Labour’s new Oceans Ministry

Jacinda Ardern’s decision to rename the Fisheries Ministery to “Oceans and Fisheries” and install David Parker instead of Stuart Nash shows a welcome desire to protect this most precious of resources.

Take the power back

The Jobs That Count campaign isn’t just about Talley’s AFFCO. It’s about getting local councils that work for all of us and make sure that the big businesses in our communities give back to us.

Talleys Jump the Shark!

The truly awful Talley’s group have just taken NZ employment relations back a century or two by trying to get the Employment Court to gag the Meat Workers Union. Talley’s regard freedom of speech as a breach of good faith. They also want the union’s Darien Fenton barred from doing her job. Is it too soon to take Sir Peter Talley’s knighthood away from him?

Racist Talleys to Cancel Waitangi Day Holiday?

The Talley’s owned meatworks in Rangiuru is threatening to discipline workers and sue their union if workers choose to observe the Waitangi Day holiday tomorrow. How’s that Brighter Future working out, people?

NOW UPDATED! Hear what Talleys have to say.

 

 

Brassneck

The release of the candidate donation returns has shown us that the National Party are still rorting the system. However, there are issues for the NZ Labour Party as well. Four MP’s have taken money from sources that do not have the interests of the Labour party or, indeed, the majority of Kiwis at heart. Brassneck or bought and sold?

Meatworkers win

News in that Talley’s/AFFCO and the Meatworkers reached an agreement at 5am this morning. The workers will keep their wage and job security provisions and still be covered by a collective. The workers have displayed incredible strength with support from up and down the country. Next time, bosses will think twice before attacking their workers.

Talley’s Group: Arsehole managers – bad faith and bullshit

Today there was the characteristic signature of a Talley’s Group company spin that I’ve observed over the last five years on this site with their worker relationships. They lie, prevaricate, and fracture the truth. They appear to be completely untrustworthy and incapable of good faith bargaining.  In my view they are the absolute arseholes of NZ managers and companies.

Talley’s cracking

It is a fundamental injustice of our society that one family, which already has more than it can ever need, can hold 1,300 families, who have very little, to ransom just to make a little more cash. But the union makes us working people strong. By standing together, the workers are beating Talley’s in the AFFCO lockout. Talley’s cracked. Wants half them back. The workers have said ‘all of us or none of us’.

A(nother) bad day for the dynamic duo

It was a bad day yesterday for the ‘heavy hitters’ of the Collins faction, Slater and Lusk. First, Ports of Auckland admitted supplying them with a workers’ private details. Then, the smear on the Meatworkers that they had orchestrated with Talley’s was shot down by the SFO in record time. Finally, Michelle Boag gave them a public serve on RNZ, fueling civil war talk.

Another classic Slater/Lusk own goal

Slater/Lusk have been running a series of posts on the finances of the unions. Pretty weak stuff. All Slater/Lusk have proven is that they don’t understand the corporate structure of unions, they can’t read accounts, and they can’t do research. Still, you knew they were seeding something. And then came the Talleys’ complaint to the SFO about the Meatworkers’ Union.

AFFCO to extend lockout to avoid holiday pay

Talley’s has sunk to a new low in the AFFCO lockout. Not content with trying to starve out 1,000 workers and force them to accept 20% pay cuts, Talley’s-owned AFFCO meatworks are planning to lockout hundreds more workers on the Easter statutory holidays – just to save on paying its workers holiday leave. It’s a despicable, and hopefully illegal, move.

Bosses move to drive wages down

John Key said he “would love to see wages drop“, and his government has achieved that but they’re just getting started. This is the year when the gloves come off. Ports of Auckland is trying to slash its wage bill by 20%. Talley’s-AFFCO is locking out 750 workers indefinitely. And DHBs are trying to scare nurses ahead of their pay negotiations with the spectre of job cuts.

Industrial roundup: Open Country

Last week the Employment Court decided that Talleys-owned Open Country was acting illegally in locking out its unionised staff. The Court upheld the […]

Talleys: Corporate scum

I’ve long been of the opinion that the Talley family, owners of the Talleys food empire, are a corrosive force in this country […]