When workers beat Woolies last time

Viraj Dissanayake is a former delegate at the Melbourne Liquor Distribution Centre, one of the Woolworths warehouses where workers are taking historic indefinite strike action. He helped lead an extraordinary four-day legally unprotected strike at MLDC in 2015, which succeeded in stopping management from introducing labour hire.

Viraj was back at MLDC last week, one of many supporters who turned up in solidarity with striking workers on the first day of a new strike. Red Flag asked Viraj to share his reflections on warehouse work, organising and the 2015 strike.

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We’re on the picket line at MLDC. You worked here for quite a while. Tell us about what it’s like to work inside one of these places.

I started as a picker here in 2008 and worked till 2019. When we call these fast-paced distribution centres, they’re really like a big, automated machine where the workers are treated like just part of that machine. You come to work, you clock in, and then you need to go to either start picking or driving a forklift.

But if you spend one to two minutes extra between the clock-in and signing into the machine, there will be a team leader behind you asking why you took so much time. I think it gives you a sense of what this work’s going to be like.

So when it comes to picking, that means you’re driving a transporter—you got two pallets behind that. And sometimes those two pallets can go to two different stores, which means you need to make sure you put the product onto the right pallet. Also, you’re wearing a headset pretty much telling you everything you have to do. And if you get stuck in the traffic and took ten minutes extra to wrap the pallet, you need to go to a manager. So that’s how this distribution centre works.

This is even before the new regime that management just introduced, which states that you have to hit 100 percent productivity 100 percent of the time?

Yes. I left this place five, six years ago. But at that time, what some of the health and safety reps did, we tried to get more gaps—they call them gaps, like you spend a few minutes in the toilet or if you spend a few minutes extra on the wrapping machine, we get some gaps [in the picking chain]. But it seems like now management will want to be harsh on you. They’re not giving you any gaps, but they’re expecting everyone to pick 100 percent.

But when it comes to “100 percent”, this number is not a realistic number. It’s coming from something called “engineering standards”. Every six months, some people who’ve never picked in their life come here, looking at all the tasks, looking at how long it takes on average, and they’re doing this ridiculous time [estimation].

And then that “100 percent” needs to be aligned with this engineering standard. But I can be younger. Someone can be older. Someone can be taller. Someone can be shorter. But their [management’s] percentage seems like 100 percent for everyone. It’s very, very unrealistic. I’ve spoken to a few workers here—and the data, even five years ago, was the same—they said to me pretty much every worker here was injured at least once at work. That’s how bad the injury rate in this place is.

You spent a few years here as a delegate with the National Union of Workers [which merged with United Voice to form the United Workers Union in 2019]. Tell us something about some of the challenges of organising in this sort of a place.

I think the first and biggest challenge is that we don’t have an opportunity to talk to every worker. Even when it comes to EA time [when the company negotiates a new contract, called an enterprise agreement, with the workforce], we didn’t have mass meetings. But we had shift meetings. So if you’re in the afternoon shift, you’re having a meeting with other colleagues in the afternoon. But there was no chance for you to talk to your day shift colleagues about what your claims are.

This is an opportunity for management to divide the workplace. They’re trying to divide the workplace between permanents and casuals, between day shift and the afternoon, between the ones who have been here longer and the ones who have been here shorter. So one of the challenges is building a group. Like I said, the tasks are very time managed, so sometimes you don’t even have time to say hi to someone. So it’s very hard to find people interested in the union who want to do something.

So that was the first challenge, because there’s no toolbox meetings [where all workers on site can chat together before or after work or in a shared break] at these sorts of jobs. And there’s no permanent start time. From 5am to 5pm, people start every hour. They come, they grab their headset or go to their forklift and start work. So the first challenge: how are we going to build a group of workers interested in what’s happening around us, what’s happening to our conditions?

A lot of the workers here were part of the strike that happened in 2015 that you were involved in. Tell us about that.

Roughly a year before that strike happened, we had the official EA negotiation. Management wanted a claim to have labour hire [where they hire workers indirectly through a separate company to save money and undermine permanent company positions]. Somehow, we were better organised compared to the previous EA, so we knocked down the claim and management went quiet. They didn’t talk about that in the whole negotiation time.

But one thing we missed: there was an MOU [memorandum of understanding] that they can’t use labour hire. Somehow, it’s scrapped after six months, seven months I think. A few months after the EA, the distribution centre manager came to us casually and said, “I’m going to bring the labour hire”. There was shock and surprise. We didn’t want any labour hire people to come here, work with us doing the same task, not only taking some of the permanent people’s jobs, but also undermine the union site we built. Also, we didn’t want to treat them as second-class citizens.

We didn’t know what to do. There were no concrete plans. So the first small step we took: all of us came together. By this time we were lucky. We had built this small group between the shifts among all workers and we decided to wear a small pink sticker on our uniform saying “No labour hire”.

