Workers at dairy factory win fight for union deal

A month-long lockout of workers in an at-times bitter industrial dispute at a Waikato dairy factory is over.

But only six of the 34 locked-out workers will return under a collective agreement they had been fighting for.

Talleys-owned Open Country Cheese and the union representing workers at its Waharoa plant, about 7km north of Matamata, reached an agreement nearly six weeks after workers walked off the job in a pay and contracts dispute in September.

The new deal, a collective employment agreement for workers, brings to an end stormy relations between striking staff and New Zealand's second-largest milk processor.

Dairy Workers Union national secretary James Ritchie said the result was a "very satisfying one" after what had been a difficult month.

"Neither side gets everything they want to achieve but the primary goal was to get a collective agreement for these workers, so that's very pleasing," he said.

"All that these workers wanted was some basic job security through a collective employment agreement and they were illegally locked out for standing up for their rights."

Mr Ritchie said 28 staff had received a confidential settlement as they had chosen not to return to work or no longer had positions because of company shift restructuring and technological changes at the plant.

Open Country Cheese chief executive Mark Fankhauser said the company had been trying to lift plant productivity to the same levels as at its businesses in Wanganui and Awarua before the strike took place.

"This process probably helped crystallise views on that so we have been able to ... find a mutual way forward."

Mr Fankhauser said the past six weeks had been more intense than difficult. "The site had run well and continues to run well and that's credit to the people inside the gate."

The Dairy Workers Union called an early end to the eight-day strike in late September but Open Country refused to let the workers back to their jobs, accusing them of sabotaging factory equipment.

It hired workers from other plants to help maintain its output of 1.4 million litres of milk a day during the peak season for production. Police later investigated reports of locked-out workers stoning their replacements.

The union said hiring workers from other plants was illegal and accused incompetent replacement workers of dumping sludge into the Waitoa river.

One of its members also laid a complaint with police alleging that a manager at the plant assaulted him.