inStopwork meeting report: 2015FIRST Union: Putting Workers First

action:Stopwork meeting report: 2015FIRST Union: Putting Workers First

Official Newspaper of FIRST Union August-September 2015

EXPRESSUNION MIN

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Westpac workers in Ruatorea fighting to keep their jobs.

Jobs For AllWe continue to campaign for jobs in all of the work we do. We support our members who are made redundant and stand up to employers and government ministers who try to blame the unemployed for their situation. We continue to build our strategic relationship with Auckland Action Against Poverty (AAAP) who provide advocacy for unemployed and other beneficiaries. We have now subleased part of the ground floor of our Auckland office to AAAP as part of a “Community FIRST” initiative of FIRST Union.

Living Wages We are an active member of the Living Wage Aotearoa Campaign. We use the Living Wage figure ($19.25 an hour) as a goal for our lower waged members to achieve. We have been very successful in achieving wage justice in our Pak’nSave campaign. We have now organised more than half of the North Island Pak’nSaves and usually manage to increase wages from around the minimum wage of $14.75 per hour to around $17.00 per hour for the one year rate in the first round of bargaining.

Unite’s campaign saw Restaurant Brands, then McDonalds and Burger King agree to get rid of zero hour contracts. For FIRST Union the issue was around low contracted hours and insecurity of hours, defending secure and predictable hours in some agreements (ANZ and Bunnings) and increasing security of hours in others (Countdown Supermarkets and DCs and Foodstuff North Island DCs). FIRST Union launched its “Secure our Hours campaign” at the beginning of 2015 and achieved a great result in the Countdown Supermarket negotiations, establishing a minimum of 20 hours per week (except where some workers such as students want a lower number of hours). In Countdown, Foodstuffs and some other DCs we have also negotiated agreements which see hundreds of labour hire jobs turned into full time permanent jobs.

Most of our negotiated increases are coming in between 2-3% whereas the average wage increase for the country was 1.6% for the year to June 2015.

Secure WorkWe acknowledge the great work that Unite Union has done in its campaign against zero hour contracts. This campaign took the country by storm and even media hostile to unions took up the anti-zero hours message.

Safe Work Our campaign for safe work has had both successes and setbacks. On the success side FIRST Union and the CTU worked together last year to get an Independent Inquiry into the deaths in the Forest Industry.

There were 9 deaths in 2013 alone, and the inquiry’s report agreed with many of our arguments around fatigue and working conditions. One outcome has been the establishment of a Forest Industry Safety Council (FISC) that Robert Reid is a Board member. FIRST Union and two other worker representatives on the FISC Board are establishing a Forestry Workers Safety Network (FWSN) to provide an independent voice for forestry workers in the forest safety area. The CTU continues to take prosecutions against many of the forest contractors where deaths have occurred, most recently with the successful prosecution of the company responsible for the death of Charles Findlay in Tokoroa.

On the negative side of Health and Safety is the watering down of the new Health and Safety law before Parliament. After much lobbying from farmers and other small employers, the government has removed the provision for

workplaces of under 20 to have a workers’ health and safety representative, (unless it is a high risk workplace). The union movement is campaigning hard against this.

Finally in the health and safety area FIRST Union has increased its support for the Sawmill Workers Against Poisons Group that is fighting historic claims of poisoning of sawmill workers in the 1950, 60s and 70s by PCPs and other chemicals. The union is active in other health and safety struggles in the wood sector, preventing workers from being exposed to dangerous chemical and emissions.

Union NetworksFIRST Union has always had networks for Maori, Pacific Island and women members (Runanga, Fono, and Women’s Commitee). The Union Network of Migrants (UNEMIG) continues to grow its profile in the media, being active in the restaurant and service industries ofAuckland, the Canterbury Rebuild and farms throughout NZ. There are networks (or councils) within the banks, the wood sector, bus drivers, ambulance and paramedics, petrol tanker drivers and owner drivers (ProDrive). A new Logistics Workers Network has been established especially for labour hire or temp agency workers.

Contact FIRST UnionPhone: 0800 TO FIRST (0800 863 477)Mail: Private Bag 92904, Onehunga, Auckland 1643Email: contact@firstunion.org.nz Internet: www.firstunion.org.nz Facebook: www.facebook.com/FIRSTUnionNZ

FIRST Union Senior OfficialsPresident: Syd KeepaVice-President: Margaret DornanGeneral Secretary: Robert ReidTransport, Logistics & Manufacturing Secretary: Karl AndersenRetail, Finance & Commerce Secretary: Maxine GayCentral Region Secretary: Sheryl CadmanSouthern Region Secretary: Paul WatsonOperations Manager: Greg Fitzpatrick

Membership and FinanceDespite the challenges we face, from the end of February this year we have bounced back and had a huge increase in our recruitment and a growing number of members. As of June 2015 we had 26,615 members (11,963 in Retail, 3,434 in Finance, 8,451 in Transport, Logistics and Manufacturing, 997 in Textile and Clothing and 1,310 in Wood). Total membership is starting to increase again in 2015 and we are confident that we can return to over 27,000 members by the end of October 2015, given we are now averaging over 600 new members joining up each month.

Our audited accounts for 2014/15 show a loss in our current account of $117,330. This second loss in two years reflects the membership losses of previous years, and the decision by the Union Executive to hold the organising school and employ its graduates to boost membership growth. The membership growth figures above show that this strategy is working, and once we get back to over 27,000 members we should break even or make a small surplus to cover the last two years of losses.

TPPA? Walk Away!

We are very proud of the role we have played in bringing to the attention of the NZ public the huge negative effective the proposed TPPA will have on people in this country and overseas. Working with Professor Jane Kelsey and the It’s Our Future network FIRST Union has played a major organisational role in opposing the TPPA for the last five years.

Samoa First UnionAfter hearing stories of stagnant wages and shocking working conditions in Samoa, our FIRST Union Fono agreed to work on a new Samoan private sector union. That project has been a great success: we launched at the end of June and within the firstweek we secured 1000 sign ups. We now have an office and a staff member based in Samoa, and will soon initiate collective bargaining at certain sites. This important move helps our Samoan members to take the benefits of unionism back to their people.

Canterbury Trade Union CentreCheck out the awesome progress on the new Canterbury Trade Union Centre, due for completion around the end of the year.

Community FIRST

invited AAAP to share this space with us and also it will house other union and community networks we work with. This shows our commitment not just to our members but to all working people and their communities.

We know that having decent work and a good wage is only half the battle, so FIRST Union is becoming increasingly active in the Community. FIRST has formed strategic relationships with groups like Auckland Action Against Poverty (AAAP), the Mangere Budget Advice Centre, Young Workers Resource Centre, Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA). A few months ago FIRST Union had the opportunity to take over space on the ground floor of its Auckland office. We