That was the first step, and it really pissed off the management. Everywhere they walked, they can see people wearing “No labour hire”. And then management tried to put more pressure. We tried to do a car park meeting. But management really intimidated the workers. Some of them were just finished at work, but management intimidated them not to go—so it wasn’t very successful.

So then we decide no, this is not going to work. We can’t wait and ask for a proper meeting officially. Some of us decided to call a meeting on that Sunday. So out of 500, 600 people, 100+ turn up, which is a great number on a Sunday, on their own time, some of them with their family. One of the delegates starts talking to the people. He said, “We can talk about what we’re going to do, but I believe company’s not going to budge, not going to change their mind unless we picket the joint tomorrow”. Everyone put their hand up in support. That’s how we started the strike.

Obviously Woolworths didn’t see it coming. It had a huge impact. Your two demands were no labour hire and no repercussions for striking workers—and you effectively won those demands. What are some of your favourite moments?

There are a few. But the one thing I need to talk about is how we worked together. That night, after the mass meeting, we went home. Some people voluntarily rang their colleagues and they all worked together. That night, within a few hours, we decided who is going to man the gate, who is going to supply the tents, who is going to run the BBQ. Everything came from the workers—that’s the beauty of that strike.

But you ask me the favourite thing? We started the picket line on Monday 4:30am—we shut down the place. None of the workers wanted to go past their work colleagues on the picket line. Almost all joined us. But my favourite thing is next day. We all know the Australian laws about strikes, and especially about wildcat strikes. So the management went to Fair Work [Australia’s workplace court]. I don’t know what happened there. I wasn’t interested—we were more interested in organising the picket line.

It was a cold day. We had fire barrels everywhere. Management got some order from Fair Work—pretty much the commissioner asking us to go back to work. So they put that [notice of the ruling] everywhere inside. They stick these things on our union notice board without our permission. And these supervisors came out with the order to go back to work. Workers read it, laughed at it, put all [the notices] into the fire barrel. That’s my favourite moment of the whole strike.

What would your top bits of advice be for anyone going out on strike?

It is a simple one. It is always the ultimate truth. We had a big win, but I remember, some of us were hesitating that time. I remember some of us were on the fence. So it is clear: one thing you can do is withdraw your labour. Stick together. It might take a few more days. It might take a few weeks. We might lose some money. But just imagine how much money the company is going to lose.

[Management] can take it to the Fair Work Commission, they can talk—but they can’t do the work you’re doing. They can’t pick the cartons like you’re doing. They can’t drive the truck like you’re doing. So just withdrawing labour shows them that you’re running this place.

Second, the need for an active strike. Finding ways to keep members engaged, and reaching out to other workers. That was really important for us.

A lot of people will be reading this who never worked in one of these places. Why should they support the workers on strike?

Injury to one means injury to everyone. Touch one, touch all. So you might be at the other end—the consumer buying the products from Woolies. But you need to remember we’re talking about a warehouse worker packing and picking these products for you and half of them injured their backs or they got another injury. So this is the time for you to show solidarity. That product is coming in time to your table because of what these workers are doing, not the advertisement you’ve seen on the TV.

And these workers are standing up against this corporation, which takes the profits from fuelling the cost-of-living crisis. If the workers win against this company, it’s a message to workers everywhere that we can all win.

So you need to show solidarity to these workers. You need to support them whenever you have a chance. If you’re in Melbourne, come here to the Melbourne Liquor Distribution Centre in Leverton or go to the Dandenong warehouse. Or if you’re in Sydney, go there, show them support [addresses here]. Just donate if you can, whatever the support. Show these workers that we are with them.

You’re a socialist. What’s any of this got to do with socialism?

This is exactly what socialism is about. This is about who is running this world. This is about who is running this warehouse. I don’t have the numbers [about] how much the CEO took last year. But we all know how much these workers are taking home. Some of these people are performing 94 percent [efficiency] and [management are] not happy; they’re harassing the workers. They’re harassing you because you are an individual person. But you stick together here, they can’t harass you. That’s a tiny example of what socialism is all about: working together, collectivity, showing them who is running this world.

Finally, you’ve got a CFMEU shirt on. You’re a CFMEU delegate and you led a terrific strike where you are now at Knauf a couple of years ago. Any final reflections on that?

I’m very humble to become a health and safety rep and shop steward at Knauf plasterboard. And very proud to say in 2022 it was the same struggle. Knauf management wanted to bring labour hire, where they can use the second-class citizens. We spent 40 days [on strike]. We got great support from the CFMEU. We got great support from the socialists—Victorian Socialists were there all 40 days supporting us. We got what we wanted and we stopped labour hire there. So the struggle continues.