First strike at Trimex warehouse in Sydney
Workers at a major cosmetics distribution warehouse in Sydney have gone on strike for the first time in the warehouse’s history. The Trimex warehouse, in Rosebery, has been the sole supplier of Clarins cosmetics to all of Australia and New Zealand since it opened in 1977, but when Trimex was recently bought out by Clarins, new management was brought in.
National Union of Workers delegate Tawhi Hunapo-Stokes says that management had a “take it or leave it” attitude to negotiations over a new agreement. “Not a negotiation, a meeting”, she said.
The agreement proposed by management would remove procedures for disputes and counselling, which require that workers receive multiple warnings before disciplinary action. “They’re calling it a ‘straight rollover with minor changes’. These are not minor changes”, Hunapo-Stokes told Red Flag.
Workers say that management bullheadedness is why they are out on strike.
“We just want to sit down and come to a resolution. A fair one”, Hunapo-Stokes said at the picket on 30 July. “I think it’s been here for 35 years, this is the first [strike]. We’ve never, ever walked out before; this is the first time.”
Of the 14 full time employees at Trimex, 12 are on strike. They are mostly older workers from migrant backgrounds, and the majority are women. The most recently hired full time workers have been at Trimex for 12 years, while the longest serving has worked there for 29.
George Jimenez says management have been moving towards casualisation of the workforce for some time. “This company had, in the past, 30 full-timers. But as people retired, they never replaced them”, he said. “That’s the reward we get for getting old and working so many years in the company, because eventually they want to kick us out.”
Jimenez is excited to be on strike, despite his inexperience. “That is new for us, as it is for them [management] … We’re not many, but we stick together, which is good”, he said.
Bernadette Abreu, a Trimex worker of 22 years, had been on strike once before in the ’90s, at a company in Lane Cove that made wallets and bags. “Same like here, they brought new management. We went on strike, only five of us; we didn’t let any trucks in. At the end they gave us our redundancy money, which they didn’t want to give.”
“I’ve always been in a union. The union helps you, for your rights, if something goes wrong in the workplace. The union is for the workers”, she said.
