New Zealand: Taylor Preston meat workers take industrial action
By
Tom Peters
21 February 2017
Hundreds of workers have been taking industrial action over low wages at the Taylor Preston meat-processing factory in Wellington since January 24.
Members of the New Zealand Meat Workers and Related Trades Union (MWU), who make up approximately half of the 900 workers at the plant, are working reduced shifts (eight hours a day compared with the normal 9.5 or longer) and have stopped working on weekends.
Workers are demanding an extra 50 cents per hour, back-dated to May last year. For at least the past year, union members have received 30 cents an hour less than non-union members. Workers also want additional allowances for overtime and for working on weekends and at night.
The MWU has kept industrial action to a bare minimum, allowing the plant to continue operating, while it negotiates with the company behind the backs of the workers. The union has made no public statement on the dispute, which has not been reported anywhere in the media. The World Socialist Web Site learnt about it by speaking with Taylor Preston workers.
The MWU’s February newsletter says nothing about the industrial action but merely states that “negotiations” are underway with Taylor Preston and “workers have quite a lot of catching up to do in their pay rates.” The Daily Blog, which is funded by the MWU and several other unions, has not mentioned the dispute.
The pseudo-left groups—the International Socialist Organisation, Fightback, Socialist Aotearoa and Redline—have also remained silent. All of them have links with the unions and have falsely promoted the MWU as a vehicle to defend jobs.
In fact, as it has done many times before, the MWU is seeking to…