New employers’ offer for ITP MECA

We have received a revised offer from the six ITP MECA employers and are currently holding stopwork meeting this week for members to consider the offer and decided on where to from here. The full offer is available at http://www.teu.ac.nz/?p=5427

Wintec and NorthTec have already held their stopwork meetings this week, but the remaining meetings are:

• Unitec, Wednesday 10 Feb, 10am to 12 noon
• WITT, Thursday 11 Feb, 10am to 12 noon
• Whitireia, Friday 12 Feb, 10am to 12 noon
• BoPP, Friday 12 Feb, 10 am to 12 noon

Please ensure that you come to these meetings and be part of the discussion and voting that will be taking place.

Pay Equity – Red Bag Day Thursday 18 February

Red Bag Day, established in 1988, draws national and international attention to the wage disparity between women and men and women of colour. The red bag theme symbolizes how far women are “in the red”with their pay. The Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPW) NZ are leading this awareness raising day for the Pay Equity Challenge Coalition.

BPW NZ have a well organised programme for the day in centres from Invercargill to Northland and are selling the red bags at shopping centres. A full list of these activities will be posted at the Coalition website (payequity.wordpress.com).

ACC march and rally, Tues 16 February, Wellington

Help put a stop to the destruction of one of New Zealand’s most vital public assets by turning out at the rally at Parliament on 16 February. Unions, health practitioners, claimants’ organisations and ordinary people will be out in force to show the Government that we are totally against the unjustified attack on ACC and the programme of unjust cuts to entitlements. And we will be joined once again by the bikers who took 9,000 people to Parliament in November.

And check out the CTU’s ads which were showing to rugby fans at the Wellington Sevens on the giant screens around the city: www.youtube.com/NZCTU

The adverts, featuring the fictional misfortunes of ‘Borat’ in his fluorescent mankini, aim to inform revellers about the very real threat to ACC protection from the Government’s plans.

Minimum wage campaign continues

The petition to force a referendum on raising the minimum wage has gathered over 100,000 signatures so far. A recent poll by the New Zealand Herald found that 61% of people supported the $15 an hour rate. So that means there are plenty more people to sign the petition yet – there are 350,000 union members alone whose names ought to be on it and the recent pathetic 25c increase from the Government will likely have recruited many more people to the cause.

If you haven’t already signed, download a copy from http://www.unite.org.nz/ and circulate it round your workplace, your family, your pub, your favourite café – anywhere you know that supporters of the $15 minimum wage are lurking.

National Meetings

The National Women’s Committee, Te Kahurangi Māreikura 2010 is meeting for the first time this year in Wellington on Monday 15 February, facilitated by TEU vice-president Sandra Gray.

The National General Staff Sector Group is meeting for the first time this year in Christchurch this Friday 12 February, facilitated by TEU vice-presidents Ken Laraman and Helen Kissell.

Contribute to Kua Rangona

To submit local news, events or other information to Kua Rangona contact Stephen Day phone or text 021 2900 734 or email http://scr.im/stephenday. This might include details of upcoming branch meetings, photos of events, issues you want to share with other people or even birthday wishes. If we’ve got space we’ll try to publish it.