Vic premier wants Werribee blockade to end VICTORIAN Premier Ted Baillieu and business groups want an end to a blockade at a Melbourne water treatment plant where workers are being flown in by helicopter. Dozens of workers have set up a blockade around the Werribee plant, angered by Tedra Australia's use of four Filipino workers in Australia on temporary 457 work visas. The Filipino men were among a team of 12 workers helicoptered to work on Monday, as Tedra sought to avoid the blockade. Mr Baillieu called for an end to the blockade. "This picket is unacceptable and it ought to be withdrawn," he told reporters. There are entirely legal employment activities going on at that site. This picket has all the signs of a union picket that's disguised as something else. Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VECCI) spokesman Richard Clancy said the blockade set a dangerous precedent for the rest of the economy. "Victoria cannot afford the economic and reputational damage that results from allegations of repeated threats of violence and harassment against construction workers trying to go to work," he said in a statement. Tedra director Alan Atchison said the company would use helicopters every day if it had to. "If necessary we'll do what we have to do," Mr Atchison told Fairfax Radio. We certainly didn't want to take a bus or trucks or cars through a picket line. Asked if the Filipino workers were employed because they had specialist skills, Mr Atchison said that was part of the issue. "Our tank constructor 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," Mr Atchison 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. Nick Donohue, a spokesman for the protesting group, said four of the protesters had applied for jobs at the treatment plant. He said he believed Filipino workers were being used because they were cheaper, though the company denies this claim and says they are paid the same as the rest of their team. The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union has denied it has any involvement in the protest.