into the mix.
Don't have kids if you can't responsibly provide for them, then.
How about don't eat food. Pathetic
We can import them cheaper
You need food to survive. You certainly don't need kids to survive. Got any other non sequiturs?
They thought they could provide for their kids, but Streets cut their wage in half. Too late to send them back now.
Spend less.
I don't buy them now. At least, I think I don't, I'm not sure. Streets seem like one of those companys with their fingers in many pies.
For those wondering why so many posters above seem to argue for things seemingly both against their interest and that of fellow workers, it's because they're scared. They don't know how jobs are created or why, and they worry that if the job is lost it can't be returned. They see the paralells to themselves, and worry about their own job. Rather than admit this vulnerability, which makes them feel uncomfortable, they empathize with the other side. The other side is rich. It has options, it is powerful. They decide they will be part of this other side, and argue on its behalf in the hopes of earning a seat at the table.
It's very weird. They should know that that's not an organisation you can just invite yourself into. When the time comes to draw a line in the sand, it's not going to matter that you say you're not like the other common people, that you understand the pressures business face and sympathise with their 'hard choices'. There is only the people with power, and the people without, and the only way for people without power to survive is to group together. It's been that way since the dawn of time
I can't be the only one who sees a problem with it. Why is it OK that shareholder profits, money thats just perpetually to make more money, must go up every year, but it's alright that wages, money used up by people to live their lives, are allowed to stagnate and now even go down? Thats not right. Money shouldn't be taken from the paypackets of ordinary people just so the rich can get even richer, but sadly it's becoming a theme these days.
I doubt they see 'paralells'.
cant believe some of the attitude displayed by members here about workers pay. So it is ok to go to $35 k from $60 k in sydney? And is it ok for all these workers to quit jobs and depend on centerlink.
Why no one talks about CEO pay of unilever which owns the streets ? here is his words . Will he be interested to take 46% cut ?
“So, yes, I am fortunate, and I am sometimes ashamed about the amount of money I earn. It’s important that you then put it to good use. That’s the minimum you can do.”
He added not being motivated by money was also a key trait of the Millennial generation, who instead “want to make a difference in life, and so they look for companies that have a strong purpose.”
so it is ok to cut the salary of normal workers and raise the profits , pay fat bonuses to exec's?
Maybe because it's been common in other industries for decades. When Ansett went under, I remember emotional Ansett workers handing out flyers on the streets about lifetime careers, lost wages and entitlements. That coincided with the dotcom boom where flux was the reality for many people without the slightest sympathy or government assistance.
The Streets enterprise agreement has expired. The union is using the media as a negotiating tactic. They are trying to damage the brand of their own workers. The age of the entitled (manufacturing) worker has probably past as a result of globalisation. Management do have other options by offshoring.
100% agree with Frugal rock but I also agree with 007 statements about CEO pay.
If the ship is sinking the 1st people to take a pay cut should be those at the top not the bottom but I think if management have the option to go overseas then the union she pipe down because they will all be out of the job
I hope the workers get to keep their dental plan.
Lisa needs braces.
Dental plan!
So we boycott buying, sales go down, no need to manufacture goods, therefore staff are no longer needed!
I buy ice cream which is on special, period.
NOT ONLY THAT BUT STREETS ICE CREAM(UNILEVER) ICECREAMS ARE NOW PRODUCED IN CHINA/INDONESIA WHAT A STAB IN THE BACK
FOR HARD WORKING AUSTRALIAN FARMERS. STREETS SHOULD NOT HAVE SOLD OUT ONLY TO PLEASE THEIR FAT SHAREHOLDERS
DON'T BUY ANY OF THEIR PRODUCTS LET THEM LOOSE MONEY
See that button to the left of A and under the Tab button. Just give that a click.
The unions have f*** this country there is no way in hell i'd support them - but in regards to buying ice-cream i'd buy the one thats on special ;)
ureaka stockade…southern cross… for those that just tuned in… or got off the boat.
CFMEU that's all im going to say for that one - Labours getting 150k a year with no skills, threatening builders bribing ministers etc
Health services union http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/inside-the-corrupt…
recent history unions have f***d workers some are good dont get me wrong nurses union most retail unions but anything in manufacturing im 100% against there wont be jobs if you keep asking for more $$ everything will go overseas.
Look at our car industry - still remeber Toyota saying they would stay in Australia give the union accepted a pay freeze (for 4 years) and the union basically said Nup we was 5-6% p.a (even tho workers were being paid way more the o/s counter parts at the time) now everything is crying poor that Toyota moved there manufacturing oversea. Recent history suggest Unions dont have the workers best interest at heart all the time.
management have their workers best interest in their for-thought? i think you have it backwards… workers do the work… management shuffle papers and chase money. if you keep taking things from me, that i already own, i'll have something to give you.
@Well Wasted: of course management dont but we need to change to a profit share system or else all these people will end up unemployed because im telling you now it shouldnt be 3k cheaper to import a car then to make it here
the nurses " union " is without question one of the worst. For what it's worth, I speak from 30+years of exp.
