Victoria Supreme Court Hears Toll-Coles Warehouse Workers Dispute

The Victoria Supreme Court will hear on Monday a petition by Toll Holdings, which operates the Cole Warehouse in Somerton, Melbourne, to issue an injunction to stop the blockade set up by striking workers.

The petition would clash with the decision by Fair Work Australia (FWA) on Friday to allow the employees to continue their picket outside the warehouse which contain thousands of supermarket stock.

Toll maintains that the prevention of Coles trucks from entering and leaving the compound is a blatantly unlawful blockade which actually hurts about 150 of its 600-man workforce. Toll claims 150 of the striking employees want to return to work, earn a living and pay off their mortgages.

At the FWA hearing on Friday, the National Union of Workers (NUW) argued that the blockade is not unfair based on a Fair Work Act definition of a form of industrial action and is beyond FWA's power to dismantle the picket.

Besides ruling in favour of the striking workers, FWA Commissioner Anna Lee Cribb also ordered Toll to delay a vote on its pay offer to the workers for 21 days and to hold three meetings between Toll and NUW for negotiations in the next two weeks.

Even if the strike is now on its second week, Coles denied the strike is causing its grocery shelves to become empty because of its contingency plan in place.

Reports said that Toll is taking action against 25 workers who participated in the blockade. Australian Confederation of Trade Unions President Ged Kearney accused Toll of bullying the striking workers and urged the firm to bargain in good faith with the employees.

"The 600 Somerton employees are simply seeking the right to be treated the same as other Coles warehouse workers. What they want is simple: to be treated with dignity, to be paid a shift loading for working at night, to have rostered days off to spend with their family. These are loyal workers contributing to a profitable company, and they should have jobs they can rely on," Ms Kearney said in a statement.

She added that the industrial dispute is an example of what happens when large firms outsource their workforce in a bid to gain larger profits by squeezing more from its staff who produce the profits.