Credit: Dreamstime
Engineering staff protesting over pay have returned to the picket line for a second day of strikes, as problems continue to mount for Fuji Xerox in New Zealand.
According to trade union E tū, 50 members - seemingly up from the 45 reported on Monday - in will “walk off the job” from 7:30am to 4:30pm.
As revealed by Reseller News, the members are in dispute with the vendor regarding a two per cent pay offer, which the union claims the “company refuses to back-date to the expiry of their collective agreement in August last year”.
“The members also want recognition of their skills in line with recent assessments they’ve had, but that’s been held back,” said Joe Gallagher, industry coordinator at E tū. “The company has confirmed its parsimonious offer to our members in its own statement in response to [Monday’s] strike.
“It has also confirmed it won’t backdate any offer which would mean a year with no pay rise at all, which is unacceptable.”
Fuji Xerox New Zealand initially “expressed disappointment” at the decision to go on strike, claiming the decision was made during the middle of ongoing collective agreement negotiations.
Furthermore, the vendor claimed that it is also unable to agree to the union’s claim of no pass on, "an important principle of Fuji Xerox NZ’s is that everyone is treated as one team, regardless of whether they are union members or not".
Such a claim has been refuted by Gallagher.
“The company is under the impression it can do as it pleases but it clearly doesn’t know the law on the matter,” Gallagher added. “It doesn’t have carte blanche to just pass on to non-union workers what our members win for themselves.
“We’re deeply concerned with the company’s lack of understanding around the laws related to no pass-on. We need Fuji Xerox to acknowledge that they have to commit to a process for negotiating with non-union members.”
