Bronwen Beechey, Auckland
In an historic victory, the Unite workers' union has won a union employment agreement with Restaurant Brands, New Zealand's biggest fast-food chain. The new contract awards significant pay increases and improvements in conditions to more than 7000 workers employed at Starbucks, KFC, Pizza Hut and the Restaurant Brands call centre. The workers have won wage increases of between 7.9% and 14.9% and will gain another increase next year.
The most significant political victory was the commitment by Restaurant Brands to abolish youth rates. As a first step, all workers under 18 years of age will move to 90% of the adult rate. This means wage increases for younger workers of up to 34.2%. Fifteen-year-old workers' rates will increase between NZ$2.10 and $2.44 an hour. Supervisors under the age of 18 will be paid the full adult supervisors' rate.
Restaurant Brands also agreed to provide more secure working hours to its workers. When additional hours become available, they will now be offered to existing workers before any new workers are employed. If more than one employee wants the additional hours, they must be offered to the worker with the longest service. This signals an end to the total casualisation of the industry, where workers' hours can be increased or decreased at the whim of a manager. This tactic has often been used to get rid of "troublemakers".
Unite members have also achieved more than 20 new conditions, including an increase in 10-minute smoko breaks to 15 minutes, supply of adequate uniforms and even provision of free hearing tests.
Unite negotiated for every Restaurant Brands worker in New Zealand to get the union pay increase and other benefits. In recognition of this decision, Restaurant Brands has agreed to pay every union member a lump sum equal to 1% of their quarterly earnings every three months — effectively paying the union fee for Unite members.
This victory follows two years of sustained organising of fast-food workers, which led to the establishment of the Supersize My Pay campaign last year. Organised and run by mainly young fast-food workers, Supersize My Pay combined traditional union tactics of pickets and snap strikes with slick media campaigning, using mobile phone text messaging and the internet to publicise actions. Big public events have also been organised, like the February 12 public meeting and concert that filled the Auckland Town Hall and the Big Pay Out concert on March 18. The amount of public support for the campaign helped push other unions and the Council of Trade Unions to endorse it.
Earlier this year the Labour government, clearly under pressure, announced it would increase minimum wages from $9.50 to $10.25 per hour.
The final straw for Restaurant Brands seems to have been the student strike and protest march on March 20, which was initiated by high-school student members of Radical Youth and supported by Unite. The strike, called with just two days' notice, was built by text messaging and word of mouth. It attracted more than 1000 young people who marched through Auckland's main street, and was supported by many others who were prevented by school authorities from attending.
Supersize My Pay will now concentrate on campaigning to win similar conditions for McDonald's and Burger King workers.
From Green Left Weekly, April 5, 2006.
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