Grocery Store Wars

This is very cute (Hat tip Claire D)

The farm is what gives us our power, it is a kind of field, that creates all edible things. But alas the market has been taken over by the dark side of the farm...an empire of pollution and pesticides has ruthlessly cornered the market....

Progressive Enterprises butchers wages...again

What: Picket outside Countdown HQ
Where: 29 Byron Street Sydenham
When: Today (Monday 16th of October)
Time: 4pm to 6pm

Progressive Enterprises Butchers Wages...Again!

Following a 26 day lockout by their employer, Progressive Enterprises, distribution workers supplying Countdown supermarkets finally won pay parity, and as a result the lowest paid Christchurch workers will gain a 19.7% pay increase by 2008. Supermarket workers gained increases between 4.25% and 5% in their settlement with Progressive.

Workers at the Southmore Meat Processing Plant (near Burnham) continue to battle Progressive to gain a fair pay increase.

Progressive refuse to acknowledge these workers are part of the meat industry and therefore ought to be earning wages similar to others working in the industry. Despite working in a beef boning room Progressive claim they are 'supermarket workers'. Southmore supply the local market whereas the larger and better paying meat plants supply for export - yet where do the exports go? They get packaged up for supermarkets overseas!

The National Distribution Union and the Meat Workers Union are working together on the shelfrespect.org.nz campaign. Shelfrespect Supporters is a group of concerned community organisations, unions and individuals who supported the locked-out workers. We now want Progressive to give the meat workers a fair go.

The union is seeking a 12% pay increase, which would take workers up to $15.50 an hour. It would be the first step towards pay parity with other workers in the industry who earn an average of $20 an hour. Progressive are offering a miserly 3.5% pay increase, the same as the initial offer to the supermarket workers. The meat workers at Southmore took a week long strike in July and another short strike in September.

The 'Progressive' dispute is not over. We need to put public pressure on the company to give these workers a fair go.

Feel free to bring banners and anything with a meat industry theme (meat grinders, cow bells. etc). The more imaginative the better!

Christchurch Solidarity March for Locked Out Progressive Enterprises Workers

At 11:30am on Friday the 8th of September at there will be a short solidarity march from the Trade Union Centre to the Square to mark the 15th day of the dispute that resulted in the Progressive Enterprises workers being locked out from their jobs.

No job means no pay.

Unionists and concerned members of the public who wish to show their support to the locked out workers are warmly invited to attend. Please bring banners. If you are in an artistic mood, why not paint your own banner with a special message for Progressive?

Progressive Enterprises will not allow their workers to come back to work until they give up their right to a national collective agreement. By tomorrow, distribution workers will have been locked out for 12 days. If a multimillion dollar multinational corporation like Progressive Enterprises are able to use stavation to bully their workers into submission, it will become more difficult for all workers to gain collective employment agreements.

Please assemble at the Trade Union Centre carpark at 11:30am

Contacts
The National Distribution Union (ph 379 7671)
Engineering Printing and Manufacting Union (ph. 0800 186-466)

Tags: Politics, Protests, Corporates, Progressive Enterprises, Unions

Progressive Enterprises are being loose with the truth

Today will be the 10th day over 500 distribution employees of Progressive Enterprises have been locked out of their jobs - and what is their crime?

Progressive Enterprises Limited (PEL) will not let their employees come back to work until they abandon their claim for a national collective agreement. This is the central issue at the heart of this dispute, and thus represents an attack on the right of every employed New Zealander to negotiate a collective agreement.

According to National Distribution Union publicity officer Simon Oosterman, PEL are meeting with other supermarket workers this week to discuss their pay demands and had promised those on individual contracts pay rises. It is nothing but an attempt to deunionise supermarkets and put all workers on individual contracts.

The company have been extremly loose with the truth throughout this dispute. PE have consistently attempted to claim that the union demands amounted to a 30% payrise, when the claim is actually only for 8%, perhaps 10-12% at most, if other allowances are taken into account. PE have failed to substaintiate their farcial figures, leaving one to assume it is nothing but an attempt to scaremonger. They claim to be doing this for the benefit of their customers, yet reliable reports are starting to emerge of PEL supermarkets raising their prices while they attempt to fight the unions - and just what are their customers paying for?

Declaration of interest: I now have a new job - National Researcher at the National Distribution Union. That said this blog is purely a collection of my own personal opinions, and does not in any way represent the NDU.

I started at the NDU last Monday - and had a lockout to deal with on my first day. It has felt very much like an election campaign! My thoughts are totally with the locked out workers and their families.

Labour Day and working hours

An interesting article on the BBC website looks at the pressures on workers to work more hours than they are paid for, The new face of slave labour.

[A]ccording to the Trades Union Congress (TUC) millions of Britons work so much unpaid overtime they are, on average, providing their employers with free work for the equivalent of nearly eight weeks of the year.

You could say those affected - predominantly the increasing number of white-collar workers in the UK - are providing their services voluntarily every day from 1 January to 25 February. That overtime is worth £23bn to employers, says the TUC's analysis of the Labour Force Survey

It is an irony that we still celebrate Labour Day to commemorate (should that be commiserate the loss of) the 8 hour day, when it no longer exists for many people. Perhaps, with a bit of research, the left could promote 'real' Labour Day, or 'emancipation day', as the day you stop working for your employer for free.

Last Labour day Progressive Enterprises, who run Countdown, Foodtown and Woolworths supermarkets, made it clear who owns who by banning checkout staff from wearing Labour day badges.

Perhaps the Government should consider legal measures to encourage employers to more accurately record actual hours worked. After all, longer hours increase the 'ACC risk', a risk far more tangible for employees as it is measured in heart attacks and other stress related conditions, such as depression.

In the British TUC survey last year, teachers ranked second in a list of professions doing the most unpaid overtime.

"Teachers certainly believe they are working excessive hours.... But at the same time if they think something is good for their children then they will do it. Despite working 54-hour weeks, on average, and taking work home in the holidays, there is still a public perception that teachers have a "cushy number", says the National Union of Teachers (UK)

A teacher friend recently explained to me that NZ secondary contracts are structured around a 7 day week. This has implications for how sick pay is worked out. If a teacher is sick on a Friday and a Monday they are counted as having four days off. This has led to many sniffly nosed teachers struggling through Friday so they don't loose four sick days for being sick on two working days.

Using the 'more holidays' excuse to dismiss teachers concerns about workload and long hours misses the key point - it is simply not healthy for a human being to be doing such long hours over extended periods. Nor can it be good for the kids, at home or at school.