More people taking strike action over low wages and insecure work

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, October 11th, 2016 - 12 comments
Categories: business, Unions, workers' rights - Tags: , , ,

From Newshub:

A company that supplies products for a number of popular advertorial brands is facing increased pressure to budge on work hours and pay, after workers launched their third strike in five days.

Employees at the distribution centre of Brand Developers TV Shop, which supplies Thin Lizzy and Transforma Ladder products, walked off the job at 8am on Monday, after also protesting on Thursday and Friday last week.

“Every working person deserves secure work hours and fair pay – but at the [Brand Developers] TV Shop, the people who do the work of selling and moving its brands are expected to survive on little more than the minimum wage and a roster that changes from week to week.”

The latest trio of strikes in the last week follow a protest from employees working at the company’s call centre in September this year.

Don’t believe the rockstar bullshit – the CEOs may be dragging the average wage up with their pay rises but the real people doing the work are still getting squeezed.

12 comments on “More people taking strike action over low wages and insecure work ”

  1. Muttonbird 1

    There’s been a marked increase in industrial action in the past 12 months. A sign of an unhappy nation.

    The wilfully blind cherry-pick average wage increases from the government friendly Stats NZ, and call them increases for the ‘average Kiwi’. Not so if a wide range of Kiwis from fast food workers and bus drivers to doctors and teachers are all striking.

    • alwyn 1.1

      “There’s been a marked increase in industrial action in the past 12 months”.
      Do you have any evidence for this claim? Number of strikes, days lost, that sort of thing?

  2. It had to happen , sooner or later… you cant keep hiding behind minimum wages ,flat rates , cheap foreign labour , and basically treating people like shit for ever and a day. Something has to give. And exacerbated by the lack of unionization of the workforce and the exploitative nature of the Employment Relations Act – the child of the Employment Contracts Act,…

    It was only a matter of time. And time it is. We’ve had enough of the neo liberal shafting of people in the workforce. They brought it on themselves with their duplicity ,double talk and greed. Its good to see people awakening and starting to stand up for themselves once more.

    • Draco T Bastard 2.1

      +111

    • Macro 2.2

      Its good to see people awakening and starting to stand up for themselves once more.
      Hear hear!
      But it will be a long hard road back. My dad lived from 1899 to 1994. All his adult life, and as a young teen during the First World War in Britain he was involved in the Union movement fighting for better conditions. The ECA and the ERA have basically removed all the gains hard fought for, over decades – they won’t want to hand them back on a plate.

  3. Draco T Bastard 3

    Don’t believe the rockstar bullshit – the CEOs may be dragging the average wage up with their pay rises but the real people doing the work are still getting squeezed.

    Working exactly as planned then.

  4. Rosie 4

    Well done Distribution workers at Brand Developments and good luck!

    You know, I see constantly see ads on line for Thin Lizzy demonstrators. The going rate is minimum wage. Crap product, crap wages. No wonder they can’t fill the role. No wonder they are having staff walk off the site. No wonder at all.

  5. Observer Tokoroa 5

    .
    . Where is the Cabinet ?
    .

    If John Key was a leader, he would make sure that all workers in New Zealand receive a fair go, in wages. and in conditions.

    But no. He and Billy English slag off against Workers.

    It is as if they want to destroy employees of all sectors. They have cynically shown in a number of ways they don’t want prosperity for the people who do the work in this country.

    Apparently Key and English get large cheques from grateful Fagans and scrooges who ill treat the workforce.

    The National Party does have a duty of care. Well, not this National Party. Oh no.

    Mr English and Mr Key, Forcing people to strike is Satanic!

    .

  6. adam 6

    For a company use to using subcontractors, this dispute has been a long time in the works.

    Also some job placement agencies have been doing the dirty work for this lot, for quite a while. I can think of a dispute I helped with back in 2006/7.

    • alwyn 6.1

      Wash your mouth out adam.
      You forget your place when you say things like “I helped with back in 2006/7”.
      All was heaven and New Zealand was a paradise on earth at that time. We had the sainted Helen as leader with her band of loyal acolytes.

  7. Michelle 7

    Yeah what about when they ( the gnats ) talk about a house for life (State houses) yet Billy boy English has no problem with his job for life and for the old boys to have jobs hypocritical of him but he is not the nice man people portray him to be remember he was abusing the system himself and got caught.

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