My Name is Mitch Smart, I’m 33yrs old, and I live on the Northwest Coast of Tassie.
I’m employed as a sparky at a local specialty cheese factory owned by dairy giant Saputo. Most importantly, I am a husband and father and I love nothing more than spending time with my family.
At the end of year 10 (2008), I got an apprenticeship at a local contracting company. I stayed with this company until 2013, that’s when I made the change from contracting work to industrial & gained employment at the Heritage Cheese Factory.
Everyday duties at work include Maintenance on cheese making & Packing machines, Breakdowns, Instrumentation & some installation works.
As soon as I started at the cheese factory (then owned by LION), other long-term workers were asking the question about signing up to the union – I joined the CEPU straight away. At the time, I didn’t fully understand the meaning of unionism or what the union’s role was in my workplace, but it wouldn’t be long before I found out.
Fast forward to mid-2023 – one of our long-serving CEPU delegates was easing into retirement and was ready to hand the job over to someone else. I put my hand up for the job, as I felt I could be a good advocate for the union and represent my fellow workers.
There wasn’t a lot of time to get “comfortable” in this role as our Enterprise Bargaining Agreement was expiring at the start of December 2023. In October, all the maintenance crew (24 workers – a mixture of mechanical fitters and electricians) came together and developed a log of claims.
At the time we were putting together our log of claims, we found out that four of Saputo’s other sites (located in Victoria) were payed 21% higher than us (at the time, its now 23.5%).
We couldn’t comprehend how this was fair and reasonable as the cost-of-living had become really bad in Tassie. With our union backing us all the way, we started bargaining with the company. Our campaign was focused on SAME JOB, SAME PAY!
It came as no surprise to any of us, that bargaining with a multinational company was never going to be a “quick” and straightforward process. We had multiple meetings throughout early months of 2024, with no real success on any of our claims.
We escalated our campaign and began to take small, protected action stoppages and other partial bans. By the start of June, the company still hadn’t budged and provided a fair and decent pay offer, so we walked out indefinitely and vowed to stay on strike until the company met our expectations.
We have been on strike for 15 weeks. During this time, we have had a rally in Melbourne (the support from the ETU and all unions were mind blowing), we had a motion unanimously passed at Tasmania’s house of assembly supporting our struggle, along with lots of other pop-up rallies.
The generosity and support from our greater union family and public has been nothing short of overwhelming.
Over the past 15 weeks, I’ve been lucky enough to meet members and officials of our union, from all across Australia. It has become so clear to me, during this time what makes the CEPU so great: unionism – the absolute belief in standing together and backing each other to win. better for everyone.
It does not matter your background, where you live or which industry your in. If you are in our union, then your fight is our fight! No company will beat the strength and determination of workers when they’re backed in by so many people.