CMP lockout: Company bullies workers

The Mar­itime Union is back­ing locked out meat work­ers at the CMP plant in Mar­ton with finan­cial sup­port and a sol­i­dar­i­ty del­e­ga­tion.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Joe Fleet­wood, speak­ing from the pick­et line today, says the Union is com­mit­ted to ongo­ing sup­port.

“This is a multi­na­tion­al bul­ly using its pow­er to rip out con­di­tions from hard work­ing New Zealan­ders in a small com­mu­ni­ty. It’s unac­cept­able and they are not going to get away with it.”

Mr Fleet­wood says he was impressed with the morale and strength of the locked out work­ers, and the num­ber of oth­er unions rep­re­sent­ed on the pick­et line in sup­port.

“First thing this morn­ing we had 15 mar­itime work­ers from Welling­ton come up to join the pick­et.”

Mr Fleet­wood says the Mar­itime Union has made a sub­stan­tial dona­tion to the locked out work­ers.

“This is about pro­vid­ing food and pay­ing the bills for these work­ing fam­i­lies. These work­ers have put them­selves on the line and we are not going to let them down.”

“We know that with an anti-work­er Nation­al Gov­ern­ment this is what hap­pens. The pro­duc­ers of wealth, the back­bone of our nation, are up against it from glob­al multi­na­tion­als who want to suck mon­ey out of our coun­try for their glob­al own­ers.

Mr Fleet­wood says the dis­pute had gone inter­na­tion­al and the Mar­itime Union was updat­ing oth­er mar­itime and trans­port unions in its glob­al net­work on the dis­pute.

CMP, a sub­sidiary of glob­al multi­na­tion­al ANZCO Foods, has locked out 111 work­ers at its plant in Mar­ton, in order to force them to sign off on pay cuts of between 20 — 30% and unac­cept­able changes to terms and con­di­tions.

Dona­tions can be made to the work­ers dis­putes fund at Kiwibank:

Account Name Dis­putes Fund

Account Num­ber 38–9007-0894028–08