It is vital that workers, especially in low-paid casualised jobs, are recruited to unions where they have rank and file control and can unite to build a strong labour movement. When union officials conduct turf wars over union members, it is the workers that will lose out. The poaching of one is an injury to all. Workers need to take action against poaching and for unity!
Air NZ: Ground staff turf wars
Both the EPMU (Engineers Union) and SFWU (Service & Food Workers Union) have members on the ground at NZ airports. Negotiators from both unions began talks with Air NZ management in August – September last year (2004).
Rex Jones of the EU stitched up a deal with Air NZ management back in December last year. Part of this deal is that the EU have agreed to work with Air NZ management on splitting the deal into 3 separate agreements; airports, cargo and retail, etc. After Jones’ promises to management, the EU members were offered an agreement which included backpay (or a bonus). This deal excluded members of the SFWU.
The bureaucratic style of negotiation goes on behind the backs of union members. The EPMU negotiation team stitched up a deal without informing members about what conditions they would lose in the deal. Then the EPMU take the offer to the whole membership.
This style takes the power away from union members and plays up the role of union officials as ‘great leaders’. We say ‘All power to the members’. Members must be fully informed of the progress of negotiations throughout negotiations. This means regular meetings of the membership and the negotiation team and members on the negotiation team. We support the right of members to dismiss and replace non performing delegates or officials.
The SFWU were after at least as good a deal as the EPMU, but with no loss of conditions. They were frustrated by Air NZ management’s lack of negotiation. Air NZ would not offer them the same deal as the EPMU. So the SFWU took strike action. During that strike the EU members continued to work! A divided strike was much less effective at impacting on the bosses business.
ERA adjudication
The SFWU failed to get a deal with Air NZ and went to the Employment Relations Authority for adjudication. SFWU continued to try to get as good a deal as the EPMU, but Air NZ implied that the EPMU was more deserving. ANZ told the adjudicator that they gave the EPMU members a “bonus” (as backpay) because the EPMU was more willing to improve efficiency and productivity (for the bosses) and to make changes and split the contract (into business units).
Class Struggle condemns the actions of the EPMU; bureaucratic dealing, settling first and promoting their “brand” of union above other unions. By doing so the EPMU has undermined working class solidarity.
Turf wars at Casino
Another turf war is going on at the Skycity casino where the SFWU succeeded in unionising most of the workforce. Now Unite officials (supposedly a union for the low paid, unorganised and unemployed workers) have moved into actively recruiting at the casino.
Unite officials have poached SFWU members. A Unite leaflet directly compares fees with the SFWU and then provides a form to send to Skycity payroll, for joining Unite and quitting the SFWU. The West Auckland branch of Unite! condemns those Unite officials’ actions.
All unionists must strongly condemn these actions of Unite officials poaching at the Skycity site. We call for the resignation of the official(s) responsible. Unfortunately most union rules do not allow members to dump rotten officials. Workers need to reclaim control over their unions and change the rules to let workers dump rotten officials.
Takeovers
We have heard that the EPMU is having secret talks with other unions, with the aim of amalgamation. This is another way to recruit members through takeovers. We call on those unions in talks to take proposals back to their members, and for the members to vote on which union they wish to join.
Working class answers to turf wars
Ban poaching! Members must regain control of the unions so they can dump rotten union officials who refuse to work for the benefit of the working class as a whole, and elect delegates and officials who are accountable to and recallable by the membership.
This means fighting for democratic, militant unions that are capable of acting independently of the state and its labour law ‘leg-irons’ which are all designed to make unions work within the bosses’ laws.
To do this we recommend workers stay with their union, and put up a real fight for their demands and for working class solutions, within their union. Only after attempts to raise demands within their own union, have got nowhere, should workers consider dumping one union for another.
End turf wars and unite to fight the employers for better wages and conditions. When workers are divided and fighting each other within different unions, this allows the bosses to screw down wages and conditions by playing unions off against each other.
We call for maximum unity among workers:
· MUCAs (Multi-Union Collective Agreements).
· MECAs (Multi-Employer Collectives)
· All union members to vote on agreements.
· All up meetings – all union members meet to discus the progress of negotiations and offers.
· Open the books: show what the union owns and union officials’ salaries.
· Fighting funds that are used to support striking workers.
· Set wages of union staff at the average wage of workers.
· Allow unemployed workers to be members of the union at reduced rates.
From Class Struggle 60 March-April 2005
Dear Class Struggle comrades,
I thought I’d bring you up to date with some of the events in my West Auckland local of Unite! Community Union. Unite! was founded as a union for beneficiaries and low-income earners. In recent times Unite! has been controlled by Matt McCarten, and has been divided into two sections, a Community union for beneficiaries and some low-income earners, and a ‘workers’ union for employees as diverse as English language teachers, chefs, and hotel staff.
