Source: Tertiary Education Union
Staff at ARA in Canterbury are picketing today to protest the lack of progress in their collective agreement negotiations.
Co-branch president of TEU ARA, Tim Robinson, says that staff were feeling frustrated.
“We’re here today because we want to draw attention to the delay in the bargaining and we want to put some pressure on our employer. It’s frustrating to us that our employer ARA isn’t even present at the negotiation table today in Wellington. We’re standing here in solidarity with our negotiation team and our colleagues at polytechs around the country.”
Tim Robinson says frustrations go beyond simply the delay in negotiations. He says that after years of change and not enough support from their employer, staff are exhausted.
“At ARA we had a review of management structure last year and our line managers have gone from looking after 28 direct reports to looking after 50. Every department is feeling stressed and overloaded. People are already unhappy and as our employer continues to refuse to engage at the bargaining table, more kaimahi are looking at work outside the polytech sector.”
Union members initiated bargaining for a multi-employer collective agreement (MECA) in February. A recent application by TEU to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) for facilitation was declined.
“Employers want us on separate collective agreements because they know our terms and conditions can be weakened that way. We’re here to say that we want our MECA and we want to be paid what we’re worth. We want our employers to collectively support a fair standard of conditions for the sector nationally. If our bosses truly valued us, we could have had a signed agreement by now. We’re here to say – get on with it.”