Union membership

Leaked information that the Government will both extend the law that removes the right to appeal against unfair dismissal and restrict union access onto worksites is a throw-back to the bad old days of the Employment Contracts Act of the 1990s, CTU President Helen Kelly said today.

A meeting today of the CTU Food and Beverage Unions Group and the International Union of Food Workers (IUF) pledged support to the striking workers facing a 6 week lockout at the Talley company – Open Country Cheese in Waharoa.»

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The Council of Trade Unions today deplored the threatening of three corrections officers by Act MP David Garrett as they made a submission to the Parliamentary Select Committee hearing on prison privatisation.  Mr Garrett implied that the officers would not be offered employment in a privatised service.

“The numbers of workers joining together in unions is increasing steadily with further growth in 2006, particularly in the private sector,” CTU secretary Carol Beaumont said today, in response to Victoria University’s annual survey of union membership.