Cleaners at Auckland Airport will be stopping work today and going on strike, after their employer OCS has offered zero increase in recent negotiations.
The workers will strike in groups and will be on a picket line at the Auckland Domestic Terminal (Air New Zealand side) from 1:30pm until 2:30pm.
OCS is one of the parties to the multi-employer collective agreement (MECA) for commercial cleaners, which also includes ISS, City Cleaning, PPCS, Total Property Services (TPS), Millennium, Kleenrite, Watershed, United Cleaning Services, and Westferry. These companies hold some of the biggest cleaning contracts across both the public and private sector.
While the MECA has been settled with some margin above the minimum wage in previous years, this time the employers aren’t budging.
Jacqueline Davis, an airport cleaner who will be going on strike today, says the zero offer shows the companies don’t care about their workers.
“Personally, I think they just don’t give a damn about us. We’re nothing in their eyes, we’re just the little cleaners,” Jacqueline says.
“OCS and all the other companies need to treat us with respect. If it wasn’t for us cleaners, the airport would be a hell of a mess. They need to treat us like people, we are sick of being treated like doormats.”
E tū has been campaigning for the Living Wage for cleaners. Jacqueline says getting the Living Wage would be a huge help, including for her health.
“Right now, if I get sick, I can’t afford to take the day off or go to the doctor. I had to use up all my sick leave after an accident, so I simply have no choice.
“Getting a decent wage would mean not having to worry about finding the money for a simple day off and a doctor’s visit.”
E tū Director, Sarah Thompson, says OCS and the other cleaning companies need to step up.
“This is such a harsh position from the employer group,” Sarah says.
“It shows that they just don’t value the essential work of cleaners like Jacqueline and thousands of others.”
Sarah says it’s a clear demonstration of why cleaners need a Fair Pay Agreement.
“Right now, we’re getting ready to bargain the very first Fair Pay Agreement for the cleaning industry, which will be the best opportunity in decades to really improve things for this essential workforce.
“The National and ACT parties have promised to scrap Fair Pay Agreements before they even get started. It’s another slap in the face to working people like Jacqueline, and we can’t let that happen.”
The tax plan set out by National is propped up with questionable assumptions and untested numbers, say the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions.
NZCTU Economist Craig Renney said the plan has generated many more questions than it answers.
“According to their plan, they will generate $3 billion from foreign buyers, $716 million from foreign casino operators.
“There is no evidence that these numbers are possible, nor how they will be delivered. That is up to $3.6 billion that will need to be found from even deeper cuts to public services.
National also wants to cut spending on items such as free prescriptions, public transport support, and income support for those on the very lowest incomes.
This tax package cuts $2.3 billion of spending on tackling climate change – which protects jobs, incomes, and communities – and then gives $2.3 billion to landlords in tax advantages.
“This shows how out of touch National is on the issues that matter to New Zealanders,” said Renney.
According to IRD, 2.3 million New Zealanders earned less than $44,000 a year, meaning that they will be getting $2.15 a week from this package.
“That’s 56% of all income taxpayers. For them, this is not cost of living support it’s an insult. Meanwhile, those who own multiple homes will be in for billions of dollars of government support.
“There is nothing in this package that supports sustainable economic growth, helps to grow jobs, and there is a real risk that it will simply stoke further inflation and housing speculation.
“We still haven’t seen Nationals plan for how it will fund schools and hospitals. How it will lift children out of poverty. How it will build additional housing for those in need.
“This tax package simply adds more questions on top. It’s not clear the numbers add up, and it’s not clear that National shares New Zealanders priorities.”
E tū, the biggest private sector union in Aotearoa New Zealand, is hugely disappointed with the National Party’s policy to implement a tax regime that benefits the wealthy while leaving many others no better off.
The plan, released today, includes an adjustment of tax brackets, reinstating interest deductibility for landlords, removing the Government’s recent public transport subsidies, ending the foreign buyer ban on homes worth over $2 million, and cancelling other government projects.
“This is a deeply misleading policy, because it doesn’t factor in everything National will take away from working families,” says E tū Director, Sarah Thompson.
“Their policy says that average families will be ‘better off’ because of their FamilyBoost policy, but they have not factored in the extra costs on families resulting from the removal of Labour’s ECE funding extension.
“Their numbers also don’t reflect that families will be paying more for public transport under their plan, nor does it include the congestion charges they are planning to implement as part of their transport policy.
“Families who rely on public transport or the extra ECE funding will not be nearly as well off as National claim. They’ll also be paying extra costs when National bring back prescription fees. It’s all smoke and mirrors.”
Sarah says landlords like Christopher Luxon are the real winners from this policy, with $2.3 billion going to them over four years.
