Precarious employment arrangements, short-staffing, low pay, long hours, poor access to leave and lack of child-care are the main barriers to workers in balancing work with the rest of their lives, Council of Trade Unions secretary Carol Beaumont said today.

The Employment Relations Act is not delivering to thousands of workers and their families who are stuck in poverty and who are not sharing in the economic growth of the last few years, Council of Trade Unions president Ross Wilson said today.

The union movement is continuing to grow, but needs to transform to sustain its position as the voice of working people, Council of Trade Unions secretary Carol Beaumont said today.

Strengthening workers' ability to bargain collectively will reduce workplace fatalities and improve this country's dismal health and safety record, Council of Trade Unions president Ross Wilson said today.

Worker health and safety needed to be a top priority of any union and should
be a focus in collective bargaining, delegates to the Council of Trade
Unions Biennial Conference in Wellington were told today by a visiting union health and safety specialist.

A major report into poverty and debt shows the desperate need in many families for decent work and a rise in the minimum wage, Council of Trade Unions secretary Carol Beaumont said today.

"Roger Sowry's attack on the Council of Trade Unions is immature mischief making which displays a lamentable ignorance of the realities of effective workplace injury prevention and health protection," CTU president Ross Wilson said today.

"The establishment of our own Supreme Court signals the coming of age of our judicial system," Council of Trade Unions president Ross Wilson said today.
"It is demeaning for us as an independent country that conservative parties want to retain this last vestige of colonialism," he said.

"We produce fine lawyers here who are in touch with our culture and responsibilities, and who are the equal of judges from the UK and other countries, including New Zealand, who sit on the Privy Council," Ross Wilson said

Ross Wilson said there were many advantages in the prospective reform from the point of view of the ordinary New Zealander.

"It will increase access to justice at this level and at least give the ordinary New Zealander the possibility of access to our highest court at an affordable cost.

"But most importantly it will be an expression of confidence in ourselves as a nation."

Ross Wilson said abolition of the Privy Council anachronism was long overdue.

"Arguments for retaining the Privy Council on the basis that it is a high level justice on the cheap for New Zealand are an embarrassment," he said.

"The UK is talking about establishing its own Supreme Court and we should abolish appeals to the Privy Council before we are asked to."

Around 300 trade unionists from around the country arrive in Wellington next week for the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Biennial Conference.
The CTU's eighth biennial conference takes place at the Michael Fowler Centre on October 22, 23, and 24.

The theme is A Strong Voice for Working People. The CTU's 34 affiliated unions, representing around 300,000 workers, will attend.

The Minister of Labour, Margaret Wilson will open the conference with a speech entitled "The common purpose: the Employment Relations Act and the Health & Safety in Employment Act."

This speech will include a briefing on the Government's review of the Employment Relations Act.

Day one of the conference will focus on workplace health and safety. A keynote speaker will be the national health and safety director of the Canadian Auto Workers Union, Cathy Walker.

Guy Ryder, the general secretary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and Sharan Burrow, the president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, will take part in a panel discussion on globalisation on the last day of the conference.

"The mass arrests of union leaders in Zimbabwe by the Mugabe regime is the final nail in the coffin for Zimbabwe democracy" CTU president Ross Wilson said today.The International Confederation of Trade Unions CFTU, of which the NZCTU is a member, has lodged a protest with the International Labour Organisation over the wave of anti-union arrests and violent assaults being carried out over the past 48 hours in Zimbabwe by the country's government.

To date, some 41 trade union leaders have already been detained in Harare and more than 100 in Mutare, including almost the entire leadership of the ICFTU-affiliated Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).

In Bulawayo, several union leaders were subjected to violent assault by government forces, and police refused to allow ambulances to ferry the injured to hospital. ZCTU President Lovemore Matombo and Secretary General Wellington Chibhebhe are amongst those detained.

"The ZCTU was the last bastion of democratic opposition to the Mugabwe regime and the targeting of union leaders follows the historical pattern in the move to despotism" Mr Wilson said

The ICFTU is particularly concerned about the situation of several union officials being held in secret locations, and the apparent targeting of a number of women trade unionists by the regime.

"Zimbabwe is a country in deep crisis, and the actions of President Mugabe's government today are those of a desperate regime. Only when human and trade union right are fully respected, and the people of Zimbabwe can live in conditions of full respect for democracy, can the enormous task of rebuilding the country's economy really begin", said ICFTU General Secretary Guy Ryder.

Business, the Government, and unions must urgently get behind the new health and safety law to eliminate the workplace death toll, Council of Trade Unions president Ross Wilson said today.

Many young workers say that being undervalued and discriminated against because of their age are their biggest problems in the workplace, the Council of Trade Unions secretary Carol Beaumont said today.

Many young workers say that being undervalued and discriminated against because of their age are their biggest problems in the workplace, the Council of Trade Unions secretary Carol Beaumont said today.

Union involvement in regional economic development was about delivering jobs that were sustainable, well-paid, skilled and safe, Council of Trade Unions president Ross Wilson said today.