By CASEY NEILL
DANDENONG South workers today ended a 10-day picket line at pharmaceutical company Aspen – with a win.
The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) and National Union of Workers (NUW) members today 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 off-shore to South Africa and locking the workers out for 48 hours.
The picket line continued for another seven days until today’s resolution.
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.”