“Christopher Luxon does not need to pocket more money. He is on the record saying he doesn’t even know how much his seven properties are worth – he’s doing extremely well.
“That money should be going to increasing essential services, building core infrastructure, supporting those who need it most, and investing in the future of Aotearoa. Instead, he’s going to give billions to himself and his rich mates.”
Sarah says that with lower- and middle-income New Zealanders doing it tough during the cost-of-living crisis, the money should be targeted based on real need.
“It’s galling to hear Luxon describe this as a cost-of-living policy when so much goes to the richest people.
Sarah says today’s announcement is another example that the National Party are going into the election with an anti-worker agenda.
“This is just the latest indicator that National doesn’t really care about working people. Yesterday, they re-committed to extending 90-day trials, despite the evidence clearly showing they don’t work. They will also scrap Fair Pay Agreements, robbing low paid workers of their best opportunity in decades to make real gains.”
Unions across the country have slammed the National Party’s proposal to reintroduce 90-day trials, and say it would undermine fundamental workplace rights in New Zealand.
NZ Council of Trade Unions President Richard Wagstaff said 90-day trials were outdated, ineffective, and lazy policy.
“Getting ‘back on track’ as National puts it, clearly means a return to policies that are bad for working people.
“90-day trials are not a mechanism to make hiring workers easier. They only make it easier for businesses to fire them.”
Trial periods have proven to be ineffective. Treasury funded research found no evidence that the ability to use trial periods significantly increased firms’ overall hiring.
Additionally, there was no evidence that the policy substantially increased short-term hiring.
The study did find that many employees faced increased uncertainty about their job security in the months after their hiring.
Unite National Secretary John Crocker said the policy would disproportionately impact workers that were young and on low incomes.
“This policy would disadvantage vulnerable workers, like young people or those just entering the workforce, while allowing bad employers to fire people with impunity.
“Workers can already be fired – but it has to be done fairly and reasonably. National’s proposal is to protect unfair and unreasonable employers from any consequences.”
E tū Director Sarah Thompson dismissed the policy as anti-evidence and anti-worker.
“During a cost-of-living crisis, workers and our families need better pay, conditions, and job security – things National seems dead set on eroding through talk of 90-day trials, and the repeal of Fair Pay Agreements.”
“This is a failed policy from the past that exists solely to seduce the National Party’s business donors,” said Dennis Maga, FIRST Union General Secretary. “This would make life worse in New Zealand for anyone who doesn’t already run a very large and exploitative business.”
JOIN MEDIA RELEASE: FIRST Union, NZCTU and ActionStation
A new report released today by FIRST Union, NZ Council of Trade Unions and Action Station argues that rising profits – not wages – have been the primary driver of domestic inflation during the cost-of-living crisis.
“This report reveals that from mid-2021 to the end of 2022, rising profits contributed more than half of domestic inflationary pressure, while labour costs accounted for less than a third”, said FIRST Union Researcher and Policy Analyst Edward Miller.
“Many communities that are enduring rising prices while businesses post record profits have reached the same conclusion. They know that they are also on the receiving end of an inflation policy response that disproportionately impacts the poor and vulnerable”, said Miller.
Profit-led inflation in Aotearoa uses the same methodology as reports by the OECD, European Central Bank and the Australia Institute to decompose the profit and labour contributions to domestic inflationary pressure. Sector- and firm-level data provide further insight into how rising profits have fed into prices, looking at food, transport and housing.
“Over the past year, inflation has been the grand excuse for anyone to wield at their disposal. It provides cover for business owners to push up prices while withholding wage rises. It has been sharpened as a weapon for political gain by parties wanting to shrink government and the public sector. All of this has distracted us from the big businesses driving inflation,” said Kassie Hartendorp, Director of ActionStation.
“While our communities have been struggling from rising prices for the basics, big business has been shamelessly profiting off customers’ misery. This report shows that our largest corporations have been driving inflation at a time when people are struggling the most. We need policies that will address the root of the problem and ease the pressure for all of us,” said Kassie Hartendorp.
“These findings should open new discussions about the appropriate policy responses for reducing inflationary pressures. We need to tackle inflation in both the short and the long-run, and to make sure that the costs of our inflation response are falling on those who have benefitted the most over the past few years”, said CTU Policy Director Craig Renney.
“In the long-term, inflation reduction requires investment in those things that will make a consistent difference. We need to tackle rents, energy and transport costs, and to make sure that Kiwis have access to high quality public services. Doing this will not only reduce inflation, it will create the more productive and sustainable future”.
More needs to be done to protect people who work with engineered stone. Workers in these industries are being exposed to highly hazardous silica dust and fears remain for their health and safety.
