Australian NUW Launches ‘Better Jobs 4 Better Chicken’ Campaign

Australia’s National Union of workers has stepped up its poultry organizing efforts and launched a “Better Jobs 4 Better Chicken” campaign aimed at winning permanent work, safer workplaces and the production of better chicken.

While continuing their support for the Baiada Lilydale workers – one of whom was killed in a ghastly accident last year – the union is also balloting for possible industrial action at another Baiada site. NUW organizers have recruited 100 new members at a poultry plant in the northern Melbourne suburbs, leveraging this into a union agreement giving a 16% wage increase over two years. Before this campaign, workers were on Award wages of less than AUD600 per week. With the new agreement workers will receive over AUD7,000 of extra pay.