KEY POINTS:
Manufacturers have labelled the latest push for five per cent pay rise as unrealistic.
The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union has launched a Fair Share '07 campaign saying it expects a five per cent pay rise and is prepared to do whatever is necessary to get it. The union will also be making a claim for employer contributions to the KiwiSaver scheme.
EPMU National Secretary Andrew Little says whatever form wage rises take, they will have to be higher than inflation if workers are to actually get ahead.
"With increasing business confidence and a strengthening economy there is no excuse for working kiwis to miss out on the economic good times. We're going to make sure our 50,000 members continue to get their fair share and we'd expect those gains will flow on throughout New Zealand as they have in the last two years."
The Canterbury Manufacturers Association Chief executive John Walley says manufactures are under enormous pressure compounded by the high Kiwi dollar and increased labour costs. He says settlements at around the five per cent level adding to yet more cost of employment, are resoundingly unrealistic.
- NEWSTALK ZB
