‘We’re stronger now’: Dandenong factory occupation ends
Workers at a factory in Melbourne’s south-east have voted to end a dispute with their employer, International Flavours and Fragrances (IFF), after the company made an improved offer in enterprise agreement negotiations.
For four days, 27 of the workers had occupied the canteen of IFF’s Dandenong factory, shutting down production and bringing the Australian operation of an $8.65 billion multinational to its knees. The occupation ended on 30 January, but the workforce and supporters maintained a picket of the site until an agreement was secured on 1 February.
According to Matt Oldenhof, who has worked at the factory for more than eight years and was one of the occupying workers, the agreement is a “big win”.
Prior to the sit-in, the company had offered workers a flat 55 cents an hour pay rise while pushing to strip a number of key conditions, including a 10-minute paid break and the accrual and payout of unused sick leave. It had also proposed the introduction of a “productivity bonus” system that was widely opposed by workers for being unsafe and divisive.
Speaking of the growing tension that led to the decision to take action, Matt told Red Flag: “It’s sickening the amount of money they [management] get. The divide just gets larger between us and them. They get their third house down at the beach, and some of these guys struggle to pay their bills.”
The final agreement on wages will make paying the bills a bit easier. The workers won 6.3 percent over three years, which – though hovering around the inflation rate – is a significant advance on the company’s previous “final” offer. Paid breaks will remain the same, and workers with unused sick leave will receive payouts at the end of the year, before the system is abolished. The agreement will also not include a “productivity bonus” system.
Matt explains that the canteen occupation was a response to management’s decision to escalate the dispute by locking out the entire workforce. Negotiations for a new agreement started in September and were marked, he says, by management’s “smug” attitude. “They were prepared to test us and push us”, he said.
On the Tuesday morning after Australia Day the workers, National Union of Workers members, arrived at the factory to find lockout notices pinned to the gates. The decision to charge through them when they were opened to let a car in was their “only opportunity”, according to Matt. Otherwise, he explained, they could have been sitting outside the gates for weeks. The occupation caught the company off guard, paralysing the site. Matt said that the shutdown of two departments with particularly low production volumes and high margins had the company’s customers “screaming”.
IFF refused entry to all other workers throughout the occupation, so it was up to the same group of 27 to hold out. “It was a roller coaster. Emotions were high, spirits were high”, said Matt. Joking about sleeping on the canteen floor, he said that they found out who the snorers were.
He said there was also some stress about being away from home. “A lot of guys have never spent a night away from their family, let alone four nights”, he said. One had a newborn baby. Some missed their kids’ first day at school. Andy, another occupier, recounted the response by one worker to his family’s over the phone pleas for him to come home: “I’ve got to stay here, it’s what we’ve got to do”, he told them.
There was a sense of camaraderie that pulled workers through, according to Andy. “If someone was looking under stress, you’d walk up and give them a pat on the back … there’s people I might have said two words to since they’ve been here, and I know them quite well now”, he said.
“I think that’s going to make a big difference when we go back in there”, said Andy. Matt’s optimistic about the IFF workers’ prospects in the future. “What we did in here has made us so much stronger … this has set a standard now”, he said. “We’re fighting not only for ourselves but for every worker in Australia, every worker and their families.”
