Woolworths has reached an agreement with workers at four of its warehouses, bringing a strike of more than two weeks to a close.
About 1,500 warehouse staff in NSW and Victoria have been on strike since 21 November over pay and workplace conditions, leading to bare shelves in many of the company’s east coast supermarkets.
Woolworths said it would reopen some of its sites as soon as Saturday night.
After a mass meeting on Saturday, workers voted to accept the company’s offer, which included “above-inflation increases across all sites”, the United Workers Union (UWU) said in a statement.
UWU said it also secured an agreement that workers could not be automatically punished for failing to meet timed performance metrics.
In October, Guardian Australia revealed fears from staff in Woolworths warehouses about an efficiency crackdown described as “disciplinary and coercive” by the union, including that workers were being tracked and pushed to comply with unrealistic and risky standards.
A new clause will be added to workplace agreements “that ensures that the workers will not be disciplined for the speed that they can work at, and an acknowledgment that not everybody can pick at 100%”.
UWU National Secretary, Tim Kennedy, thanked those who had supported workers with food, funds and messages of support over the strike’s 17 days.
“Today, warehouse workers at Woolworths have saved Christmas. But more importantly, they have challenged one of the most significant threats to worker safety and wellbeing as we enter a new AI-surveillance era of work,” he said.
“Breaking the link between measuring the speed of workers and automatic discipline if they fall behind is a significant achievement of the workers, and a sign that workers will have a say about how work is regulated as we move from the industrial age to the AI digital age.”
The indefinite strike action took place at four warehouses – three in Victoria and one in New South Wales.
Last week, Woolworths announced it would reopen its Melbourne south regional distribution centre. A picket line prevented the attempt, and the company won its application to the Fair Work Commission on Friday to ban the union from blocking the warehouse, and prevent similar action at other sites.
The supermarket operator also said it had lost approximately $50m in grocery sales since the start of the strikes.
In a statement, Woolworths Group chief executive, Amanda Bardwell, apologised to customers for shortages of goods in stores. “We are pleased to have endorsed offers for new terms and conditions and a competitive wage for our team at our four distribution centres,” she said.
“With just over two weeks to go until Christmas, we’re now focused on getting products out of the distribution centres and restocking the empty shelves customers have experienced in the past fortnight.”
