Workers' Liberty

From Mike Kyriazopoulos in Auckland
The work of Unite union organising amongst low paid workers in New Zealand continues apace. A couple of initiatives recently have shown some workers in 'precarious' industries to be in advance of even the most progressive union in the country.

Fast food workers struck for the second time at a Wendy's in South Auckland on 9 March. Despite being advised by the union to call off the strike action because there was mediation pending, workers decided by unanimous vote to go ahead and just do it.

The hospitality sector has been another area of growth for Unite, where bosses complain of labour shortages, but workers earn little more than the minimum wage. A new pay campaign was launched on 8 March, with 33 workers from 10 hotels meeting at the union headquarters to hear sacked hotel workers talk about their experiences. They then staged a lively picket outside the offending employer's hotel.

A few of the workers then joined 15 workers from three hotels who had gathered at a nearby park to hold an open air meeting. According to Unite organiser Daphna Whitmore: 'We had a sign that read Upgrade Our Pay and some big red Unite flags. I tried to make a speech but the workers were only interested in doing a boisterous picket on the side of the very busy road. This was in Mangere [a working class suburb of Auckland] so there was a deafening stream of trucks honking, and cars beeping horns. People were hanging out of their cars to cheer the workers on.

'A bunch of kids from the primary school opposite joined the fun picket, their teachers urging them to get walking home. At the end of the two-hour stopwork 'meeting' the workers were really exhilarated and said 'that was great, we should do that again. But next time let's do it for half a day, not just two hours!'.'