Workers could be flown into a Victorian water treatment plant project for weeks to avoid angry protesters, their employer says.
Tedra Australia director Alan Atchison says four Filipino men, who are in Australia on temporary 457 work visas, are part of a permanent mobile workforce.
But their presence at the Werribee site, in outer western Melbourne, has prompted about 50 local tradesmen to blockade the site, protesting against jobs going to overseas workers.
The team of 12 workers, including the four Filipinos, could end up being flown in by helicopter every day to avoid trouble.
"If necessary we'll do what we have to do," Mr Atchison told Fairfax Radio on Monday. "We certainly didn't want to take a bus or trucks or cars through a picket line."
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When asked if the Filipino workers were employed because they had specialist skills, Mr Atchison said that was part of the issue.
"Our tank constructer has a mobile workforce, which means that before they started on our job they were working in Papua New Guinea on a major steel tank up in Port Moresby," he said. Kevin Nash, a supervisor for the tank contractor Briagolong Engineering, said one of the workers had a recording of a threat made by one of the protesters.
"One of my work colleagues was told that they're going to cut his throat, pull out his tongue and give him a Colombian neck-tie because he was recording as three of us tried to get through the gate," Mr Nash told ABC radio in Melbourne.
He dismissed claims occupational health and safety standards weren't being met at the site by using foreign workers. Nick Donohue, a spokesman for the protesters, said four of them had applied for jobs at the treatment plant.
"They say they've got more skills than us. What does that say about the local TAFE system?" he told Fairfax Radio.
Mr Donohue believed Filipino workers were being used because they were cheaper, although the company says they are paid the same as the rest of the team. The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union has denied involvement in the protest.