This week NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff joined Kathryn Ryan on RNZ’s Nine to Noon to discuss the issue. Also on the segment was Professor Lin Fritschi, a cancer epidemiologist specialising in occupational causes of cancer:
The issue
Engineered stone is a man-made artificial product that combines crystallised silica and other materials with resin. The silica dust created from cutting, drilling or grinding these materials is extremely hazardous.
Exposure to silica dust can cause silicosis (scarring of the lungs), lung cancer and auto-immune disease. These diseases are incurable and can be fatal.
A 2021 Australian National Dust Disease Taskforce report found nearly one in four workers exposed to silica dust from engineered stone before 2018 have been diagnosed with silicosis.
Call to action
While silicosis and other diseases caused by silica dust exposure are incurable, they are preventable.
The NZCTU is working with a growing number of unions, academics, and health and safety professionals calling for a ban on engineered stone. Established health and safety principles tell us to eliminate risks whenever possible as a first option – this option is available.
“It’s simple 101 health and safety if you don’t need to do it, then stop doing it”
— NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff
The growing evidence of the harm caused by exposure, and the fact that WorkSafe is having to up enforcement pressure on businesses to manage the risks properly, shows that a ban on all engineered stone products is necessary (with the only exemption for managing or removing engineered stone already in place).
Engineered stone benchtops are a cosmetic choice, and many safe alternatives exist. We can protect workers from life-altering illness by banning this material.
“We have a world leading curriculum and trained, qualified teachers who are best placed to know how to deliver that curriculum. All teachers know that one size does not fit all; tamariki and rangatahi learn in a range of different ways. If you really want to help every student achieve, make class sizes smaller, ensure that schools are well resourced and that teachers are fully supported, have time to reflect on their teaching, and have top notch professional development.”
“Legislating how teachers should teach literacy and numeracy is a slippery slope and sets a worrying precedent. Today, it’s about how to teach reading and maths but who’s to say with future governments it won’t be about how to teach health, social studies or science?
Taking pedagogy (the method and practice of teaching) away from the profession and putting it in the hands of politicians is of serious concern. Doctors don’t have laws about how they treat patients day to day, lawyers don’t have laws about how they prosecute their clients’ cases; making laws about how teachers teach is the thin edge of the wedge.
Chris Abercrombie said secondary teachers support measures that help to have all students start secondary school with basic reading, writing and maths skills. “It’s good that the government is keen to explore ways to make this happen but legislating for it seems to be a step in a dangerous direction.”
The offer followed prolonged campaigning by area school teacher members, including participation in the largest education strike in New Zealand history and joint-union bargaining throughout 2023.
The new Area School Teachers’ Collective Agreement, negotiated by both NZEI Te Riu Roa and PPTA Te Wehengarua, is based largely on the recent settlement of the secondary teachers’ collective agreement.
“This agreement is the last one to be settled in the school sector and I’m pleased that all of our members can focus now on teaching and learning in a settled environment,” says Chris Abercrombie, PPTA Te Wehengarua acting president.
As well as a 14.5 percent increase to the top of the basic salary scale over three years and lump sum payments of up to $7,210, other benefits of the new area school collective agreement include: better sick leave entitlements, a cultural leadership allowance for every area school, increases to the Māori immersion teacher allowance, better pay rates for day relievers and payment of certification fees for beginning teachers.
Lagi Leilua and Kaareen Hotereni, negotiators for the NZEI Te Riu Roa Area School Teachers Collective Agreement, say:
“The increase to the Māori Immersion Teaching Allowance and the introduction of a Pasifika Bilingual Immersion Teaching Allowance are significant wins, and recognise the unique skills and expertise of kaiako and their cultural knowledge. Paying teachers fairly for their skills and knowledge will have a flow-on effect of attracting more Māori and Pasifika teachers into the sector. Having cultural representation at teacher level means tamariki will experience an education journey which reflects their own language and culture.
“Another big win is the increase in non-contact time which will more than double for some teachers. Work demands on teachers were unsustainable and we’re pleased to see the Ministry recognise the positive effects this will have on tamariki. This gives teachers more time to plan, assess and give individual attention to students.”
Chris Abercrombie said the introduction of ‘pastoral care time allowances’ recognised and valued teachers with specific skills and responsibilities, such as counselling and cultural leadership, which weren’t accounted for in their time before.
Ends
Notes to editor:
Area schools are state schools in rural and often isolated settings which provide for students from Years 1 through to 13.
About 2800 NZEI Te Riu Roa and PPTA Te Wehengarua members teach in area schools throughout the motu.
Invite to your Biennial Membership Meetings (BMMs)
This September, you’re invited to come together with other E tū members for one of the most important events in your union’s democracy.
Every two years, your Biennial Membership Meetings (or BMMs) take place around the motu at your workplace or local community hubs, and we discuss E tū’s direction and plan for the future.
