About 120 activists and residents successfully established a community picket on March 8 that stopped work at the Heat Treatment Australia (HTA) factory in Campbellfield for the entire day.
HTA provides crucial heat treatment for components of F-35 Joint Strike fighters, used by the Israeli Defense Forces in their ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Protesters blockaded the factory from 5am.
Nathalie Farah, who was part of the early morning picket, told Green Left Radio on 3CR that they were informed at 5.30am that “no workers would be working at the workplace today”.
She said protesters intend to continue “shutting down the facility until HTA burns its contracts with Israel”.
Farah said the protest is not targeted at HTA workers and that one of the campaign's key demands is for the “federal and state government to provide alternative jobs for the existing workers at HTA” because “no worker should be forced to work in industries that produce weapons of war”.
Protesters intend to maintain the community picket until the end of business hours on March 8.
The picket followed five weeks of consecutive protests outside the factory organised by Hume for Palestine.
Janine, Hume for Palestine organiser and local resident, said in a media release: “We reject that our tax dollars are being used in any legitimate way to benefit the community when the government are prioritising the fortification of the military-industrial complex.”
She said Hume for Palestine are planning more community pickets targeting the facility.
[Follow Hume 4 Palestine for updates on future actions targeting the HTA facility in Campbellfield.]
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