Metals May Day stop-work

May 1, 2006

Media Release

Metals May Day stop-work

May Day – the international day of solidarity among working people – sees the launch of the campaign to renew the country’s most influential private-sector industrial agreement.

Hundreds of workers from the manufacturing sector will hold a stop-work meeting at Ericcson Stadium in Auckland today to discuss up-coming negotiations in the Metals and Manufacturing Industries multi-employer agreement.

The Metals agreement covers workers at hundreds of sites, and sets the going pay and conditions across the manufacturing sector.

Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union national secretary Andrew Little, who will be in Auckland for the stop-work meeting, said that the Metals campaign was a key part of the union’s programme.

“What happens in the Metals agreement sets the industrial agenda for the year,” he said.

“Last year, we launched the Fair Share – Five in ’05 campaign off the back of the Metals and won a five per cent pay rise for tens of thousands of New Zealanders. You can be sure that we will be working hard for a good result again this year.”

Similar stop-work meetings will be held in Christchurch tomorrow and Wellington on Wednesday.

ENDS

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