Support striking Woolworths warehouse workers this week (and next)
United Workers Union (UWU) members in six warehouses supplying Woolworths supermarkets across the eastern states are walking off the job this week. Industrial action of this scale is unprecedented in warehousing. The UWU has led many strikes in individual warehouses across Australia, but never this many at the same time.
The workers are striking for better wages and conditions, and for Woolworths warehouses to be covered under a single enterprise agreement. They also want to get rid of the company’s “productivity framework”, which requires all workers to meet 100 percent of targets unilaterally set by management or face harassment, discipline and, eventually, dismissal.
Warehouse work is difficult and repetitive. Each worker is expected to pick hundreds or even thousands of boxes a day to be stacked on pallets, loaded onto trucks and sent to store shelves across the state. The weight of items varies widely, from packets of chips to slabs of beer and crates of milk weighing up to 20 kilograms each. This repetitive, endless lifting and shifting of often heavy loads significantly strains the body and mind. Forklifts, loaders and other heavy machinery wizz around these pickers at ever higher rates to keep up with productivity targets.
The workers in these warehouses experience constant surveillance and performance monitoring. They are told by a computer exactly what to do at all times. They are treated like robots. And there is evidence that the drive towards automation may be making things more difficult, rather than easier. According to Amazon’s internal safety reports, the rates of serious workplace injuries are 50 percent higher in warehouses with robots than in those without.
Finding reliable statistics on workplace injuries in warehouses is difficult, as pickers and packers are usually lumped in with truck drivers and other labourers. However, the broader statistics paint a damning picture of the industry as a whole. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the transport, postal and warehousing industry suffers from the third highest workplace injury rate in the country. Safe Work Australia has found that roughly 80 percent of workplace injuries are caused by body stress: falls, slips and trips; being hit by moving objects; and mental stress. These incidents are endemic to warehouse environments and will likely only worsen under Woolworths’ drive for even higher productivity.
But it gets worse. Safe Work Australia has also found that the transport, postal and warehouse industry has the highest number of fatalities of any industry, and the second highest fatality rate. Machine operators and labourers perform the deadliest types of work.
These statistics were tragically brought home in 2023 when Basel “Baz” Brikha was crushed by falling pallets in the Woolworths distribution centre in Minchinbury, NSW. Basel later died in hospital. Two of his workmates suffered head injuries when they tried to help him.
These workplace tragedies result from Woolworths’ endless drive for higher profits. The company squeezes workers at one end by increasing productivity at the expense of safety, and it squeezes consumers at the other by price-gouging in the supermarkets.
From the perspective of Woolworths investors, the strategy has worked marvellously. The company reported $1.7 billion in profits last financial year. The four leading Woolworths executives pocketed more than $8.8 million in pay, which was down on their “earnings” of $18 million the year before.
No doubt Woolworths’ Melbourne South Regional Distribution Centre workers, who earn roughly $66,000 per year if they work 38 hours per week, will be deeply concerned about how these executives will make ends meet after this pay cut.
Corporate greed is driving the cost-of-living crisis in Australia. Since the COVID crisis, one of the greatest transfers of wealth to the capitalist class in history has taken place. The richest 1 percent now owns half of the world’s wealth. Our side, the working class, needs to start fighting back.
That is precisely why strikes—like those beginning in Woolworths warehouses this week—are so important. Previous strikes have demonstrated the considerable industrial power of these workers.
The just-in-time revolution has turned warehouses into gigantic logistics factories employing hundreds. All the goods that reach the hundreds of Woolworths supermarkets in each state pass through only a handful of warehouses, and little excess stock is held in the supermarkets. Deliveries from the warehouses arrive daily and go straight to store shelves. This means warehouse strikes can be incredibly disruptive. Store shelves begin to empty within a day or two, or even hours, of work stoppages.
These workers deserve the support of the entire union movement. Come to one of the picket lines in Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane. Bring your workmates, your classmates, your friends and family. Pass motions of support in your union and pass the hat around to raise money for the strike fund or to buy food to bring down to the pickets.
Let’s show solidarity with these workers as they stick it to a corporate goliath.
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Workers at the following warehouses will be striking from Thursday morning this week:
From 12am Thursday morning:
Woolworths Melbourne South Regional Distribution Centre (MSRDC), 2 Portlink Dr, Dandenong South VIC.
From 5am Thursday morning:
Melbourne Liquor Distribution Centre (MLDC), 1 Interchange Dr, Laverton North VIC.
Logic Wodonga, 28 Bilston Dr, Barnawartha North VIC.
Woolworths Distribution Centre, 29 Sarah Andrews Cl, Erskine Park NSW.
From 2am Friday morning:
Lineage Cold Storage, 60-68 William Angliss Drive Laverton North VIC - from 2am Friday.
In addition, Primary Connect in Heathwood QLD, another distribution centre supplying Woolworths, will be holding stop-work mass meetings from this Friday to discuss industrial action.
