Up to 1000 workers at Fletchers are facing possible redundancy, after having already been on reduced pay during lockdown.
Since early April, workers have been on a 12-week pay reduction plan, which saw them receiving less than their normal weekly income – a change over which they say they were not properly consulted.
E tū understands employees now back at work are on reduced days and hours.
To add insult to injury, Fletchers has now announced a proposal to cull up to 1000 New Zealand workers, about 10% of their workforce.
Fletchers received almost $68 million from the Government’s wage subsidy scheme.
E tū Negotiation Specialist Joe Gallagher says to rebuild better, New Zealand needs to keep and create decent jobs.
“This means secure employment especially for the critical infrastructure workers we desperately need to recover our economy.”
E tū’s representative for engineering and infrastructure on the National Executive, Bruce Habgood, says the rebuild needs to be about people over profits.
“We’re calling on the Government to step in and ensure we keep Kiwi jobs in New Zealand.
“It’s about allowing the economy to recover justly,” Bruce says.
The rebuild needs to be about people over profit.
Only a government can afford to run an organisation where people can be before profit as they need to take the good of society as a whole in a project. Businesses will not last long if they do not make a profit. Employees need to be treated fairly and have a safe enviroment free of discrimination and get a fair days pay for a fairs day work.
In the construction industry governments both right and left have been quilty of forcing down wages and conditions by going for the lowest tender and not asking how that was achieved.
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