400 rally against 90-day fire-at-will law in New Plymouth

Four hundred EPMU members from around Taranaki joined a “Fairness at Work” meeting today in New Plymouth, rallying local opposition to the Government's proposed unfair employment law changes, says the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU).

Workers from Fitzroy Engineering, McKechnie’s, Tegel Foods, Tenix and other sites in the area turned out to hear EPMU national secretary Andrew Little speaking about National’s proposed unfair law changes as part of continuing union-wide opposition to the plans.

"Tens of thousands joined protests from Kaitaia to Bluff two weeks ago showing there is widespread opposition to the proposed unfair new laws and the government doesn’t have a mandate to pass them," says EPMU national secretary Andrew Little .

“They are an attack on basic standards of fairness at work that have been enshrined in our laws for a long, long time. Basic standards of fairness that generations of workers before us fought hard for. These changes are another step backwards. And they deny freedom,” Andrew Little says.

“The new law legalises gross unfairness. That is all it does.”

“There is a huge principle at stake under this law change. No worker should have his or her economic livelihood taken away without due process and without good cause.”

Andrew Little also says the recent employment law change affecting contractors in the film industry was demanded by the US corporate, Warner Bros.

“It demanded a law change to resolve a problem it had already agreed was settled. And what was the law change? To take away the right of workers in the film industry to freely negotiate their employment arrangements.”

The EPMU is New Zealand ’s largest private sector union, representing around 45,000 members across eleven industry sectors.

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