January 18, 2016
Largest Union in world supports Maori workers & attacks Talleys/AFFCO
Largest Union in world supports Maori workers & attacks Talleys/AFFCO
MARTYN BRADBURY
The largest Union in the world, the IUF, has attacked the way Talleys/AFFCO have treated their workers in the Meat Workers Union.
The company, which has many Maori workers in it, has been waging a bitter war against its unionised members and resorted to tactics that are simply unacceptable in the 21st century.
In 2012, the company purposely locked out workers in a tactic that disqualified them from applying for benefits. This impacted 5000 children at the time and basically resorted to using hunger as a negotiating tool.
I'm not even sure ISIS do that.
The IUF notes that the current dispute began last June when…
"AFFCO began pressuring employees on seasonal layoff to give up their union-negotiated pay and conditions by insisting that employees could only continue working at the company on individual employment contracts. Two hundred workers at the company’s plant in Wairoa refused to do so and have been locked out of their jobs ever since."
Since then, the Employment Court ruled that by compelling workers to sign individual contracts and undermining the union, AFFCO had acted illegally. The problem however is that the court-ordered mediation process has been unable to deliver a solution owing to the company’s fundamental refusal to negotiate.
This highlights the problems of good faith bargaining when the boss doesn't have any good faith. The manner in which this company has been able to bully, intimidate and use hunger as a negotiating tactic has no place in NZ and because the workers are seasonal, poor and Maori, the nastiness of this dispute rarely gains mainstream media attention.
The boss of AFFCO, Peter Talley was given a knighthood last year which makes one wonder what gaining an honour like that is actually worth if to do so requires starving 5000 children.
Workers, many of them Maori, are being abused by this company and the Government seem more concerned with protecting the company's reputation than those workers rights.
Martyn Bradbury
Editor – TheDailyBlog.co.nz
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