Mitre 10 chairman still embroiled in employment dispute

FIRST Union media statement: 26 May 2017

Mitre 10 chairman still embroiled in employment dispute with Dunedin workers

After more than three years of negotiations and court battles, union members at Jacks Hardware and Timber, trading as Mitre 10 Mega Dunedin and Mitre 10 Mosgiel, are still waiting to settle their first collective agreement as company owner and Mitre 10 chairman Martin Dippie refuses to adopt a recommendation of the Employment Relations Authority.

“Negotiations have been protracted and really unsettling for our members,” said FIRST Union Southern Region Secretary Paul Watson.

Bargaining between FIRST Union and Jacks Hardware and Timber was initiated in 2013. In 2014 the company made an attempt to unilaterally end collective agreement negotiations with FIRST Union, but the Employment Court ruled this was unlawful and ordered both parties to attend facilitation in the Employment Relations Authority (ERA).

“We’ve managed to agree on a number of issues in the ERA, but the company is still refusing to write in a ‘tiered’ pay scale in the collective agreement, even though the ERA facilitator recommended a two-tier scale.”

“The company is playing games within the current law and, in our view, not making a genuine attempt to bargain,” said Watson.

“We’re no longer prepared to waste time with a company and employer who has no desire to genuinely conclude a collective agreement with staff who are union members. We’ll be pursuing an alternative legal remedy.”

“The conduct of Dippie and Jacks Hardware and Timber brings one of the major problems with employment law into stark relief. Where an employer simply refuses to genuienly negotiate a collective agreement, working people have few remedies. Even if they get a result in the end it can take years of back and forth. Foodstuffs South Island is another example here. We have members in four New World and Pak’n Save stores across the South Island, but in each store the franchise owners are dragging things out and refusing to settle.”

“The law needs to change to ensure there’s security for working people who bargain together. They shouldn’t have to wait years and years. Iain Lees-Galloway’s private members bill on this, the Employment Relations (Rates of Pay in Collective Agreements) Amendment Bill, would be a good start,” said Watson.

ENDS

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