Workers' Liberty

New Zealand telecom workers' fight

20 Aug 2009 |

Mike Kyriazopoulos

The Telecom workers’ dispute is heating up. Auckland has seen striking workers marching up Queen St and picketing the Telecom HQ. On 18 August, around 300 headed for Alexandra Park for an unpaid meeting called by their union, the EPMU. The mood was upbeat and defiant. Their direct employer, Visionstream, is intent on forcing workers into a “dependent contractor” employment relationship. Workers would be expected to provide their own vehicle and materials, without any guarantee of work available. The union sought a legal opinion, which found that “each individual could be facing a pay cut from...

New Zealand: Left hopes to score in election

17 Oct 2008 |

Mike Kyriazopoulos

The eyes of the world may be transfixed by the spectacle of the race for the White House, but there’s another election in November that deserves some attention. New Zealand is going to the polls. There are a few similarities with Britain: Labour has been in office for long time, and there is widespread disillusionment; National (the Tories) has a new, young leader aggressively pursuing the political centre ground… But there are differences too: most unions are not affiliated to NZ Labour, and the voting system, Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP) means that small parties can end up...

"We can cause the bosses some mayhem"

23 Apr 2008 |

Mike Treen

Mike Treen is National Director of Unite New Zealand, a union which has successfully organised young workers in fast food. In February 2008 he toured Britain speaking to meetings organised by No Sweat , and we published his speech to the London meeting Solidarity 3/127 . After that meeting Mike Treen spoke to Colin Foster. Your approach contrasts with most other union organising drives these days, in that you started with a clear declaration of across-the-board demands that the union was going to fight for, rather than trying to recruit individuals on the basis that if they had a individual...

Organising fast food workers

27 Sep 2007

Mike Kyriazopolous interviews Jared Phillips, a Unite Fast Food Organiser and Workers Party activist in New Zealand. MK: How did Unite plan its organising in fast food? JP: The background is that Unite went from being an unemployed or community union to being a low paid workers’ union. Inroads started in the hotels, Sky City Casino, etc. There were plans to unionise the café industry but the real companies dominant in the service sector are the large brands or chains in the fast food and café industry. The first real campaign here was the Burger King campaign in Auckland which kicked off...

NZ Union wins 35 Hour week

24 Jun 2007

From Mike Kyriazopoulos in Auckland The Amalgamated Workers Union of New Zealand (AWUNZ) has achieved a groundbreaking Collective Employment Agreement with Allied Workforce, one of the major players in the notoriously “precarious” Labour Hire Industry. There are about 100,000 casual workers in NZ, and AWUNZ are planning to make the Allied Collective the model agreement for the industry. The Agreement includes a number of improvements above the legal minimum. The real coup is a guaranteed 35 hour week for all employees who have been with Allied for over six months (about 30-40% of the workforce...

New Zealand Left meets

24 Jun 2007

From 1 – 3 June the Workers Party of New Zealand hosted its annual “Marxism” conference which featured international speakers and interventions by other NZ left groups. Around 60 mainly young people met in a serious-minded, yet lively and comradely atmosphere to discuss the class struggle and the prospects for socialism. Dennis Maga from the Philippines addressed the conference on state repression, focusing on the plight of imprisoned congressman and former leader of the KMU union federation Crispin Beltran (a.k.a. “Ka Bel”). Maga’s campaign has dogged President Gloria Arroyo’s recent visit to...

NZ union helps fast-food and hotel workers organise

17 Mar 2007

From Mike Kyriazopoulos in Auckland The work of Unite union organising amongst low paid workers in New Zealand continues apace. A couple of initiatives recently have shown some workers in 'precarious' industries to be in advance of even the most progressive union in the country. Fast food workers struck for the second time at a Wendy's in South Auckland on 9 March. Despite being advised by the union to call off the strike action because there was mediation pending, workers decided by unanimous vote to go ahead and just do it. The hospitality sector has been another area of growth for Unite...

New Zealand students learn French

25 Mar 2006

In the New Zealand city of Auckland, more than 1,000 secondary school students walked out of classes in protest at low pay for young workers, explicitly linking their protest to events in France. A rally demanding equal pay with adults ended in scuffles with the police and two arrests after “Radical Youth” student representatives attempted to protect the demonstrators’ safety during a sit down at a major road junction. One of those arrested, 17 year old Omar Hamed, said: “I was going to move from the road as soon as I had accounted for the safety of the other demonstrators. But the officers at...

New Zealand: Unions show how to rebuild

29 Jan 2006

By Bryan Sketchley After years of union decline in New Zealand, at the hands of anti union labour governments and a concerted effort by the big business Round Table to take advantage of business friendly legislation, a recently formed union has made impressive headway in organising low paid and previously non unionised workers. Unite has taken advantage of legislative changes and have refused to limit themselves to organising workers in a particular sector of the workforce, instead have signed up members regardless of occupation, full, part time or casual status. To date Unite has had most...

The world’s first Starbucks strike

10 Dec 2005

By Dan Nichols At the end of November, New Zealand saw the world's first ever strike at a branch of Starbucks. What started as a small protest outside the Karangahape Road in Auckland snowballed after Starbucks workers heard that managers would be bought in to cover for striking workers. “What began as an event to highlight the poor conditions of low pay and minimum wage workers turned into a show of solidarity and strength between Auckland’s Starbucks workers,” said Simon Oosterman, SuperSizeMyPay.Com campaign coordinator. “More than 30 workers spontaneously walked out from 10 different...