15 July 2024

Tully Sugar Limited Ramps up Discontent with Bullying Threats

Union members at Cofco Tully Sugar Mill are leaving in droves, with many remaining workers hanging on by a thread as the company refuses to put a fair offer on the table for Enterprise Agreement (EA) negotiations.

Highly skilled Cofco Tully Sugar Mill workers are embarking on lawful protected actions to deliver a ‘liveable wage’ that keeps pace with the cost of living and maintains relativity, after high attrition at the mill.

“Workers at Cofco Tully Sugar Limited are trailing inflation by 11.63% since their last increase. Even the Sugar Milling Industry Award has increased by 18.35% since the mill’s last agreement. At the same time, wage increases for workers have been a pittance in comparison, all while sugar prices are at a record high and profitability should have been tremendous,” says ETU Organiser Robert Hill.

Against this backdrop, and after more than 90% of the workforce voted down the mill’s offer of 14.25% over the next three years, Cofco Tully Sugar Mill manager John Edwards has belligerently refused to table an improvement.

“This week, John Edwards has resorted to infantile threats of locking workers out if they are to continue to exercise their lawful right to take protected action. Workers are taking action to get Cofco Tully Sugar Mill to understand that this enterprise’s most valuable commodity is its invaluable workforce.

“Instead of ignoring the workers, treating them with contempt, and dreaming up ways to stall the negotiations, management should invest a fraction of that effort in actually finding a palatable position to offer,” says Mr Hill.

In a recent all-staff meeting, Cofco Tully Sugar Mill CEO Andrew Yu mentioned that 30% of the mill’s profits are returned to Cofco in China, while lauding the offer of a 14.25% wage increase over three years as ‘generous’.

“The arrogance to admit that to a room full of workers who are struggling to put food on the table. This means 30% of the revenue of that mill, in times when sugar milling is a profitable business, that will never get circulated through the local economy. The workers are asking for a small percentage of that profit, so they can pay their bills, remain working at the mill and living in Tully, and spend those wages in their local communities,” says Mr Hill.

Currently, the wage offer from the company is apart by 6.75% over 3 years, and manager John Edwards has repeatedly said that any increase above the current offer is ‘not viable’.

“If I was a shareholder, farmer, or member of the sugar community, I would be very concerned if 6.75% over three years threatened the viability of that enterprise. This reeks of desperation and strong-arm tactics,” said Mr Hill. “Perhaps he should ask his CEO for some of the massive profits that are being funnelled back to China, so he can deliver for his workers, and keep staff at this mill.”

“To train competent staff in some areas of that mill takes years and costs a fortune, but at the rate they will lose experience, this enterprise will struggle to maintain competence if a decent wage outcome cannot be landed. The reality is that workers in that Mill do not have the luxury of banking 30% of their wage, with many living ‘hand to mouth’ and falling further and further behind,” says Mr Hill.

Management at the mill is saying any increase on the offer that was rejected by more than 90% of their workforce, ‘threatens their viability’. Whereas workers are adamant that without wages that catch up to the cost of living, they will not be able to continue working at the mill.

“Instead of trying to negotiate a solution, Cofco refuse to budge, and workers are forced to take protected industrial action to be heard. John Edwards has decided to double down in what can only be described as petulant retribution, and a bullying tactic, when he recently threatened to ‘lock workers out’ if they continue their lawful actions,” says Mr Hill.

“Mr Edwards, however, seemed not to have the intestinal fortitude to own that escalation himself, or to blame his masters in far off China for it, but instead, in an infantile attempt of deflection, he blamed the ‘local sugar cane farmers’ for it, hiding behind them for this anti-worker position.

“With the recent ‘wet weather stops’ and Mill interruptions, whilst we have fine days, I would find it incredible to imagine that the Sugar Cane farmers want the Mill to lock out its workers, so that their cane cannot be milled.

“It really is time for Cofco Tully Sugar Limited to stop playing with people’s lives and livelihoods, stop hiding from their own decisions, stop ignoring the workforce, and start negotiating and when they do, we will be ready, willing and able,” said Mr Hill.

ENDS

For more information, call Robert Hill on 0430 072 049 or Kristin Perissinotto on 0448 633 858.