Threat of staff strike hangs over museum birthday bash

The Auckland War Memorial Museum is 80 years old. Photo / Herald on Sunday

A labour dispute threatens to spoil the Auckland War Memorial Museum's 80th birthday bash as 16-month employment negotiations reach a crisis point.

Members of the Public Service Association and Amalgamated Workers Union at the museum will consider a strike if negotiations under way since June last year fail.

PSA organiser Brendon Lane said union members had unanimously voted to give the museum until this afternoon to offer a satisfactory collective agreement.

Failing that, the workers would discuss on Tuesday a strike to coincide with next weekend's 80th birthday celebrations.

"People are feeling very pissed off in the roles they've got in the museum ... considering how highly trained they are."

Union membership at the museum had jumped from three or four to more than 40 over the past 16 months as workers became fed up with management. More than half of the museum's full-time main staff were now union members, he said.

"It's hardly the result of [just] restructuring, but also the general poor management in the organisation. It's very dictatorial."

Specific grievances in the proposed collective agreement included hours of work, redundancy and pay, Mr Lane said. Workers would be given little option about the hours they worked, and the contract refused to acknowledge a necessary work-life balance.

"We just want it to be a simple, straightforward document that respects the professionalism and the commitment of these people. And we're just not seeing any of that at this stage. It's like something out of the Dark Ages."

Tensions between workers and management were not limited to the employment contract, he said. "We have had ongoing issues around people being held up for being one minute late."

Workers had also been shut down for raising issues about the direction of the museum, he said.

Auckland Museum's adviser on human resources issues, Peter Elder, would not talk about specific issues for negotiation, but said the unions and management had agreed to meet again on November 6. Management would be "highly disappointed" if industrial action was taken because a meeting had already been arranged, he said.

Current negotiations could not be considered as elongated at all, as the collective agreement being negotiated was the first one at the museum, and the museum had gone through restructuring last year, he said.

There were always differences between the expectations of unions and the position of management, and Mr Elder was hopeful the differences could be sorted out in the normal course of negotiations.