By CASEY NEILL
DANDENONG South workers ended a 10-day picket line at pharmaceutical company Aspen on Friday – with a win.
The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) and National Union of Workers (NUW) members on Friday voted on a new agreement that will secure their rostered days off (RDOs).
Mechanical fitters and production workers at Aspen took protected stop work action at the Frankston-Dandenong Road site on Tuesday 7 July.
Aspen responded by threatening to send jobs to South Africa and locking the workers out for 48 hours.
The picket line continued for another seven days until last week’s resolution and included a rally alongside workers from the neighbouring Nissan site on Saturday 11 July.
Nissan will outsource its warehousing to CEVA Logistics, making about 40 jobs at the Frankston-Dandenong Road site redundant.
An Aspen spokesperson said its proposal was for workers to voluntarily convert their roster to an average 38-hour week with 12 rostered days off (RDOs) instead of their current 36-hour week with 24 RDOs.
They would receive a higher hourly rate in exchange.
Workers instead maintained their RDOs and won a wage increase and an offer for casual workers to become permanent full-time employees.
AMWU organiser Toby Paterson said this was a terrific win for the workers “who have maintained their conditions and not backed down to threats to their jobs in a long, hard battle”.
AMWU delegate Bernie Lacey, who has worked at Aspen for 15 years, said workers were united in their struggle to maintain their conditions at work, including RDOs that they used to care for children, grandchildren and elderly parents.
“It’s not even about the pay,” he said.
“We work hard at Aspen and hit all their targets.
“This is about the conditions that we have fought for and won over a long time.
“We weren’t going to give them up without a fight!“
Mr Paterson said Nissan workers held the rally and barbecue on Saturday 11 July “to send a message to the company that they were very disappointed with the outcome”.
“Hopefully there’ll be a positive outcome.
“Maybe some of the workers will be redeployed into the casting plant across the road,” he said.
