Victoria's Dairy Industry Crisis Deepens with Massive Strikes Looming
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By Emma Field, Eden Hynninen, and Warwick Long
Victoria is facing milk shortages with unprecedented strike action planned by dairy workers.
Milk tanker drivers plan to stop work in eastern Victoria from 3am Tuesday, which could prevent milk pick-up from farmers who supply processor Saputo.
While 1,400 dairy factory workers who work at four main processors across regional and metropolitan Melbourne, plan 48 hours of industrial action from Wednesday.
United Workers Union (UWU) national secretary Tim Kennedy, who represents dairy factory workers, said the protected action planned against Saputo, Lactalis Australia, Fonterra, and Peters Icecream was the workers' last option after a long dispute over wages and conditions.
"This is the biggest dairy action in living memory, it's never happened on this scale," Mr Kennedy said.
The strike would mean "no processing" at 14 sites including at Leongatha, Longwarry and Darnum in eastern Victoria, Warrnambool in the south-west along with Kiewa, Cobden, Tangambalanga, Stanhope and Cobram in the north plus Mulgrave and Laverton in Melbourne.
The UWU factory workers are calling for wage increases of 5 per cent per year for three years.
But Mr Kennedy said they were also demanding job security and wanted the large "transnational" processors to recognise "the dairy industry here in Victoria is in crisis".
