Posts Tagged ‘lockout’

AFFCO to extend lockout to avoid holiday pay

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, April 4th, 2012 - 81 comments

Talley’s has sunk to a new low in the AFFCO lockout. Not content with trying to starve out 1,000 workers and force them to accept 20% pay cuts, Talley’s-owned AFFCO meatworks are planning to lockout hundreds more workers on the Easter statutory holidays – just to save on paying its workers holiday leave. It’s a despicable, and hopefully illegal, move.

0900 LOCKOUT

Written By: - Date published: 3:22 pm, April 1st, 2012 - 33 comments

While the PoAL dispute has been raging a thousand meatworkers are entering their fifth week of lockout at Talleys-owned AFFCO.

There’s a war on workers on across the country at the moment but you can help fight back.

Softly, softly treatment for militant employers

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, November 17th, 2009 - 9 comments

The continuing wave of lockouts continues to go unremarked by the government, the opposition and the media. Over the past few months there has hardly been a week, when one, or even two, and sometimes even three lockouts have been going on around the country. This week has been no different; The continuing lockout of […]

Open Country now assaulting workers

Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, September 23rd, 2009 - 68 comments

The Talleys-owned Open Country Cheese dispute took a new turn today after it was revealed that a senior manager, not content with just bullying workers, has assaulted one of them. Here’s what Giovanni Moana, the worker concerned, had to say: “I was told to put my head through a window in the packing room at […]

Nat-linked company tries to bully workers

Written By: - Date published: 5:39 pm, September 22nd, 2009 - 15 comments

The Open Country Cheese dispute is getting nastier by the day. The workers began their eight-day strike last week. The Talley’s and National Party-linked company responded by bringing in strike-busters (farmers, apparently) to take the workers’ place, which is illegal. On Saturday, one of these untrained strike-breakers allowed polluted sludge from the factory to flow […]

Photos from the Bridgeman lockout

Written By: - Date published: 4:45 pm, September 17th, 2009 - 6 comments

Some photos from the picketline at Bridgeman Concrete in East Tamaki, where workers have been locked out indefinitely unless they submit to a two year pay freeze. Good to see them standing strong. Click the thumbnails to see the full size pics: Hat tip: NDU via Indymedia.

Lockout at Bridgeman Concrete

Written By: - Date published: 10:45 am, September 16th, 2009 - 14 comments

Last week I wrote: We’re seeing a new pattern in work relations emerging. The big employers, emboldened by having their party in power and using the recession as an excuse, are attacking workers’ pay and conditions. Now, on the same day Talley and National-linked Open Country Cheese begins shutting out its workers and illegally using […]

National-linked dairy company threatens six week lockout

Written By: - Date published: 12:26 pm, September 11th, 2009 - 31 comments

There’s a nasty dispute brewing at Open Country Cheese involving a six week lockout threat, some highly aggressive anti-union PR, calls for the Government to gut labour laws and major links between the company and senior National Party figures. It’s early days yet, but this could be a big one. Open Country Cheese was founded […]

Backdown from Infratil?

Written By: - Date published: 5:00 pm, September 8th, 2009 - 3 comments

Infratil-run NZ Bus has called off its planned capital strike for tomorrow. The company had been going to prevent bus drivers and other staff who wanted to work from working. It has withdrawn that lock-out notice and presented a better offer to the workers. The workers have also withdrawn their notice of intention to work […]

Heavy-handed tactics from NZ Bus

Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, September 7th, 2009 - 27 comments

Auckland bus drivers have been in negotiations with NZ Bus (which is owned by Infratil) for a 70 cent an hour pay rise. Currently, they’re on between $14.05 and $16.75 an hour for 13-hour shifts. Many workers are on split shifts, which means up to four hours a day of unpaid time between shifts. Negotiations […]

Trouble at the Gateway Hotel

Written By: - Date published: 2:58 pm, August 24th, 2007 - 3 comments

One of the worrying trends in industrial relations in recent times has been employers’ rediscovery of the lockout as a tool to break the power of organised labour and drive down wages. This is an extreme weapon, designed to starve the workforce into submitting to mangement’s demands, and is based on the brutal logic that […]