Media Release: FIRST Union
Wednesday April 18, 2012

Talley’s AFFCO Misleads Over Employment Settlement

A union who recently settled an employment agreement with Talley’s AFFCO has hit back at a misleading description of the settlement from the company’s public relations team today.

Three unions representing trades workers at Talley’s AFFCO sites, the Engineering, Printing & Manufacturing Union, the Aviation & Marine Engineers Association and FIRST Union (formerly the NDU) have recently settled an agreement for their members.

Robert Reid, FIRST Union General Secretary, said that the negotiations for this agreement were vastly different to those that the Meat Workers Union was having to deal with.

“A key difference is that our agreement covering trades staff was settled with no claw backs (reductions in entitlements),” Robert Reid said.

“We simply were not dealing with major claims from Talley’s AFFCO to reduce our pay and conditions, as the meat processing workers are.”

“Further, the agreement was settled without the need for casualisation, a significant difference, and a key part of what the company is trying to impose on its meat workers.”

“And our members did not have the threat of a lockout hanging over them, as Talley’s AFFCO has inflicted on over 1,000 of its meat workers.”

“Talley’s AFFCO must immediately lift its brutal lockout and return to negotiations,” he said.

Robert Reid said FIRST Union was right behind the 1,000 locked out workers and their families, and would continue to support them financially and at community events.

ENDS

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