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Unlawful picketing on Little Creatures site continues

Picketers are continuing to defy a Victorian Supreme Court order, obstructing workers at the Little Creatures brewery site in Geelong.

The Australian reports that the dispute targets contractor TFG, a business specialising in food and beverage production installations, and that court documents allege picketers were involved in threats of violence and damage to motor vehicles.

The AMWU and CFMEU were both ordered by the Victorian Supreme Court not to hinder workers from getting to the site or to picket.

"The actions of a group of people with no connection to the site in preventing people from going to work are illegal, inconsistent with the spirit of the Fair Work Act and it sends a very poor signal to potential investors into Geelong and Victoria generally," a Little Creatures spokeswoman told The Australian.

The Green Left Weekly reports that the unions’ concerns are around contractors employed for metal fabrication work on “sham” contracts, denying local workers jobs.

The General Manager of TFG Group, Tom Moultrie, claims that there was no choice but to take legal action.

"We're just really keen to get the brewery built and hand it over to Little Creatures," he told the Geelong Advertiser.

"It's quite disappointing, quite surprising … the brewery is going to need 50 or up to 100 employees and it's going to be there employing locals for the next hundred years."

Little Creatures’ shareholders voters approved a takeover of Little World Beverages, owners of Little Creatures, in September, by Lion Co, owned by Japan’s Kirin Holdings.

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