The Militant - October 26, 2015 -- On the Picket Line

NZ meat workers reject individual ‘contracts,’ fight company lockout

WAIROA, New Zealand — Workers locked out by the AFFCO meat processing company a month ago are holding regular protests on the main highway through town and attracting broader support.

The company locked out 170 of the 450 workers at the plant here because they refuse to sign “Individual Employment Agreements.” The agreements include cuts to seniority, shift changes without consultation, compulsory overtime, fewer breaks and less pay. AFFCO refuses to renew the collective union contract, which expired in 2013.

“If we hadn’t made a stand, no one would be aware of these cutbacks,” Peter Amato, shop steward for the beef slaughter department, told the Militant at the Oct. 9 protest. The company has imposed the agreements at four of its five largest plants. Workers at the Moerewa plant in Northland have yet to be called back from the off-season.

Donations of money and food are coming in, and the dispute is a big talking point in this small rural town.

Members of the teachers union NZEI have joined protests and collected NZ$2,500 (US$1,680) to support the meat workers.

The local Maori tribe has donated space for an organizing center. Sue Watson, who works in lamb cuts at AFFCO, helped organize a food bank during a lockout in 2012. “We’ve got the local supermarket to discount some items” for a food bank this time, she said.

Workers were upbeat after 19 of them traveled to Auckland to back a court case brought by the union against AFFCO charging the lockout is illegal. “Auckland embraced us,” said Amato Oct. 9. As they walked around the city center wearing union T-shirts, “people were saying to us ‘go the union’ and ‘go Wairoa,’” he said.

Employment Court judges have yet to rule in the case.

—Felicity Coggan

Calif. warehouse workers strike for higher wages, safety

LOS ANGELES — California Cartage warehouse workers at the port here went on strike Sept. 22-24 to protest low wages and dangerous working conditions. “I’ve been working at Cal Cartage for 22 years,” Manuel Reyes told a Sept. 23 rally. “In the last six years I’ve gotten a 30-cent raise. They treat us bad, humiliate us.”

Reyes makes $11.70 an hour and when he had an accident and was off work for a week, he didn’t get paid, Reyes told the Militant. “They told me, ‘You’ve worked here a long time, you need to know where all the holes in the floor are,’ instead of repairing them,” he said.

The workers do not have a union but are supported by the Warehouse Workers Resource Center and the Teamsters union. Some 80 percent work through temp agencies.

“It’s like day labor work,” one of them said. “You go in and don’t know if you will work that day. If you say something to the supervisor, they don’t call you in for a few days. During the holidays, they hire lots of people and if they want to get rid of them, they ask for papers. Temp agencies change names three times a year to avoid paying holidays. They sell back braces for $20 and gloves for $1 that last one day.”

Several unions and organizations attended the rally, including members of OUR Walmart, United Food and Commercial Workers union, UNITE HERE and Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice.

“I’m here because there is a lot of injustice,” said Salomon Fuentes, who has worked at Walmart for nine years and is active with OUR Walmart, which is fighting for higher wages and full-time hours. “It’s the system, not one business. Alone we are powerless. It’s more possible to win something if we are united. Where I work they want us to do the same work with 40 percent less people.”

—ON THE PICKET LINE—

Maggie Trowe, Editor

— Maggie Trowe

NZ meat workers reject individual ‘contracts,’ fight company lockout

—Felicity Coggan

Calif. warehouse workers strike for higher wages, safety

—Deborah Liatos