Yesterday I visited a group of cleaners at Massey University’s Wellington campus. (apologies for poor photo quality). Along with their colleagues on the campuses in Palmerston North and Albany they are employed by OCS Limited to do the cleaning. OCS took over the contract for cleaning a couple of months ago and are pushing through changes to their employment conditions that are just shocking.
OCS have decided to move the workers from largely full time jobs to new jobs that will guarantee them only 25 hours a week for the 31 weeks of peak university time, and no guarantee of hours for the remaining 21 weeks of the year. The way they are doing this is by making the workers redundant and offering them new contracts with the reduced hours.
This is unfair and unjust. It will equate to a 35% drop in wages. These people are not well paid. They get just above the minimum wage. Many of them travel from Porirua to Wellington to work. While OCS as the contractor has the responsibility for the contracts it is concerning that this is happening on a publicly funded university campus. I have written to Steve Maharey as Vice-Chancellor expressing my concern.
The Service and Food Workers Union are taking the redundancy proposal to court on Thursday, as OCS are offering no redundancy pay. Anyone interested in supporting the workers I understand that some of them hope to be at the High Court in Wellington tomorrow from 9am onwards.
Posted in SFWU, Fairness at Work, Massey University and Union. |
I have known Helen Kelly, the President of the CTU for quite a long time now. I admire her greatly. She has been, and is, an exceptional and passionate advocate for workers in New Zealand, and indeed internationally. I can appreciate the position she was in when National was elected and called on the union movement to be part of their Jobs Summit. I was a bit surprised when the CTU had John Key speak at their conference, but they felt this was a PM and the government that they should, and could, work with.
Just how let down Helen, and the workers she represents, are now feeling is clear from the letter that Helen has sent to the PM.
It is easy to feel the sense of betrayal in her words
She said he had breached his undertaking to consult her if the Government was going to move on union access and non-union collective bargaining.
“You also said you wanted to work with the unions,” she wrote. “And you portrayed yourself as a moderating influence in employment law matters. That has changed.”
I saw Helen at a function last night and I can report in person she is every bit as aggreived.
While the on-going debate will be and should be about the substance of the changes to workers rights and conditions, the role and the approach of the PM should not forgotten here. He led the union movement to believe he was their friend, but as soon as his perception of the political environment dictated a change, he moved swiftly to go against his word. That is a serious breach of trust, and one that I think the PM will live to regret.
Posted in Workforce, Labour and Union. |
I had a very pleasant night last night at the Tertiary Education Union conference dinner. This was the first conference of the combined University and Polytechnic staff union, and therefore was a pretty special occasion. Folk at the dinner were in good spirits, and I spotted a range of people from across the education sector as well as fellow MP Carol Beaumont. I also understand new Green MP to be Dave Clendon was there, though I did not get to say hello.
The talk of the dinner was the appearance at the conference earlier in the day by Education Minister Anne Tolley. For obvious reasons the Minister is not flavour of the month with tertiary staff with funding cuts in the Budget, no move on the cap for EFTS, and in the Polytechnic sector the legislation before the House that will gut Polytechnic Councils. The Minister was no doubt expecting a rowdy reception. The reality could not have been more different.
Delegates told me that after the Minister delivered a fairly turgid speech that offered little in the way of vision and much in the way cliches, there was total and complete silence. All those I spoke with said it was not planned. They were just so underwhelmed with the Minister’s effort that no one felt moved to clap. You could have heard a pin drop.
As the Minster did not have “time” for questions, a TEU representative gave a stirring response to the Minister’s speech, followed by a waiata. In this case the waiata was Solidarity Forever. Apparently this was not the Minister’s cup of tea as she left during the singing.
The TEU delegates I spoke to would rather have had some engagement with the Minister, but I think they probably got their message across in any case.
Posted in Protest, Union and Education. |
The staff at Parliament are a fantastic bunch. They are incredibly dedicated and helpful, and actually play a really important role in keeping our democracy going. There are two collective contracts running at Parliament one for MPs staff and the other for all the administrative, security, messengers etc. The latter contract is up for discussion at the moment and the staff are taking industrial action in the face of an effective pay freeze and an attempt to clawback on their redundancy conditions.
There was a rally today at Parliament which a number of Labour MPs attended to show our support for the staff who work hard to keep us safe, informed and happy. These staff are aware of the economic conditions the country is facing, but they deserve the respect not to have their pay and conditions dictated to them, and to have the opportunity to sit at the table and negotiate a fair deal.
Posted in Union, Redundacy, Public Services, Deomcracy and Jobs. |
