by frog
Idiot/Savant over at No Right Turn has started a pledge to support locked-out NDU workers: to donate $20 per week to the workers’ fund, but only if ten other New Zealanders do. There are currently nine people signed up…
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare by frog on Tue, September 12th, 2006
Tags: environment
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
The pledge has now hit its target – but you can still sign up for it, and the more who do, the more effective it will be.
It would be nice to have 20 or 25 people by the end of the week…
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I haven’t been following this closely except I notice there are no sardines at Countdown (sardines are one of the most under valued items at the supermarket, I think). All things being equal though, I like the employment contracts act. I like the fact that I can negotiate my own pay rate so I can get a leg into a job ie start at a lower rate until I can do the job well enough. I also think it is fair that say, workers in Queenstown recieve higher pay than those in Chch as rents are so much higher. I’ve never been a fan of the mililant unionst type, although I back in history they were true heroes.
Henry
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There are some methods in getting to support the locked out distribution centre Progressive Enterprises/Woolworths Australasia workers who belong to the National Distribution Union. Short answer is to contact ShelfRespect.org Website:( http://shelfrespect.org ) for that issue. Don’t forget SupersizeMyPay.com Website:( http://supersizemypay.com ). To have an overall perspective contact NZ Council of Trade Unions website:( http://www.union.org.nz ). That should be a good kick starter and please consider putting the above on every ones blog&website links as well to help out. Yours Sincerely, C.Bruce Milne, Te Awamutu.Waikato, Blogsite:( http://cbmilne33.blogspot.com ).
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Henry: the supermarket workers are attempting to do exactly what you are suggesting: negotiate their own pay rate. However, they’ve clubbed together to do it, because they know they are more powerful and have a better bargaining position together than they do seperately. Meanwhile, their doing so doesn’t in any way stop people like yourself who think they are better off alone from negotiating that way. It may however mean you have to go to another supermarket to find sardines for the forseeable futue.
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Actually I have always been in a union but if I (hypothetically) wasn’t so confident I could do a job well, and needed time to train, I could negotiate to work at a lower rate with less pressure untill I was fully capable.
Henry
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Fair enough Henry, but in this situation we are talking about people who have in many cases been doing the job for years and are earning less than they used to.
The difference in pay rates in the different centres doesn’t reflect regional differences in the cost of living, but the stunt Progressive supermarket’s pulled a few years back when they sacked the workers, closed two of the distributions centres, re-opened them in another location and re-hired the workers at lower rates of pay. The Palmerston North centre wasn’t moved, so the workers kept their original rates of pay, better than those in Auckland and Christchurch.
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Good on you, those who have signed up to the pledge. Sue Bradford, Keith Locke & Russel Norman took $1145 donated by themselves and several other Green Party members out to the Favona Rd picket in Auckland on Monday.
This is a nationally significant case of a very aggressive transnational company locking low-paid workers out of their jobs simply because they want to negotiate a national collective agreement. If Progressive get away with it, it’s a sure bet that other big employers will use the same tactics. You can read more about the dispute on the National Distribution Union’s website.
The key thing at the moment is to ensure that the locked out workers are not starved into accepting the company’s conditions to go back to work. As well as the pledge started by Idiot/Savant, you can make a $20 donation by phoning 0900 LOCK OUT (0900 5625 688), or make payment directly to the NDU’s account:
Bank: BNZ
Account No: 02-0200-0217968-00
Reference: Lock Out
If you live in Auckland, Palmerston North, or Christchurch, the workers would really appreciate you turning up at the pickets to support them:
Auckland: 80 Favona Rd Mangere
Palmerston North: Supply Chain, corner of Makomako Rd & Mihaere Dr
Christchurch: Supply Chains on Shands Rd and Columbia St.
You can also show your support by shopping at New World or Pack’n'Save while the dispute continues – avoiding the Progressive outlets of Foodtown, Woolworths, Countdown & Supervalue – and let Progressive know you are doing this.
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in my experience if you tell the employer you are not confident you can do the job that well, but you will work for a lower wage, you just don’t get the job.
all that offering to start at a low rate accomplishes is that you are still competing with 10000 other people for the job, each of whom are all now making the same offer.
i.e. the employer gets a gift, the workers get the shaft.
haven’t you noticed there is never an end to what employers will demand – now they want to be able to ignore all the usual protocols of employment for the first 6 months of employment – to encourage them to employ more they say, yet employers have never (in their lifetime) had things so sweet. & for that matter, isn’t unemployemnt already supposed to be low? so wages should be going up, not down.
