Comments on: NDU, SFWU and Unite to form super-union

By: Progress on new superunion at thestandard.org.nz

Progress on new superunion at thestandard.org.nz — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 10:03:52 +0000

[...] we pointed out in our post back in September, a merger makes real sense. A super-union’s economies of scale makes for a far more effective [...]

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 04:45:46 +0000

Story is not true. SFWU has had policies of amalgamation for years and years. All that has happened is they have agreed to an informal meeting with the NDU. Reality in NZ is all unions are too small and they suffer from a real lack of resources to run large campaigns. They need to get together, regardless of factions and past differences, and they need to make sure that they keep the relationship with Labour. What no-one says about the Spotless dispute is that it was really about money that the government had already ringfenced to be passed onto low paid workers in public hospitals and Spotless was the only company to refuse to do so. Similarly, in Aged Care, the government’s $400million over 4 years is to increase workers’ pay and must be done through collective bargaining and provider contract agreements – already some large corporate employers in this sector have settled on a $1 an hour pay increase with the unions. There’s no doubt that union influence in Labour made the difference in getting the Labour government to fund and target this money for low paid workers.

By: Sam Dixon

Sam Dixon — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 06:28:44 +0000

Tim – I don’t know about the events in question, but you say it was 20 years ago. That was before the mergers that created the EPMU, so doesn’t seem to be an argument against the creation of superunions.

A superunion obviously has major advantages in terms of economies of scale and there is less imbalance in resources the union can bring to bear compared to employers. On the other hand perhaps, because of the number of collectives a superunion covers, there is a tradeoff in a less intimate relationship with the employers and less sector-specific knowledge.

By: JohnW

JohnW — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 05:53:54 +0000

Which EPMU leader was that? Every union has bitter ex-members (I could tell you a few stories about my time as a delegate in the SFWU and in smaller more radical unions) but the truth is I get more contact and support from the EPMU than any of the seven union’s I’ve been (I have had a lot of different jobs).

I’d also point out that the EPMU and NDU worked together during the progressive lock-out to get a decent result. Or is increasing the pay and conditions of hundreds of supermarket workers not radical enough?

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 05:42:05 +0000

John: “Um Tim, how do you poach members by undercutting pay and conditions? D’ya like rock in and say “join my union and I’ll get you a worse deal”?!”

Me: no, my understanding is that what happened was that the EPMU did a sweetheart deal with the bosses who then recognised them as the official party to the new collective, at the expense of hundreds of members of the existing union got made redundant.

A friend of mine was one those made redundant as part of this process, and nearly twenty years on he’s still bitter about the EPMU leaders role in this debacle (not to mention the Labour Government as well!).

By: JohnW

JohnW — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 03:36:13 +0000

Um Tim, how do you poach members by undercutting pay and conditions? D’ya like rock in and say “join my union and I’ll get you a worse deal”?! – I’m an EPMU member and I’ve got to say I don’t think they’re right wing but then again they’ve never conducted a secret strike ["secret strike"? wtf???] so maybe they *are* a little conservative.

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 03:02:03 +0000

Speaking as a rank-and-file NDU activist, I have to say that I think this merger idea – if true – would have a negative impact on the trade union movement in NZ.

The progressive, struggle-based elements in Unite and NDU would inevitably lose out to the pro-Labour SFWU bureaucrats and their “partnership with the employer” rhetoric, as SFWU seems to have a bigger organisational infrastructure in terms of paid officials, headquarters etc

As for the EPMU being a positive example of why we should favour union amalgamation, all I can say is just ask the Postal Workers’ Union about what it’s like to have a bunch of right wing scabs come in and poach all your membership by undercutting current union pay and conditions…

By: boris y

boris y — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 02:48:26 +0000

Considering McCarten is backing John Tamihere’s Mayoral campaign, anything is possible. Unite has successfully corporatised itself in the last year, shedding the anarchist riff raff from its boisterous Supersize days. Prehaps this union merger paves the way for the ex-Alliance supremos to ease themselves into a leadership role of what remains of the union movement, and bargain with Labour from a position of strength?

By: Insidetrack

Insidetrack — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 01:56:05 +0000

Hmm, this looks like the alliance party in industrial drag. I’ll be very interested to see how the leadership issues are resolved. Especially considering Laila may have been meeting Bill English on the QT lately.