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Issue No. 291 | 25 November 2005 |
International Relations
Interview: Public Defender Legal: Craig's Story Unions: Wrong Way, Go Back Industrial: WhatChoice? Politics: Queue Jumping History: Iron Heel Economics: Waging War International: Under Pressure Poetry: Billy Negotiates An AWA Review: A Pertinent Proposition
Senators Back Rorters' Charter Job Cuts Threaten CBA's Bottom Line
The Soapbox The Locker Room Culture Parliament
Name and Shame Unite and Fight The Worker's Best Friend What Choices? Stop the Corporate Rot The Telemarketeers
Labor Council of NSW |
News Kiwis Fly into Starbucks
Workers walked out of 10 of the multi-national's outlets around Auckland city, last week, after the bosses of the Karangahape Rd store, in trendy Ponsonby, tried to draft in managers to cover the duties of strikers.
"What began as an event to highlight the poor conditions and low pay of minimum wage workers turned into a show of solidarity and strength across the city," said Simon Oosterman of SuperSizeMyPay. Com. More than 30 workers walked out of Starbucks stores around Auckland to join colleagues from KFC, Pizza Hut and McDonalds in a protest outside the Ponsonby store. New Zealand workers are organising against the effects of the 1991 Employment Contracts Act which turned their country into a low wage economy, marked by massive emigration and a big dip in productivity levels. The ECA attacked collective bargaining by promoting individual contracts and tried to sideline trade unions, factors mimicked in John Howard's WorkChoices proposals. Daniel Gross, co-founder of the Starbucks workers union in New York, praised the actions of the company's Kiwi employees. "This is a signal that minimum wage workers around the world are fed up with living on the poverty line," Gross said. "Kiwi Starbucks workers are making a stand for baristas around the world. We get paid what amounts to a poverty wage with no guaranteed hours. Starbucks has record turnovers every year, but none of that money makes it into workers' pockets."
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