In 2022, Ecolab workers coordinated strikes across Victoria and Queensland against a company paying poverty wages while its CEO earned 22 million. Their interstate solidarity exposed corporate greed and wage suppression tactics at a highly profitable global giant.
Ecolab workers in Victoria and Queensland refused to accept poverty wages while their CEO pocketed $22 million. Workers at Queensland’s Darra facility launched a 24-hour strike, with their Victorian colleagues backing them up with a four-hour solidarity stoppage.
These workers were sick of Ecolab using its market power to suppress wages and maintain pay inequity between sites. Despite the company’s soaring revenues, it rejected both a decent wage increases and pay parity across locations. But workers across two states showed Ecolab that corporate greed has its limits when workers stand together. Through theiur industrial action, Ecolab workers exposed how a wealthy global company was driving down living standards while enriching executives and showed that worker solidarity across state borders is the key to stopping the race to the bottom on wages.
“Bargaining in solidarity is what has enabled us as workers to get our fair share. – Ecolab worker and Member Councillor John Newton