Staff to stop over free coffee, tea

By PAUL YANDALL

Hamilton council workers will begin industrial action in protest at a lack of free tea and coffee in their workplace.

Demonstrations will take place every Tuesday and Thursday lunchtime from next week because the council rejected a demand by 90 of its workers for free tea and coffee and a pay rise.

Employees issued strike notices after the council offered a 2 per cent pay increase, or a 1.75 per cent increase plus tea and coffee.

Hamilton City spokesman Philip Burton said the council was prepared to offer a 2 per cent increase a year, plus tea and coffee, but only if the workers signed a two-year contract.

Northern Amalgamated Workers Union organiser Bob Gilbert said workers wanted 3 per cent plus free tea and coffee for all.

"They've made an issue out of the tea and coffee by trying to tie it to the pay increase. All we are saying is that if some of the workers get it, then all should."

He said he had tried to approach the council to discuss alternatives, but had been met by a brick wall.

Hamilton City's general manager corporate, Mike Garrett, told workers that the council was open to alternative suggestions but the present wage offers were a maximum.

The council, which employs 600 workers, estimates the cost of supplying tea and coffee to the 90 union workers at $10,000 a year.

Amalgamated Workers Union secretary Ray Bianchi said that, since the Employment Contracts Act came into force in 1991, workers had had to battle for rights they had previously taken for granted.

"The ECA has been responsible for the loss of 'smoko' conditions in workplaces. Once workers could expect to have a fridge, a food warmer, at work - they can't assume they'll be there now."

He said the pull-back in conditions had been so dramatic over the past 10 years that many workers in the construction industry had to supply their own hard hats.

"The Hamilton City Council should be absolutely ashamed. We're not talking about a revolution, we're talking about tea and coffee."

Two of the Waikato's largest employers, New Zealand Dairy Group and Waikato University, provided all their workers, numbering 4000 and 1600 respectively, with free tea and coffee.

But the National Party industrial relations spokesman, Max Bradford, said the dispute was a sign that unions, feeling empowered by the Government's pending Employment Relations Bill, were gearing up for industrial action.

"We're going to see a lot more of these sorts of strikes because of what the Government's doing.

"It's really cutting off your nose to spite your face, but as far as the union's concerned, it's payback time."