In the early hours of last December 12, 55 Carlton & United Breweries (CUB) workers returned to work to the sound of bagpipes and applause.
Five hundred unionists and community members turned out to congratulate the workers on their successful 180-day campaign.
In the early hours of December 12, 55 Carlton & United Breweries (CUB) workers returned to work to the sound of bagpipes and applause.
Five hundred unionists and community members turned out to congratulate the workers on their successful 180-day campaign.
The dispute involving 55 unfairly sacked Carlton & United Breweries (CUB) maintenance workers is achieving media fame and causing a widespread boycott of CUB products.
The community protest that began 19 weeks ago has recently exploded on social media and now includes #BoycottCUB merchandise, giant city billboards and anti-CUB parties.
It has been 125 days since the Carlton & United Breweries (CUB) plant in Abbotsford sacked 55 electricians and fitters, who have a combined history of 906 years of service at CUB, and a protest was begun at the brewery gates.
Since then, the ownership and labour contractor of CUB have changed and thousands of Australians have joined a boycott of CUB products.
It has been 17 weeks since Carlton & United Breweries (CUB) terminated, through a contract arrangement, its entire maintenance staff and informed them they could come back to work under non-union terms and with a 65% wage cut.
It is expected that on October 10 CUB will be bought by AB InBev, the largest brewer in the world. It is hoped the new owners will overhaul the management framework and reinstate the sacked workers on their previous wages and conditions.
The momentum to boycott Carlton & United Breweries (CUB) products is growing. The Monash Student Association’s Sir Johns Bar and the Swinburne Student Association will no longer stock any CUB products.
Hotels across the nation — including The Tote in Abbotsford, The Lincoln in Carlton, the Kent Street Bar in Collingwood, and the Raccoon Bar in Melbourne, the Unicorn in Ballarat and the Grand Yamanto and Cecil Hotel in Queensland — are also refusing to serve CUB beers on tap.
However, most pubs are locked into contracts for their tap beers.
Community and union supporters joined sacked Carleton & United Breweries (CUB) workers and "Scabby the Rat" for a lunchtime protest outside Wallan Engineering in Campbellfield, in Melbourne's northern suburbs on September 15.
Wallan has been supplying most of the scabs to replace the CUB maintenance workforce, who were sacked, only to be offered the same work with a 65% wage cut, under an external labour hire company enterprise bargaining agreement.
International solidarity with the 55 Carlton United Brewery workers sacked by the company and replaced with scab labour has grown.
On September 8, coinciding with the mass rallies in support of the CUB 55 in Melbourne, trade union activists tried to confront the company management of SAB Miller at their headquarters in London. SAB Miller is the parent company of CUB, with a total operating profit of $4.4 billion.
Thousands of protesters converged on central Melbourne on September 7, marching through the CBD and blocking traffic at key intersections to support sacked brewery workers.
In the latest escalation of the dispute, unions are demanding the AFL pressure Carlton & United Breweries, one of its major sponsors, to meet the workers and to re-engage them immediately at full wages and conditions, or "face a CUB beer-free footy finals season".