Our local is opposed to the expansion of Unite! into these new areas, because it has involved poaching members from other unions, a practice which is always counter-productive, and which is giving Unite! a bad reputation in the union movement. We are also concerned at the recent attempts of Unite! organiser and McCarten ally Mike Treen to bring prison guards into the union. We see prison guards as no better than cops, and we don’t think they belong in the workers’ movement.
We are alarmed by the way that unemployed and other beneficiaries are now being marginalised through the whole of Unite! We insist that Unite! was formed in the first place to organise and unite low-paid workers, unemployed workers and beneficiaries – in fact, we would argue that Unite! has no other reason to exist.
Our local is standing candidates in the upcoming Unite! national executive elections - we hope to join with leftists from other parts of the union to highlight the errors of the union leadership and increase the weight of the opposition on the national executive.
Our branch suffers from chronic poverty, so that even getting members to meetings is difficult. We have no full-timers, our secretary is an honorary secretary only, none of our members has been a union delegate in the past, and until recently we have not been constituted as a local.
We find it difficult to get out propaganda and we have little or no capacity to ‘help’ people who are just going to pay a fee and not be active members – hence we don’t get fees, and we have the bare number needed to form a local. Our five leading members have been relying mainly on a benefit, and one has been ‘Jobs Jolted’ onto an AMES course far below his intellectual capacity and education. Another is a PhD student and thus on a limited income.
We were very pleased, then, when we were recently recognised as a local, and received our first refunds from union headquarters. We now need to elect a treasurer along with a president, vice-president and secretary.
Despite our money woes, we have been very active so far this year. We made a special point of attending this year’s May Day demonstration, because we believe that beneficiaries and low income earners have to be recognised as an important part of the workers’ movement. The weather on May the first was bad, and the official demonstration was called off without authorisation by union officials belonging to the May Day Committee. An alternative march to the nearby US consulate to oppose the war on Iraq was proposed by some of our members and despite the heavy rain part of the rally marched there and listened to speakers from a variety of workers’ organisations.
Several of us participated in the recent Global Peace and Justice Auckland demonstration against the war and the phoney handover of power in Iraq. One of our members spoke to the demonstration, noting that our local arose out of the anti-war movement, and emphasising our solidarity with the unemployed workers of Iraq. Some of our members have attempted to investigate a ‘Work Track’ centre in New Lynn, a major working class area of West Auckland. We are concerned about the way that under the ‘Jobs Jolt’ the organisations running various compulsory courses have the right to ask WINZ to cut the benefits of beneficiaries who break course rules.
After observing work track courses ‘from the inside’ we believe that the providers of the courses must be creaming it off – they provide so little in the way of services, despite the generous contracts WINZ gives them!
We issued a press statement condemning the Budget for doing nothing for beneficiaries. We are being vigilant about the possibility that the special benefit may be cut – at present many of those able to get the special benefit rely on it as a top-up, to get them a socially acceptable standard of living.
Our branch decided to participate as strongly as it could in Unite’s attempt to unionise Burger King – four members of our group attended the initial briefing and five members participated with varying success. We deemed the Burger King drive a useful exercise, and it was very educational to see how the union access clause of the Employment Relations Act operated.
An important event in the life of our group took place on May the 8th, when Warren Duffy represented us at the big anti-racism march called in Christchurch by Asians tired of harrassment and assaults. We raised the $300 for Warren Duffy to represent us at the demonstration, and he was able to repay us by making some personal links with left-wing Unite! members in other parts of the country. A new anti-racism march will take place in Wellington on October the 23rd, in response to the desecration of Jewish graves, immigration laws that humiliate Pacific Islanders, the Maori-bashing encouraged by politicians like Don Brash, and the activities of the neo-nazi National Front.
I am hoping that our local will be able to send members to this march, and that we will not be alone in representing the labour movement.
It is clear that racism is on the rise in Aotearoa because of the gaps in class consciousness created by the defeats of the union movement and atomisation of the working class in the 80s and 90s. The building of a strong union movement is the best long-term antidote to both the National Party and the National Front, but a strong union movement can only be built on an internationalist basis.
Sadly, our union movement is lacking in internationalism. Even some of our best unions cross the line - witness the Service and Food Workers Union's recent press release attacking the importing of foreign workers by an understaffed Sealords factory in Timaru, a press release issued in the same week as an appeal for international solidarity with a sacked union member!
Then we have Maritime Union of New Zealand, which mixes a good position on the war in Iraq with the economic nationalist campaign for cabotage. Don't get me started on the Amalgamated Workers Union, which helps the cops sniff out 'illegal' workers on Auckland's building sites. We can't oppose racism if our movement espouses racist policies. We should be uniting with workers of all races and nations, not with cops and prison screws!
I urge comrades in other unions to send representatives to Wellington on October the 23rd.
Best Wishes,
Unite! rank and filer
From Class Struggle 57 August-September 2004
