Vol. 72/No. 32      August 18, 2008

The workers won 11 hours resting time every work day, 13 hours “frame time,” the time between the first and the last hour worked in a day, and a 10.4 percent wage raise over three years.

Picket lines were organized at all bus depots. At the Hornsberg depot a trailer was parked outside and a tent erected across the driveway.

Asko Ylitalo, a repairman at the Hornsberg bus depot, thought the strike was stronger and the result better than in 1999, when the union leadership ended the strike before a settlement was reached.

—Dag Tirsén

Workers picket casino
in New Zealand
AUCKLAND, New Zealand—Eighty gambling table workers, kitchen workers, cleaners, and other employees of the SkyCity casino and hotel picketed and marched at their central city workplace August 2. The action was part of a series of rolling stoppages by members of the Unite Union and Service and Food Workers Union, which organize 1,300 of the company’s 4,000 workers.

The unions are demanding a 5 percent pay rise, increased pay based on seniority, and extra pay for weekend work. Workers have rejected a company proposal that would have increased wages by 4 percent and cut the pay of new hires by NZ$32 per week. (NZ$1.00=US$0.73).

“Everything’s going up except the pay,” said Zhonghuan, a kitchen worker who recently joined the union. Unite Union national secretary Matt McCarten told workers at the protest that union membership has been growing since the dispute.

—Felicity Coggan  
 
 
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