At these meetings, you’ll also elect the members who will represent your region on the E tū National Executive, which is the governing body of your union.
Check out the latest edition of our online magazine!
This issue, we feature a spotlight on the aviation industry (a new magazine feature!), updates on our important campaigns, a report from our Delegate Forums, an article by Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, and much more.
At the end of July, E tū members working as cleaners for major cleaning companies currently bargaining for a new MECA (multi-employer collective agreement) took action after a zero offer pay rise.
Their employers – OCS, ISS, City Cleaning, PPCS, Total Property Services (TPS), Millennium, Kleenrite, Watershed, United Cleaning Services, and Westferry – refused to give workers a single cent over the minimum wage, even though in past MECAs they have paid 30 cents above this.
Auckland Airport cleaner Jackie Clark says getting no offer is stressful and workers don’t feel respected. “We have whānau to feed, rent and other bills to pay. It’s also affecting our health physically and mentally, and these cleaning companies don’t care.”
The zero-offer shows is exactly why cleaners need a Fair Pay Agreement – to stop the race to the bottom on wages. With E tū initiating Fair Pay Agreements for both cleaners and security workers, we are on track to finally be able to negotiate for what we know these essential workers really deserve!
Keep an eye out on social media for upcoming action and how you can support.
From the picket line to third collective!
Lifewise members have a new collective agreement. Ratified last week, members will now be able to take a defensive driving course and first aid courses for free. They also won the right to long service after 15 and 20 years, a $500 Pak’n’Save voucher, and a special fund to assist members taking bereavement leave has been doubled.
Delegate Maggie Greig says it’s a good outcome. “It feels really good that we’ve got the ball rolling and the momentum of improving our work conditions. It’s awesome, and it’s makes it better for the new staff coming on too. With every new collective, we’re gradually improving lives for Lifewise members.”
It shows how far Lifewise have come since members needed to take strike action in 2021/22 to win their first ever collective agreement.
Solid pay rises for packaging workers
Members at Oji Packaging at six sites around the country got a great deal for their next three-year collective agreement, winning a pay increase of 7.5% and then 5% per year after that for the term of the agreement.
Delegate Barry Jackson from Christchurch says, “it’s probably the biggest offer we’ve had in most people’s memories, and everyone was really happy.”
E tū Election campaign kicks off
We want members and workers to keep the gains that we’ve all fought so hard for – legislation like Fair Pay Agreements, 10 days’ sick leave, and decent minimum wage increases.
This General Election, we’ll be campaigning hard for a Labour-led government and we need your support.
Make sure you pledge to vote HERE, and if you’d like to be involved in our election activities, let us know.
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Leadership change from November
As most members will already be aware, E tū’s National Secretary, Bill Newson, is stepping down from his position in late November.
From then until the next Biennial Conference (where you’ll officially elect a new National Secretary), the E tū National Executive has officially endorsed E tū Co-Assistant National Secretary Rachel Mackintosh to take over Bill’s role.
New to E tū?
If you’re new to the union and would like to meet other new members and learn more about how E tū can support you, come to our next online new member meeting.
Click on the link of your preferred time below to register.
There has been disappointingly little progress in closing the gender pay gap in the last year despite continued low unemployment, wage growth, and strong labour demand says NZCTU Secretary Melissa Ansell-Bridges following the release of labour market data by Statistics NZ.
The overall gender pay gap has persisted across the past decade.
Last year, the NZCTU calculated that on average women started working effectively for free on 23 November 2022. This year the data shows that this has now closed slightly to 26 November.
NZCTU National Secretary Melissa Ansell-Bridges said, “Ten years ago women started working for free on 14 November. Despite all the huge strides we have made since then in terms of pay equality, we are still working 36 days a year for free. It underlines the need for more urgent effort from employers and the Government on this issue.”
When ethnicity is taken into consideration, the picture is even starker. The gap for Pasifika women means that in comparison to Pakeha men, they start working for free on 7 October. Māori women start working for free on 20 October. European women start working for free on 21 November. These dates show that women of all ethnicities are still facing discrimination in employment.
“With the mean gender wage gap now at 9.8%, the case for change could not be clearer. All employers should make sure that equal work is paid equally. We need greater pay transparency urgently. Last week’s announcement on pay reporting by the Government is a great start, but we need to go further and faster.
“These results show why the ethnic pay gap must also be reported on. We should also ban clauses in contracts preventing workers discussing their pay and require employers to include pay ranges in job adverts.
“This data underlines why Fair Pay Agreements are critical in New Zealand. They will provide transparency around basic pay for all workers and will ensure that women are not treated unfairly.
“Fair Pay Agreements will help reduce pay gaps and will highlight inequities in workplace pay. Not only are they good for women, but they are also good for all New Zealand workers.”