First Security strike against low pay

Union members at First Security took strike action on April 19 in support of 15 members from the company’s patrols division who were earlier locked out by the company after a two-hour strike for decent pay. 

Unite organisers joined staff picketing the company’s Mt Wellington head office. Representatives from the Amalgamated Workers Union and the National Distribution Union also attended to show their solidarity. 

Non-union staff and management who turned up for work found the exit was blocked by a placard-covered car which mysteriously appeared outside. The picketers were not intimidated by management claims that their action was illegal and calling the police. After discussion with organisers, management agreed to lift the lockout and to meet with Unite for further talks on wages. 

First Security guards begin on $13.52 per hour. The company was offering a three percent increase which would bring them to just $13.93. (The minimum wage is $13.00 from 1 April) Patrol staff want a minimum rate of $14.50 per hour which has been refused by the company. First Security is owned by Dutch multinational ISS. 

According to Unite organiser Barry Sutherland, “Already the pay rates for patrol staff at First Security are the lowest in Auckland. Many of the staff are migrant workers who are fearful of their employment and more easily cowed to accept low pay and long hours of work.” 

After the success of Saturday’s picket, these workers will not be so easily intimidated in future.

"We're being told that we need to sacrifice, while those people have never sacrificed."

KRISTINE MATTIS, Graduate Student, Activist with Teaching Assistants' Association, Madison: "It seems clear to everyone now that this is a bigger struggle than just a struggle for the unions. It's a struggle against those of the corporate and elite who have been paying fewer and fewer taxes and who caused the entire economic breakdown on Wall Street, a struggle between the rest of us who are being forced to pay for it and being forced to take losses in our wages, losses in our health-care benefits, losses in our pensions because of that. It was sort of a small battle against the budget repair bill, and now it's really just a war of the working people against the people they see as the real group who has not done their fair share of dealing with the economic hardships that we're all facing. We're being told that we need to sacrifice, while those people have never sacrificed. And I think it has to do with just all of us having come together and discussing this issue and probably talking to one another rather than listening to the mainstream media and realizing more broadly where these problems emanate--from where they emanate and what are the true solutions."