Delegates from FIRST Union, which formed a year ago when FinSec and the National Distribution Union (NDU) merged, attended the union’s biennial conference in Auckland last month.

Secretary Robert Reid describes the union’s agenda as “Decent Work Decent Life” which covers four main areas: jobs for all, a living wage, secure work and safe work. Regarding the living wage Reid says the union will be “promoting not only the concept but to get some real wins on the board in coming years.”

“We are committing to campaign against the most insidious form of employment being labour hire or agency employment, spreading like cancer through all of our industries, and in particular for our union, in transport, logistics and wood. We have achieved recent wins in reducing the use of casual work on jobs, and this issue will remain on our bargaining agenda, as will employment practices that exist across all of our industries where targets programmes are being used to make the life of our members miserable.” [Read more…]