Red Alert

Posts Tagged ‘lockout’

Amateur Hour

Posted by on April 13th, 2012

Some days I despair about the quality of management we have in some of our important industries. Don’t get me wrong. We have some excellent companies with smart management, but some of the decisions by the Ports of Auckand and Talleys AFFCO just don’t cut it.

Yesterday the Ports of Auckland admitted they had leaked private information about one of their employees to a blogger who then reproduced it. Apart from being a breach of privacy, it was incredibly unethical, it is unprofessional and shows a serious lack of judgement by the management.

Then it was revealed that the wharfies have been welcomed back to work with multiple spy cameras on their machines, security guards in the lunchroom and a ban on exhibiting MUNZ logos on their clothing or belongings.

Treating your workers like they are the enemy is not a good way to go about mending bridges.

And there’s good old Talleys trying to waste SFO time and taxpayer money by claiming irregularities in the Meat Workers Union accounts. It only took the SFO a day to figure out this was a baseless complaint and reject it.

No one is pretending employment disputes are easy and I really want to see both PoAL and Talleys AFFCO settled.

But both these companies appear to be getting really bad advice. Its almost amateur hour stuff and would be laughable if the consequences weren’t so serious.

I agree with Len Brown. Heads need to roll at PoAL. He can make that happen.

Not much can be done about Talleys sadly. They just lurch from one outrageous violation to another.

Off to join the march at Moerewa.


NZ Bus stupid

Posted by on October 10th, 2009

The Herald reports that NZ Bus have rejected an offer from locked out drivers to drive school buses without pay when term starts on Monday.

Don’t know who is giving NZ Bus PR advice but they have made a big mistake here. If there are big traffic jams or one kid goes missing while walking home the bosses will cop the blame.

And they will cause a pile of unnecessary parental anxiety and time wasting even if there are no direct problems.

Just don’t understand why they didn’t say yes. Locking out very low paid drivers for having the cheek to do their jobs according to the rules is bad enough but this is certainly a very bad look.


Waharoa dispute could be ugly

Posted by on September 17th, 2009

The dispute around the right to organise a union collective at Open Country Cheese appears to be turning nasty quickly.

  1. Union members escorted from the site 5 hours before the strike was due to start.
  2. Company has now re-registered as a different company in order to be able to use employees from that company as strike-breakers.
  3. On Tuesday a union member was seriously assaulted by a manager. The Police are working on that issue.
  4. The stike started at 6pm yesterday. The 6 week lockout starts on 24 Sept.
  5. There is a picket running from 5.30am to 6pm each day at Waharoa.
  6. The Dairy Workers Union will be collecting food and money.
  7. The dispute has all the Talley hallmarks. They have the record of being the only company that was so bad that their contract was found to be “harsh and oppressive” under the ECA.