Woolworths shelves empty across Australia in scenes akin to the pandemic

Picketers will be present at Woolworths warehouses 24 hours a day and say they will remain there until a wage agreement is reached.

Members of the United Workers Union are blocking all entrances to a distribution center in a Melbourne suburb after Woolworths announced plans to reopen.

Plans to deploy staff on Monday never materialized, but picketers at the Dandenong South site turned away logistics trucks trying to enter.

The strike action has left supermarket shelves stripped across Victoria, with scenes reminiscent of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Customers can expect continued empty shelves after the union failed to get workers back to work due to the ongoing strikes, Woolworths said.

“The majority of our team at the Melbourne South Regional Distribution Center want to get back to work and get paid, our customers are facing increasingly empty shelves, another union has endorsed our deal and we are still at the negotiating table with the UWU ,” a Woolworths spokesperson said.

“As long as they continue to block access to our site, our customers will continue to experience shelf shortages in Victoria.”

At one store, on Collingwood’s Smith Street, most of the toilet paper aisle was emptied, along with large portions of bread and refrigerator sections.

The company and the union returned to the bargaining table on Monday.

It is believed the strike will not yet affect Victorian farmers, whose produce normally hits supermarket shelves closer to Christmas, but items such as nappies, toilet paper and drinks have been affected

“We’re hoping for a breakthrough because our workers deserve to be safe on the job,” said Tim Kennedy, national secretary of the United Workers Union.

Workers are protesting “unrealistic performance expectations” that they say lead to frequent injuries, demanding better wages and an agreement that workers in different locations will be paid the same amount.

In late November, Woolworths highlighted that all stores were still receiving regular stock deliveries, but some were receiving their goods less frequently than previously planned.

There were no product limits at the time, apart from eggs, which had been rationed for months following bird flu outbreaks in NSW and Victoria.

It is believed the strike will not yet affect Victorian farmers, whose produce normally hits supermarket shelves closer to Christmas, but items such as nappies, toilet paper and drinks have been affected.