Rendezvous hotel lockout continues indefinitely

Rendezvous hotel lockout continues indefinitely

Auckland Rendezvous Hotel workers are facing a second week without pay after the Employment Court yesterday declined their union's application to stop the lockout by their employer.

Service and Food Workers Union Northern Regional Secretary Jill Ovens says the indefinite lockout is particularly harsh for low-paid workers as their families depend on every cent the workers bring home.

"This is about putting food on the table, paying the rent and the power bills. It is a very serious matter," Jill Ovens says.

She says the union's members are grateful for the donations of food and money that are coming in, but that more donations are urgently needed with no end in sight to the dispute.

"The hotel's response was totally over the top. They said in their notice they wanted to stop the strike, but later they said it was to force our members to accept their pay offer of only 1.5%. You have to question the Hotel's real motive behind the lockout."

Rendezvous Hotel management did not tell the union members what they needed to do to avoid a lockout when they physically locked the staff entrance doors last Thursday and later issued a lockout notice to the SFWU, which represents the hotel workers.

The SFWU challenged the lockout in an urgent hearing held yesterday in the Employment Court. Thirty-five locked-out workers attended the hearing.

Chief Judge Colgan found that there was no need for an injunction, as the failure to specify a demand had since been addressed.

However, he found that it was "very arguable" that the lockout was unlawful from 17 June until the union received the employer's demand on the morning of 21 June, because the employer had failed to specify any demand or terms and conditions of employment for union members to accept.

The Court said it was arguable that the requirement to communicate to employees what they must do to avert the lockout had been strengthened by the good faith requirements of s4(1A) of the Employment Relations Act 2000.

Jill Ovens says the decision that at least 3 days of the lockout were arguably unlawful means the locked out workers can claim lost wages and damages between last Thursday and Monday.

"Our lawyer has written to Rendezvous asking them to pay up for those days and the union is also applying to the Employment Relations Authority for facilitated bargaining this afternoon on the grounds that we have a protracted lockout."

ENDS

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