New employment act spurs union merger

By VERNON SMALL deputy political editor

The country's two trade union organisations have set in train a merger to cash in on the new Employment Relations Act.

Council of Trade Unions (CTU) president Ross Wilson and Trade Union Federation (TUF) president Maxine Gay yesterday signed a heads of agreement which will bring the 275,000 members of state and private sector unions under a single umbrella grouping for the first time.

Mr Wilson said the merger with the 25,000-strong TUF, which is still to be ratified by member unions, would focus on rebuilding the union movement in the wake of the new act, giving workers a single voice.

It will be called the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions.

"We've been through a period under the Employment Contracts Act [ECA] of unprecedented hostility from some politicians and employers," Mr Wilson said.

National and Act had an "obsessive opposition" to unions and the exercise of union rights in the new law and he looked forward to the legislation being a key election issue in 2002.

Ms Gay said the political landscape had changed and the Government now wanted to work with unions after 10 years in the wilderness. It would rather deal with one union federation and the TUF felt it had completed its task.

When the CTU was formed in 1993 the TUF did not have confidence in it or its former leadership's performance in opposing the ECA and their stance on issues such as tariffs. She said the new structure was more inclusive of smaller blue-collar unions. Both said membership had increased significantly in anticipation of the law. Mr Wilson said that reflected a feeling that it was now "safe" to belong to a union.