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Ah thanks for that email link Toad. Feedback sent
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this is the first time i’ve seen any indication of how we can help them (bank acct # etc). there really needs to be more of a publicity effort
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Andrew: Unlike their employer, the locked-out workers can’t afford to take out full-page ads in the paper to promote their cause. Instead, they have to rely on word of mouth.
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i was unduly harsh in a previous comment where i noted readers of frogblog were being treated with contempt/indifference by the dearth of postings by frog..
i said then there was only “a couple of posts a week”..
i was wrong…this week there have been four..
so..apologies for that..eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
(cd the last one out roll up the lily-pad..?..)
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Passing on this for Wellingtonians who can help out the workers:
The public collecting for the locked out workers has been going really well in Wellington. We’ve been averaging over $1,000 a day. But the number of people doing the collecting has fallen, and we need to make sure the load is shared if we’re going to maintain this for the length of the lock-out. If people could just come along for one hour this weekend, it’d make a huge difference.
The following collections are taking place this weekend:
Friday evening in Town: Meet at the corner of Lambton and Willis St at 4.30pm – contact Stephan Hay 021 210 4414 if you’d like to collect but can’t meet to later.
Saturday afternoon in Cuba Mall: Meet at the corner of Manners Mall and Cuba Mall at 1.30pm
Sunday Morning Markets: Vivian and Willis St, two shifts 9-11 and 11-1 (although it’s fine if you can only come for part of a shift).
Sunday afternoon Wellington vs. Canterbury: Meet at 3.30 outside the railway station, contact Nick Hirst 027 268-3291 for information or questions.
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I’m really in two minds about this whole thing and it’s easy for me to forget solidarity because I go to Foodtown for my Billington’s Molasses sugar.
Basically though when I think of Favona Rd I think of where I was brought up and especially where I used to play as a kid. Before that whole complex built it was chinese market gardens. Between the road and the inner harbour of the Manukau there where 50 metres of wooly nightshade and blackberries then about 500 metres of gardens before you hit the bamboo and macrocarpa on the edge of the harbour. It took us five years to eventually make our way accross those wilds before we got to the sea where we used to swim in the summer months. Now it takes five minutes to walk accross the concrete… if you can get past the security guards.
To my mind the hurts caused by this business venture have been going on most of my life and I see this recent occurence as merely another symptom of an illness that has been inflicted upon my family and neighbours for years. I’m sorry but I don’t even want the workers to be there in the first place. I want the market gardens to be be back there and the big trucks somewhere else.
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I continue to support Progressive in this battle with the communists, despite the propaganda from the left I have not noticed any shortage on the shelves at my local supermarket.
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Communists? Whats that all about Big Bruv? They aren’t any communists in this. Maybe the people representing the workers have sympathies with Marxist ideas but that doesn’t make them communist. Because I think that Mussolini and Hitler did rather well uniting their countries doesn’t mean I’m a fascist. Before I go any further I suppose I have to say that why and alot of how the above two did what they did was disgraceful but that doesn’t stop me from seeing the intelligence in what they acheived. So if I take the small amount of good in something essentially bad does that mean I agree entirely with the bad and am locked into it’s embrace.
I actually quite enjoy statements like yours Bruv because it makes me work hard to figure out myself and what I do stand for. You throw grenades without regard to anything except how far you can throw the thing and I stand back and watch with my eyes open. I learn by mistakes you don’t even realise you’re making.
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Arty
Being told by (excuse the pun) “Big Brother” that I am unable to negotiate my own employment contract is communism.
Nobody is forcing them to work for progressive, perhaps they should consider that.
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I don’t know what communism is. I mean really.
The concise oxford dictionary says;
Communism. Vesting in property in the community, each member working according to his capacity and recieving according to his wants; movement or political party advocating ~ism, party affirming need for a dictatorship of the proletariat… f.commun COMMON
“Vesting in property in the community”
Maybe our own government and the property we hold together under the crown could could be termed as communist.
“each member working according to his capacity and recieving according to his wants”
Without too much stretching that could be an ideal description of consumerism with a pragmatic re-description thus ” each member working to the minimum requirement for the greatest gain and taking according to his wants”
So therefore it isn’t communist at all but unionist. Collective agreement
In retrospect the concise oxford got an important word wrong, I think. “each member working according to his capacity and recieving according to his ‘Needs’ ” with a little extra… “surplus then invested for the common good.
Whatever, your making me look at pedantics, drawing me away from the bigger picture. I shouldn’t be worried about my itchy finger when theres a danger my legs are going to fall off.
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