Can someone make a list of which ice cream we can and can't eat under this boycott?
Should make it easier to decide.
everyone has their problems. no one stops to help me with my issues, lifes tough. deal with it.
f… 'em all heh? maybe you should join a union…
No. Life is tough. The only person that will look out for me, is me. I dont expect strangers and the general public to hold a boycott on my behalf.
what about people you pay to ensure your rights as an australian worker and citizen are upheld… you might wanna get that "i'm right jack" your suffering with… checked out.
What about all the new 4/5/7 visa holders that will miss out if they don't fire all these greedy Australian workers
or
The Chinese workers that will miss out if streets don't move offshore
and
What about all those workers at Bora Bora working for coconuts and bananas so that executive's can lie in the sun
Where are their kids/little workers gonna get their rice from
Got to think globally people it's the new Corporate Reality/Religion
if that is the case I'll be buying extra streets ice cream.
Of course it's the case
Why pay workers decent money when you can screw them over instead in the name of competition
Just common sense
Plenty more poor people where they came from
Amen. I’ll be buying streets this weekend.
And I’m lactose intollerant.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/tom-elliott-were-st…
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/terry-mccrann/terry-mcc…
It's natural (and not wrong) for one to think 'evil corporations' when reading these articles. The perspective I get from these articles is that the manufacturing landscape has changed as it's a small world now, competition is real, right at our door step and the need to adapt is now. There will be endless argument about moral/ethics and digging of dirt on both camps (both camps are not saints - and no one assume they are).
Corporations act in the best interest of their bottom line and if one thinks that the corporation is not treating its workers as assets, one should think about looking for another employer who does?
Unions act in the best interest of their members (let's assume they do), so as someone rightly pointed out, is the proposed boycott beneficial to the workers?
Both camps are posturing to get the best outcome possible in the EBA negotiation (negotiation being the key word).
The question that the Australian Manufacturing industry faces is that are we losing our comparative advantage, which means that trade encourages a country to specialise in producing only those goods and services which it can produce more effectively and efficiently, and at the lowest opportunity cost, given how we manufacture here?
Are they trying to terminate it? Or renegotiate the EBA?
From the 2014 EBA linked earlier in the thread:
(i) DURATION OF AGREEMENT
The duration of this agreement is three (3) years and will nominally expire on 31 August 2016.
(ii) RENEGOTIATION
The parties being the Union and the Company agree to commence negotiations no later than 6 months prior to the
expiry of this Agreement for an agreement to replace it.
Subject to this Agreement, the parties agree that they shall bargain collectively in relation to any matter, whether
arising from this Agreement or not and in relation to the renewal, extension, variation or renegotiations of this
Agreement.
Come on. Is this another boycott halal, boycott israel product thing? At the end of the day, this is ozbargain. Ozbargain's ethics are attached to product price offerring.
Ozbargain's ethics are attached to product price offerring
Except when it comes to cage Vs free range eggs 😕
If theres a lesson to be learnt as a puny salaried worker. It is to remember to keep your skills up to date with technological change. I heard NAB just slashed a number of jobs in favor of a lower number of more "technologically advanced" positions?
I heard this saying once: If you have the facts on your side, bang on the facts. If you have the law on your side, bang on the law. If you have neither on your side, bang on the table.
Boycotts sound very much like the unions know that they have neither the facts nor the law on their side, and are now just banging on the table.
This is how the manufacturing sector gets hollowed. Union hasn't got a clue how the economy works.
Im surprised Streets even have a large number of Australian workers, given it seems most of their products are made in China, eg Paddle Pops.
Left wing liberal detected
Contact Mark Latham on youtube, quick!
Company statement below. Basically is 30% cheaper to import the ice creams from Europe than to make them at this factory.
Also some absurd contraints. Factory looks doomed.
https://www.unilever.com.au/news/press-releases/2017/Unileve…
Hilariously the last union rep I saw on site at my work was an stereotypical very fat blue haired lesbian marxist wearing tight black clothing and a nose piercing. I was very happy to tell her I wasnt a member.
Recommend to read article above before comments.
^^^^^^^ AS ABOVE
Absolutely ridiculous. After reading that, they should just close the plant.
QUOTE:
"Unilever engaged in more than 20 interest based bargaining sessions over 16 months with the AMWU and employee delegates under guidance of the FWC.
• The Streets ice cream factory at Minto is the most expensive factory to run out of all Unilever ice cream factories across the world.
• The current EA at Minto is highly restrictive on how, where and which staff can work. No other competitor faces these restrictions, including:
o Minimum manning levels to operate production lines that can render an entire line inoperable when 1-2 employees are on leave or on a break.
o Restrictions to the employment of casual, fixed term and seasonal staff (including duration of employment, ability to train and allocate to different parts of the production process) meaning that at times there are more staff than needed at the factory, yet a line still can’t be run because those staff can’t be trained and allocated where needed.
o Permanent staff are not allowed to move around the factory to work on different parts of the production process even if they are appropriately trained.
