Hastings McCain workers offered strike-breaking jobs in Oz

McCain Foods NZ Ltd, Omahu Road, Hastings. Business. 26 September 2016. Hawke's Bay Today photograph by Warren Buckland

The E Tu union is urging Hastings McCain Foods workers to not accept strike-breaking positions in Australia and claims the company is restricting information to its workers.

Union organiser Thomas O'Neill said the company told E Tu it was not allowed to post information on the Australian strikes on the E Tu's notice board at the Hastings site.

"We have been told no, we are not allowed to put this up - the company is forbidding it," he said.

Some Timaru E Tu members resigned from the union after being told E Tu did not support their decision to accept an Australian assignment circumventing the Australian workers' strike, he said.

"We condemn the use of Kiwi strike breakers from Timaru and Australia and we are 100 per cent in support of the he Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and its struggle to get better terms and conditions for its workers."

Mr O'Neill said Hastings workers had reported being offered substantial bonuses to work in McCain's Ballarat plant, where workers were on strike after a breakdown in collective agreement (EBA) negotiations and the company move to use contractors instead of employees.

He said McCain's Ballarat and Timaru plants were highly unionised but McCain Hastings did not have a collective agreement.

"On average the non-unionised McCain workers are paid significantly less."

While a trip to Australia might appear a good deal for workers, he said undermining striking workers was short-sighted.

Hastings plant manager Jeff Hope said two employees had been asked to travel to Australia to help run McCain's potato plant in Ballarat this week.

"Our employees in Ballarat are unable to work to full capacity while the union runs protected action, so some of our New Zealand employees are helping out while their Australian colleagues wait to vote on the EBA we're offering," he said.

He confirmed E Tu was prevented from posting items on its Hastings notice board.

"Our company protocols would never allow for a non-employee to post unsubstantiated allegations from an Australian union in our plant here in New Zealand."

A Ballarat worker's forearms were recently treated in hospital for burns after a pipe burst at the plant.

The Australian union blamed the burns on untrained strike breakers but the company said the workers were fully qualified and staff assignments in different plants were a normal part of company operations.

McCain is a Canadian company and the largest processor of frozen potatoes in the world, processing other vegetables and pre-prepared meals.

Its $19 million plant upgrade in Hastings was officially opened by Prime Minister John Key in 2011.