Victory for Dunedin Pizza Hut workers

March 1, 2011 by

Alastair Reith

Pizza Hut workers in Dunedin have battled for their rights against the bosses and won.

Dunedin’s two Pizza Hut stores were recently sold to new bosses. Upon taking ownership of the stores, the new bosses tried to force all the workers to sign new, individual contracts with inferior terms and conditions and a 90 day fire at will probationary period. This would be laughable if it wasn’t so outrageous – at the North D store the workers have been there for between two and eight years, and without a doubt know the job much better than their new employers!

What the manager clearly didn’t take into account was that these workers are union members. Both sites are Unite Union strongholds – the workers are staunch, aware of their rights, and aware of both the need to fight back and the power they have when they do so. All the workers refused to sign the new contracts, and today they walked off the job in protest.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Workers in Struggle

Call centre workers strike to ‘make a point to all those out there struggling with the same thing’

February 22, 2011 by

Call centre staff who are members of Unite Union took strike action yesterday morning against their employer Salmat (also known as

Salesforce). Approximately 40 members took part in the action as part of the effort to achieve what will be their first pay rise in three

years. The worksite is located at the corporate complex on 666 Great South Road in Penrose, Auckland. With its objective of rebuilding amongst the vast unorganised sections of the working class, Unite has been present on the site for over two years.

Salmat is an outsource operation that holds contracts with major companies, one being Vodafone, for which Salmat has a contract for

handling both customer and business calls. In terms of the modern workplace it’s a success to have a strong union membership in an outsource operation.

Speaking from the picket line, Ross Asiata, one of Unite’s delegates at the workplace stated to media “Everything else around us increases, GST etc, but our pay rise (read ‘pay rate’) stays the same. As you can see behind me that’s the staff that are in the same boat as me, trying to make a point to management and to all those others that are out there struggling with the same thing”.

Filed Under: Workers in Struggle

Casino workers hit New Year with festivity and militancy

January 2, 2011 by

Jared Phillips

SkyCity Casino workers in Auckland took strike action after the clock turned twelve on New Year’s eve, with more than 150 employees filing from the building and filling up its Victoria street side, and with the same number, combined, walking out from later shifts.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Video, Workers in Struggle

Black Gold

December 23, 2010 by

This is the year the government brought in new legislation attacking workers’ rights. While the new laws will make defending workers’ rights harder some workers are showing that there’s a fighting spirit and victories to be won.

In October this year union members working on the Kan Tan 4  drilling rig in Taranaki won a 30% pay increase in their collective agreement. It was the result of international solidarity among workers across the Tasman.

The EPMU launched a  short film titled “Black Gold” about the  30% pay increase achieved by EPMU members in Taranaki covered by the Kan Tan 4 collective agreement. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Uncategorized, Workers in Struggle

Secret ballots? Workers should decide

November 18, 2010 by

Back in April The Spark carried an article sounding the alarm at National MP Tau Henare’s Private Member’s bill to require unions to run secret ballots for strike action. While the Council of Trade Unions gave its “support in principle” to the bill at the time, we warned that workers could become ensnared in pedantic legal challenges by employers trying to undermine strikes. No Right Turn blog had also given its backing to bill as “a bit of a no-brainer.”

Predictably, the moderate-sounding wording of the original has been amended by the select committee, so now employers could challenge strike ballots with injunctions. Now the CTU and their mates in the Labour Party are crying foul over the bill. Didn’t the 90 day “sack at will” law brought in by Henare’s party give them a clue about what were the government’s intentions with regard to employment laws? Are they really surprised that a bill proposing further restrictions on unions wouldn’t also include the right of employers to challenge the process? [Read more…]

Filed Under: National Party, Workers in Struggle
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