"
Unions were good in the past but have not kept up with realism in a global economy. I'm not a fan of outsourcing overseas like many companies these days but the unions are not helping at all by trying always push wages; as other people have noted that just price themselves out of the market and lose their jobs entirely (and still feign surprise).
I think are still plenty of people willing to pay a bit more for Aussie made food products esp compared to ones made in China, but running a factory at a loss defies common sense no matter how much profit the company makes overall. These are ice creams, not other services where a loss is acceptable for other society reasons (e.g. health or public transport)
Ubers, Air-taskers, sex workers and robot techs.
Embrace our future.
Unions in Australia are Scum.
We already lost the car manufacturing industry, now ice cream factories are next.
Say no to Unions and their ridiculous demands. Say yes to cheap delicious Ice Cream.
46% over the award!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Streets can import Magnams from Europe delivered at 30% less than they cost to produce in Oz.
Streets Callipo are made overseas and have been for years.
I will be buying Streets.
.
I feel mildly confused by this one. While I really feel for the workers - especially people who've been there for years, and whose mortgages are tied up in those amounts, to then have their income cut by such a huge amount, I do not understand how boycotting the product they are responsible for producing will ameliorate that. Why not negotiate for voluntary redundancies? Or make it a slower transition? There must be so many options to make this less of a blow on the workers rather than just say "boycott this product, hurt the bottom line!" which seems astonishingly counterproductive. Can the union not employ better negotiating skills than they have so far? Although to be fair, I'm not actually sure what they have tried.
My limited experience with unions seem to be that they really only have one style - loud and shouty. I still remember my first year as an intern, the HSU (when they still represented us), came to our orientation and spent a full hour shouting at us and passed around these fake attendance sheets that you had to put your phone number on so they could hassle you to sign up. The collapse of that union and it's subsequent replacement by a historically non-union entity was the best thing that could have happened.
TLDR; My sympathies to anyone getting a paycut that huge, their union needs better negotiating skills.
if my employer suddenly cut my pay by 50%, i would go and look for a new job. fairly simple. there are plenty of jobs out there. yes, being a taxi driver or a cleaner is one of them. stop being sooks.
Do you know how much taxi drivers and cleaners get paid?
what is the point of your question. A job is a job. Or are you saying that you would rather sit on the doll and call a boycott, then perform a job which you see to be "beneath you"?
I've been a taxi driver, DiscoJango, so that's not what I'm saying at all.
If they don't cut their wages then they all lose their jobs to overseas.
Can't answer the poll, because Streets is too expensive so I always buy supermarket brand ice-cream. So maybe Streets should do something to reduce production cos… oops!
Next time you buy frutare read that it's now made in Indonesia. Finding dory one was made in Malaysia. Streets has already started importing Ice Creams. You don't want them to do a Toyota and close manufacturing in Australia. Award rate is adjusted for inflation every year. I don't like unions killing our industry. It's shameful greed and this attitude of pay me a fortune or I'm off to centerlink will ruin us.
Some people are saying the parent company made a profit so they are justified in trashing the big corporate. People fail to realise that Australia is a small part of their business. They are not making billions off us not many companies do.
This factory is going to be closed regardless. Unilever intends to close it, so they don't care if they lose all the staff.
If the staff stay on with a paycut, they will destroy the factory from within.
In this case it looks like they are trying to cut everyone wages BEFORE the redundancy payment is calculated
Good point
How do you know they intend to do that? Raw material cost is low and availability is abundant in Australia for ice cream production. If you go to Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, S Korea, Middle East etc you would notice Australian ice cream for sale at local convenience stores and supermarkets.
Cream is a waste product in our milk production. In other Asian countries, there is a shortage of cream as milk fats are valuable or their dairy industry is underdeveloped. Also have you tried Imported Ice Cream? The quality is nowhere near what our population is used to.
I think as a community we should support Australian Made and Our dairy industry/farmers. I try not to buy home brand as they tend to squeeze the suppliers too much who then turn around and put the squeeze on farmers.
Worked in the Tyre industry for almost 30 years until they were shut down due to the fact that it was so much cheaper to build tyres in 3rd world countries than in Australia.
Right until the end the Union was refusing to work with management to try and reduce costs. Scumbags the lot of them.
This is what I mean. However with tires rubber came from overseas. Cream + sugar for ice cream comes from Australia so we should have an advantage. Unions need to be more supportive and try to protect and add to the jobs that are already there.
Let's translate this into Ozbargain.
You get together all the forum's Telstra customers, call up the retention line and say you'll all walk if the company doesn't cut a better deal. After hours of negotiation and compromise they settle on the Official Ozbargain Discount. It's signed, official and written into the contract.
Months later, everyone's bills all go back to normal. It's not even the individual discounts people had negotiated or past sale rates. Just the absolute maximum rates they can legally charge - the sort of plans they sell to grandparents who don't know Optus happened.
This seems off because you had a contract and everything, but Telstra says no, they found four random high school kids and negotiated a new Official Ozbargain Discount with them. That's the contract now and you can live with it or leave.
Would you still want to do business with Telstra? Would you tell other people they should keep supporting that kind of behaviour?