February 23, 2010

Media Release

Henare’s bill shows he’s out of touch

Tau Henare’s private member’s bill on secret ballots for strikes is a pointless attempt to regulate for a practice that is already standard procedure, says the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union.

The bill seeks to force strike votes to be held by secret ballot despite secret ballots already being standard practice.

EPMU national secretary Andrew Little says Henare’s bill show how out of touch he is with unions and their members.

“Tau’s ideas about unions using stand-over tactics might reflect on his time as a union official more than twenty years ago but the current generation of union leaders show much greater respect for member democracy.

“The bill gives the impression of Tau Henare doing something when in fact he is doing nothing.

“If Tau had any interest in the needs of union members and other working Kiwis he’d be backing legislation that made a real difference like Darien Fenton’s Redundancy Protection Bill rather than wasting time and taxpayers’ money trying to fix a problem that doesn’t exist.”

Rule 21 of the EPMU Rules states:
 
“No strike shall take place unless the question has been submitted to a secret ballot of those members who would become parties to the strike if it proceeded.”

ENDS

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