FIRST Union members who work at Fletcher subsidiary Frame and Truss, which is part of the Placemakers brand, say they have now been waiting over five months to sign a new wage agreement since their last one expired, and FIRST Union organiser Justin Wallace says Fletcher-owned sites like Frame and Truss are being left behind while executives like Fletcher CEO Ross Taylor continue to raise obscene salaries from their employees’ labour and wider business continues to expand.

Placemakers’ Frame and Truss site employs people to prefabricate and assemble housing for construction in various Fletcher projects around the country. The company, which employs around 60 people in 2023, have been in bargaining with FIRST Union members since October but the company has refused to offer any updated Terms of Settlement to staff so that they are able to vote on ratifying a new agreement.

"Months of delay tactics has left a bad taste in the mouth of our members, who have to go to work and build frames and trusses all day with total ambiguity around their pay, their progression and their conditions at work, including their health and safety and the considerable overtime worked when requested," said Justin Wallace, FIRST Union organiser.

"They see everyone else fighting for decent pay for their mahi - teachers, nurses, bus drivers - but they can’t even vote on whether they want to accept or reject their company’s wage offer - it is deeply insulting."

Mr Wallace said that Frame and Truss workers felt they were important contributors to the obvious success of the Fletcher brand, including making Fletcher CEO Ross Taylor the second-highest earning private CEO in New Zealand for 2022, with a salary of over $6.5m. Most workers at Frame and Truss currently earn about $23.50 per hour, with very low overtime rates, and the company had proposed initial wage rises well below the rate of inflation and the rising cost of living. Mr Wallace says he has received multiple calls from members about pay rates being far too low for them to support themselves and their families due to rising living costs.

Mr Wallace said that the perception of success and expansion at Fletcher jarred with workers’ experiences in factories and other worksites around the country, with Frame and Truss being the latest example.

"Fletcher presents themselves as a workplace leader, as being community-oriented and values-driven. Those values are about their workers being their greatest asset, and their investment in building highly engaged and effective teams - but it’s an elaborate myth, and their workers know it," said Mr Wallace.

"They are too big to fail, with considerable involvement in big Governmental infrastructure contracts and shareholders watching like hawks, but on the ground, workers are not seeing the benefits of their efforts and frustration has taken hold."

"Fletcher must intervene and end the pretence that sites like Frame and Truss are on their own when it’s time to negotiate - they are happy to profit from their labour, so they must have some investment in the future of their workforce."

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