A Fair Share For Poultry Workers
Poultry work is often really hard. Too many of the workers who provide the chicken meat which we buy and eat everyday are poorly paid and have little job security. This is unfair.
The NUW has over 1,500 members in the poultry industry in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, who, together, have bargained for better wages, conditions and improved job security. This has meant that NUW workplaces have better wages and conditions than non-union workplaces.
For this reason, our union has launched a campaign aimed at providing all poultry workers with the same opportunity to improve their working life.
The first stage of this campaign was to increase union membership and gain a fair agreement at a Melbourne poultry plant in the northern suburbs. After several months of hard work, 100 new members have joined the NUW and won a union agreement giving them a 16 percent pay increase over 2 years. Before this campaign, workers were on Award wages of less than $600 per week -under our new union agreement they will get over $7,000 of extra pay.
This has been a great example of what can be achieved when workers stand together as a union to fight for fairer wages and conditions. Any group of workers can do this when they make a decision to join the union and change their lives for the better.
For more information or to get involved contact Organiser Tim Gunstone on 0439 654 617 or nuwassist@nuw.org.au
