KEY POINTS:
The backlash from unions against revelations police used an informer to spy on them increased today.
The National Distribution Union (NDU) lodged an Official Information Act request for information the police hold on it, while the Maritime Union said it may call a national work stoppage to hold meetings of its members to discuss the spying.
Yesterday the Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) said it backed a call by Unite Union for a full public inquiry into the activities of the police Special Investigation Group (SIG), following revelations a paid informant for the unit was spying on union industrial and political campaigns.
Prime Minister John Key this week ruled out an inquiry and said police assurances had been given to the Government that covert investigations were justified.
NDU national secretary Laila Harre said she was angry that police informant Rob Gilchrist was being paid to gather information about legitimate union activity and wants details of reports he made about the union.
"The public need to know why the police think they need to use valuable resources and taxpayer money on spying on unions when they say they are too stretched to do the rest of their job properly," she said.
Maritime Union general secretary Trevor Hanson said today the union was supporting calls for a high level commission of inquiry into the SIG.
The union was demanding an apology, would seek damages from police, and was calling its branches to prepare for industrial action unless a full apology and explanation was made.
"If the police are serious about tracking groups who threaten the wellbeing of ordinary New Zealanders, would they pay informers to spy on employer groups wanting to attack wages and conditions?" Mr Hanson asked.
"Who exactly decides who goes on the spy list, who authorises these decisions, and what accountability and procedures do such special investigations have to ensure they are not corrupt or politically biased?"
Ms Harre said the police activities looked "as if they are using public money to indulge in a bit of old fashioned right wing paranoia.
"I would be interested in whether they are spying on employer organisations, and business lobby groups," she said.
"After all some of them hold far more extreme views than any of the other organisations that Mr Gilchrist is reported to have spied on."
Yesterday the EPMU said emails it had obtained showed Mr Gilchrist forwarded to police meeting times and venues for the union's campaign against the National Party's original bill in 2006 to allow workers in small businesses to be sacked within 90 days of starting work.
Mr Gilchrist also sent the schedule for union pickets during the Progressive Enterprises lockout, which involved 120 EPMU members, it said.
The emails also showed the SIG received information on at least seven other union groups - Unite, the Service and Food Workers Union, the National Distribution Union, the Maritime Union, the National Union of Public Employees, the Youth Union Movement and the Council of Trade Unions.
Reports of police spying on protest groups broke at the weekend.
Rochelle Rees, an animal rights and Labour Party activist, told the Sunday Star-Times she had discovered her former partner, Mr Gilchrist, had been paid by counter-terrorism police to spy on the protest groups when she helped him fix his computer.
Green MP Keith Locke called for an inquiry when the story first broke, and yesterday his party was furious that Mr Gilchrist had infiltrated its offices and was used to report on the party's activities.
- NZPA
