A bus with contract workers leaves Carlton and United Breweries on Tuesday. Credit:Luis Ascui The brewery is having non-union replacement labour bussed in and out of the site every day past picketing workers. Brewery insiders have told Fairfax Media that beer production has taken a heavy hit since the layoffs, dropping by tens of thousands of slabs a week. Some social media users have responded angrily to the sackings on the popular VB Facebook page, which has a following of 111,440 people. "Start looking after the people that made you great – sacking your workers and offering them back their jobs with less pay, disgusting," one user said.

Protesting CUB workers in Abbotsford on Tuesday. Credit:Luis Ascui "I won't be buying a VB slab this weekend, guaranteed." Another wrote: "Give your workers a fair go or we'll stop drinking your beer. See how much money that saves you." Sacked maintenance workers on a picket line outside CUB. Credit:Luis Ascui Former brewery machine specialist Chris Brown said he and his co-workers felt like they had been "thrown to the dogs" by CUB.

"There are guys with newborns, expectant partners, people now struggling to pay doctors' bills, and there are three apprentices who were almost finished who have not even been taken into account." Sacked workers try to keep warm on the picket line. Credit:Luis Ascui "We've been thrown out to the coldest, wettest Melbourne winter in five years ... it's been a real shock and we have been going through all the emotional stages." A source inside the Abbotsford plant said the site's ordinary production output had slowed by at least 35 per cent since the sackings. Sacked CUB workers manning the picket line on July 7. Credit:Eddie Jim

"From the end of this month on, it's the busiest period of the year. There's the footy finals, then Christmas, then summer," the source said. "I think CUB is going to get a really expensive lesson on the value of its labour force." Internal CUB documents show a significant slump in manufacturing. Machine line efficiency data reveals a sharp deterioration in run times since the maintenance workers were sacked and replaced. CUB would not comment on the impact of the sackings on beer and cider production volumes so far, but said supplies had not been affected. A CUB spokeswoman said the tradesmen who lost their jobs had been paid out redundancy entitlements by the previous maintenance contractor.

She said CUB's new contractor, Programmed, was advertising the jobs with pay rates that were "market-competitive and above-award", but was using temporary labour hire staff until the positions are filled. "Programmed are using temporary labour hire until full-time roles are filled ... those people have been bussed in to ensure they can reach the site safely," the spokeswoman said. "Some people filling temporary labour hire roles were approached by unknown people in the car park on their first day." Electrical Trades Union state secretary Troy Gray said the sacked CUB staff, who were experienced in the brewery's highly complicated and unique machinery, were among the most skilled tradesmen in Melbourne. "Those 50 workers ... have been working seven days a week, night and day, so the average punter out there can have a nice cold beer after a hard day's work, that's the way it should be," he said.

"Four weeks ago, [CUB] comes out and says you are all sacked on the spot – with all the arrogance of the big end of town – and said here's your cab charges, go to your new boss, it's a 65 per cent wage decrease." Mr Gray said the ETU would collect a $20 levy from its 20,000 members in Victoria to "support the locked-out CUB workers". "This will be a war of attrition," he said. "Those that can endure will win this dispute, and we will win it." The industrial feud at Carlton and United is the first to boil over since the federal election, with unions calling the situation a "sign of what's to come" under the second-term Coalition government that appears intent on continuing its "anti-union" agenda. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is yet to reveal his industrial relations policy, including whether to adopt controversial Productivity Commission proposals to make it easier for businesses to lay off workers and force them to reapply on lower pay and conditions.

"It's reprehensible how CUB is treating these workers, and we call on the government to be upfront and tell the electorate whether this is how they believe workers should be treated," Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Dave Oliver said. "At no time has the government ruled out these recommendations." Mr Oliver said big businesses were regularly emboldened under conservative governments to "go after" their workers' pay and conditions. He drew parallels between the CUB dispute and the infamous 1998 waterfront crisis, when Patrick Stevedores axed 1400 workers and replaced them with non-union labour. "Under John Howard, workers were sacked overnight while busloads of alternate workers were going in and taking their jobs," he said. "There are plenty of similarities with that's happening here."