Download Collective Agreement
FORCED HOME EARLY OR TO WORK CLOCKED OUT?
Your roster is a contract. You agree to work it and SkyCity agrees to pay for all work you do. You can agree to finish early (“early out”) if you want to but you don’t have to if you don’t want to. If you are working you should be clocked in and paid - even if it is past your rostered finish times. You are paid by the hour - not by the room, table or customer. If you, or any othe SkyCity worker, is pressured to go home ealry or continue working contact SEA-Unite immediately.
WHEN THE TRON STRUCK
DAVID GARRITY
I’d like to tell you about Skycity Hamilton’s strike actions in 2022.
When we are bargaining, we work hard to reach the best deal we can at the time. Often this won’t require confrontation outside the negotiations but at the end of 2021 we had been three years trying to settle a contract for Hamilton!
We decided to strike on New Years Eve from 10 pm till Midnight . The first strike in the world for 2022!
At that stage our main strength was in Food and Beverage and for many of our members it was their first Strike Action. Joe Carolan and some more of the Auckland team and supporters came down with a bus and sound system and set up outside the main entrance. At 10 pm our team bravely walked off the job and we all partied and chanted for the next couple of hours before returning to work. We had a great time and followed this up for the next few weekends, targeting the busiest nights.
Management and HR did some training to fill the gaps in the Bar and Bevvy areas and there was lots of frustration and concern up in the management offices over this period.
We eventually had to go to mediation and managed to get a deal settled.
If it comes to strike action this time around, rest assured that we’ll WHEN THE TRON STRUCK do it strategically so that no one loses too much pay.
For strike action to work, all members need to be willing to back the action and step up. Of course, it is much more effective when we have the numbers so you should be talking to your workmates about being in the union and explain to them that if you walk off the job on a strike then they should not step up to take your place! The law protects them if they choose not to and they should not take on extra shifts or overtime to cover for strikers. Undermining a strike is not a friendly thing to do to your coworkers and they should realise that they are undermining a deal that will benefit them in the long run, as the company usually passes on the gains that the Union has won.