Mike Booker – 
Fresh from their zero hours contract win with fast food chain McDonald’s, unions are warning that they have retailers in their sights.
First Union General Secretary Robert Reid congratulated Unite Union on their win against zero hours contracts at McDonalds, but then turned his attention to the retail workers his union represents.
“The issues of insecure work and insecure hours remain. Low contracted hours are just as common as zero hours and just as unfair and exploitative. In the retail sector workers are regularly kept on low hours,” he said.
Negotiations pursued
Mr Reid said that First Union will pursue negotiations with major retail chains this year.
“Winning secure and predictable hours will be a major focus for our bargaining teams. Many of First Union’s existing collective agreements already implicitly preclude zero-hour contracts, but recent law changes mean new workers who are employed at a workplace with a collective agreement may no longer be covered under that agreement for the first 30 days,” he said.
According to him, the opportunity for an increase in zero hour contracts has just been created by the same government, which said that it will outlaw them.
Union is investigating reports that one major retail chain has used this new law to offer zero hour contracts at a new site where the collective agreement implicitly precludes such provisions, he said.
Mike Booker is the Editor of Retail News, a web-based newsletter and communication service from Wellington. The above article appeared on April 6, 2015. Retail News supports the Indian Newslink Indian Business Awards, especially the ‘Business Excellence in Retail Trade’ category.
