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Occupy Aotearoa, Occupy Everywhere
Fri 21 Oct 11
The Occupy Wall Street protest has inspired action for more than 1,000 of similar events in the US and around the World. Many occupations are began on Saturday October 15.
In Aotearoa New Zealand protests and occupations took place not just in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, but even in New Plymouth and Invercargill!
Unite Melbourne gains for young workers
Fri 21 Oct 11
A small but effective union, which took inspiration from the Unite project in New Zealand, has made some gains for young previously unorganised retail and service employees in
Melbourne.
In the first part of the year Unite (Melbourne) uncovered pay scams and super-exploitation of international students by the 7-11 retail company. Eventually the Fair Work Ombudsman found that workplace laws were breached in more than a third of 56 Geelong and Melbourne 7-11 stores investigated.
The Minimum Wage and Unemployment
Wed 5 Aug 09
The U.S. minimum wage has just gone up by US70 cents (NZ$1) an hour and the usual claims from employers of higher unemployment are being heard. Dean Baker from the Center for Economic and Policy Research is having none of it:
"The impact of a rise in the minimum wage on employment is one of the most heavily researched topics in economics. Virtually all of this research shows that it will have little or no impact on employment."
Unite Australia wins $112,000 for workers
Wed 5 Aug 09
UNITE (Australia) was inspired by Unite (New Zealand) and has been campaigning against convenience store giant 7-Eleven. It is starting to bring results.
After a series of protests and media publicity, UNITE has forced the Fair Work Ombudsman to take action against 7-Eleven franchisees that have been underpaying international students. Five 7-Eleven stores in Melbourne's CBD will reimburse 88 workers $112,000.
A sixth 7-Eleven store has been instructed to credit almost 1000 hours of annual leave back to 12 workers who were not accruing the entitlement but should have been.
Protect the jobs of Chicago Pizza Hut workers
Mon 18 May 09
Unite has been approached by Chicago Workers' Collaborative, an organisation that educates and mobilizes low-wage (mainly Latino immigrant) workers to understand work rights and immigration issues.
Unite is distributing information to Pizza Hut workers in NZ about the unfair terminations of Latino workers in Chicago. Over the past months, since February, more than 100 Pizza Hut workers in Chicago have been fired for no good reason. One of the employees had worked for Pizza Hut for 15 years. RBLNZ has no connection to these sackings, but Unite is calling on YUM International to stop the sackings and reinstate the effected workers immediately.
Twenty Unite members at RBL Contact Centre have lent their names to a letter we will be sending to YUM International.
Venezuela shuts down McDonald's
Fri 10 Oct 08
From the BBC News
Venezuela's government has shut all branches of restaurant chain McDonald's for 48 hours, citing tax irregularities, officials have said.
The head of the country's tax agency, Jose David Cabello, said the chain had inconsistencies in its accounts.
The 115 branches in Venezuela were closed from Thursday to Saturday.
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is a fierce US critic and last month was at the heart of tit-for-tat US-Latin American diplomatic expulsions.
Since winning elections 10 years ago, Mr Chavez has increased taxes and often temporarily shuts firms accused of failing to pay.
Riot Cops Detain Starbucks Union Supporters
Wed 1 Oct 08
Starbucks Workers Union Files Unfair Labor Practice Charges against Mall of America, Metro Transit, City of Bloomington over Illegal Detention of Supporters day before Republican National Convention
The Starbucks Workers Union of the Industrial Workers of the World announced today that it is filing Unfair Labor Practice charges against the Mall of America, Metro Transit, and the City of Bloomington after fifty of its supporters were sealed onto a train by police at the Mall of the America station and denied the right to escort a union barista to his first day back on the job after an anti-union termination.
Lots of public support for 7-Eleven workers in Melbourne
Fri 19 Sep 08
Lots of public support for 7-Eleven workers in Melbourne
Last Friday UNITE staged another successful action against 7-Eleven. This time activists blockaded the 7-Eleven petrol station on Victoria Street in East Melbourne. The usually busy store did next to no business while the action was taking place.
About 50 people attended the action in protest against the poverty wages that 7-Eleven franchisees pay their workers. UNITE has recently revealed that some 7-Eleven workers are paid as little as $8 per hour!
Hundreds of leaflets were distributed to cars as they were stopped in traffic outside the store. Many more motorists tooted at our placards which displayed slogans like “7-Eleven: Low pay 24 hours a day” and “Big Gulp drinks – Big wages rip-off!”
Burger With a Side of Spies
Mon 12 May 08
By ERIC SCHLOSSER
Monterrey, Calif.
WHILE the Patriot Act has raised fears about government spying on ordinary citizens, the growing threat to civil liberties posed by corporate spying has received much less attention. During the late 1990s, a private security firm spied on Greenpeace and other environmental groups, examining activists’ phone records and even sending undercover agents to infiltrate the groups, according to an article in Mother Jones. In 2006 Hewlett-Packard was caught spying on journalists. Last year Wal-Mart apologized for improperly recording conversations with a New York Times reporter.
US wharfies take a stand against war in Iraq
Wed 16 Apr 08
US dockworkers are stopping work across the West Coast of America for eight hours on May Day to call for the end of the US war in Iraq.
Members of the the International Longshore and Warehouse Union have decided to call a stop work in protest to what they call an "imperial action for oil in which the lives of working-class youth and Iraqi citizens are being wasted".
International Workers Day will be dubbed a "no peace, no work" holiday as the wharfies, some of whom are Vietnam veterans, make a political statement to the US government.
The protest comes just before contract negotiations and the union is preparing for the possibility of conflict during the negotiation period.
