Strike at Open Country Dairy plant

Striking workers at the Waikato factory of Open Country Dairy walked off the job tonight with the company expected to replace them by strikebreakers.

Open Country has said it plans to keep the Waharoa plant running by using farmer volunteers, while union leaders claim management had brought in workers from its Southland factory.

Dairy Workers Union national secretary James Ritchie told NZPA the 38 striking workers left the premises at 6pm and picketing would begin tomorrow.

The union gave notice of an eight-day strike over a pay and contracts dispute and the company responded by issuing a six-week lock-out notice.

Mr Ritchie said there would be temporary staff working who had been excluded from collective bargaining after being hired through a "sham" employment agency.

"We think there's 10 or 15 people who didn't join our union, and they've brought in strikebreakers from the South Island, and we believe also from Wanganui.

"Their ability to run the plant will be interesting".

Mr Ritchie said milkflows were starting to build toward the Waikato's peak production in about a month's time.

"It will be harder for Open Country to process, the longer the stoppage lasts, because of peak milk," he said.

Open Country chief executive Mark Fankhauser said last week the company needed 10 additional staff if the strike and lock-out went ahead and he had a bench of 10 or 15, including directors, administration staff and volunteer farmers.

The Waharoa plant general manager, Tim Slade, said tonight he could not immediately comment on the stoppage.

"I am busy helping run a plant with limited staff at present," he told NZPA.

Open Country set up its first cheese factory at Waharoa in 2004, added a whey plant in 2006, an anhydrous milk fat plant in 2007 and a whole milkpowder plant in 2008.

Since then it has built $30 million whole milkpowder plants at Awarua in Southland, and at Wanganui, each able to turn out 7.5 tonnes an hour, or 30,000 tonnes a year.

The combined capacity of the three sites is 800 million litres of milk a year, making Open Country the second largest dairy processor in New Zealand.

- NZPA