Picketing at four Woolworths' distribution centres in NSW and Victoria will come to an end after United Workers Union (UWU) members endorsed the company's new enterprise agreement offers for the centres.
Earlier on Saturday, Woolworths urged picketers to stop blocking the entrance to a Melbourne distribution centre after the Fair Work Commission (FWC) ruled such actions "unlawful".
It now says the Melbourne South Regional Distribution Centre (MSRDC) "will re-open as soon as this evening".
More than 1,500 Woolworths warehouse workers had been on strike since 21 November, after months of tense negotiations over pay and conditions, including an algorithmic management platform that, according to the union, puts employees at risk.
Several small marquees and around 20 people were present at Woolworths' Melbourne South Regional Distribution Centre in Dandenong on Saturday morning. Source: SBS News / Zacharias Szumer
"With just over two weeks to go until Christmas, we're now focused on getting products out of the distribution centres and restocking the empty shelves customers have experienced in the past fortnight," the company said in a statement sent out on Saturday afternoon.
"Turning back 'on' such a large part of our supply chain will mean it will take some time for our stores to look their best and we'll be ramping up as much as we can to get products to the stores where they’re needed most."
Meanwhile, UWU national secretary Tim Kennedy said: "Today, warehouse workers at Woolworths have saved Christmas. But more importantly, they have challenged one of the most significant threats to worker safety and well-being as we enter a new AI-surveillance era of work. And they have won."
The union had previously taken issue with the company's algorithmic management platform, known as the 'Framework, which would require warehouse staff to hit a 100 per cent performance target.
"Negotiations with the company finally saw real movement from Woolworths this week on its 'Framework', with a new clause to be added to workplace agreements that ensures that the workers will not be disciplined for the speed that they can work at, and an acknowledgement that not everybody can pick at 100 per cent," Kennedy said.
"The new enterprise agreement won by workers breaks the link between measuring the speed of their work and automatic punishment if they fall behind – a system that effectively attempted to treat Woolworths warehouse workers like robots."
Woolworths disagrees with this characterisation and has said the framework was developed "with safety as an inherent component … [and] to ensure a fair approach to operational performance".
Deal follows claims of FWC-order violations
the FWC found that the picket lines led by UWU members at four key distribution centres in NSW and Victoria were impacting "good faith bargaining requirements" under the Fair Work Act.
Despite the orders, Woolworths said on Saturday that "obstructive picketing" was still taking place outside its Dandenong distribution centre.
"Our team members attempting to return to work this morning have again been met by picketers who physically blocked their entry to the site," a Woolworths Group spokesperson said in a statement.
In handing down an interim order upon the union, FWC commission deputy vice president Gerard Boyce said the conduct of strikers was "not part of any protected industrial action".
The actions had unfairly blocked warehouse workers and truck drivers who wanted to get into the work sites, and picketing had also taken place at distribution centres not involved in bargaining talks, he said.
UWU national secretary Tim Kennedy has said: "Workers are not robots and should not be treated like robots. But this is exactly what Woolworths has been seeking to do for thousands of workers across their warehouses." Source: Supplied / United Workers Union
It also forbids employees from "taking any action to interfere with, or attempt to interfere directly or indirectly with, the performance of work by employees or contractors" at these sites, except for any action that is legally protected under Australian industrial relations law.
The union was instructed to inform all of its employees, officers and delegates — as well as members who have taken part in the pickets — about the orders on Friday night and to tell them that "UWU no longer authorises or supports any obstruction of access to, or egress from, the sites".
However, in an earlier statement, which acknowledged the FWC's orders, Kennedy promised that his union "will keep working until such time we believe we have an offer from the company that we can take to members".
"The only way agreement will be reached and the strike will cease is after members democratically vote on a final position from the company," he said in a statement issued on Friday night.
On Saturday he said: "We are a democratic, member-led union. Workers have voted today to accept the new offer from Woolworths. They have voted to return to work. Soon shelves at Woolworths stores will be full again."
A 'gun to the head'
Sixteen days of industrial action has left thousands of supermarket and bottle shop shelves empty in Victoria, NSW and the ACT and reportedly cost Woolworths at least $50 million.
The pickets and flew in the face of good-faith bargaining, the supermarket's lawyers told the FWC earlier on Friday.
Woolworths lawyer Marc Felman said the distribution centres were the "heartbeat" of its ability to get products to Australians as he argued the picketing amounted to unfair conduct in their bargaining.
"They should be free to continue to come to an agreement in an orthodox way without the gun to the head of an obstructive picket," Felman said.
Meanwhile, the union labelled the hearing a distraction and called for Woolworths to show its workers "dignity and respect".
Outside of the commission hearing, Kennedy said that Woolworths should "step forward and show some dignity and respect to their workers ... so they can plan for Christmas".
The union said Woolworths had insisted on holding separate talks at each of the four warehouses in question, stifling the bargaining process.
"Woolworths made the decision on the 21st of November to shut all their warehouses. The orders they're seeking today is to open their warehouses," he said.
"I think the problem is that Woolworths are used to just saying 'it's our way or the highway', whether that's to farmers, suppliers or customers."
