SIMPLOT Australia management has condemned the Australian Manufactur-ing Workers' Union (AMWU) call for an escalation of industrial action as reckless and damaging to wage negotiations.
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About 150 workers at Simplot's Kelso and Bathurst processing plants walked off the job for 24 hours last Friday after months of negotiations over the latest wage claim.
But Simplot managing director Terry O'Brien said the union's demands were unrealistic.
He said average annual earnings for Simplot Australia's food production staff in NSW were $77,000 for food production workers and $112,000 for maintenance staff.
"Simplot employees' salaries are not insignificant, and over the past 14 years Simplot has paid wage increases that have outstripped inflation by 15 per cent," Mr O'Brien said.
He said the union, however, was refusing to back down on historical practices of demanding four per cent per annum wage increases.
"This is substantially more than other wage outcomes being agreed elsewhere and is more than Simplot is capable of paying if we want a strong company which is able to replace ageing equipment, upgrade its facilities and create great new products to stay competitive in the long term," Mr O'Brien said.
"Simplot has proposed total increases of four per cent over three years at its Bathurst and Devonport plants and a total of six per cent over three years for the other sites.
"The AMWU's demands are unrealistic and would simply be a nail in the coffin of Simplot's manufacturing operations in Australia."
He said despite union claims to the contrary, Simplot Australia is still a way off from having a sustainably profitable manufacturing business in Australia.
Mr O'Brien said the improvement figures quoted by the AMWU recently were off the back of the worst year Simplot has had in Australia for 15 years.
"In the 2012 financial year, we experienced a massive 50 per cent drop in profit, so the 49 per cent increase in profit quoted by the union still only brought the business back to 75 per cent of our normal profitability," Mr O'Brien said.
"And this improvement didn't come from our local manufacturing operations but from our imported products such as John West which benefited from the high Australian dollar along with the reduction of both the number of salaried staff as well as their salaries across the business."
AMWU national secretary Tim Ayres accused Simplot of trying to reduce the redundancy rights of its employees.
He has criticised Simplot management over what he said was an attempt to reduce workers' job security.
