Who is New Zealand’s staunchest delegate?

The role of a union delegate is a delicate and poised one. It is about making sure everyone is informed and aware so they can make good decisions. It is about helping to build and team and working together to find solutions to shared issues. Delegates can be part negotiator, part communicator and part organiser. Most often they are just a friend and work colleague…

…But every once in a while delegates are the hard spine in a union that will not bend. They are the unfaltering Carl Hayman or Joline Henry that no one gets past. So let’s use July to celebrate Finsec’s staunchest delegates. If the delegate at your worksite makes your manager take a step back or defends you and your colleagues to the last let us know. We want nominations from around the country for the New Zealand’s staunchest delegate – just tell us why your delegate is the toughest and we’ll make sure some prizes are available. Send your nominations, before the end of July, to communications@finsec.org.nz

(Thanks to RebelBlueAngel for the photo)

And the winners are…

We were able to find a few more prizes than we originally advertised in our January Competition, so it’s quite the prize bonanza.  The results of our competition, as drawn by Finsec General Secretary Andrew Casidy, are:

• The Japanese scarf was won by Julie Grantham from ANZ Whangarei
• The collectable Chinese stamps were won by Subhra Kesa from Westpac Westgate and Chris Darlington from ANZ Cherrywood
• Maureen Egan from National Bank and Kathryn McIlraith, a Union Councillor from Westpac Cashel St won the women’s T shirts from British union PCS
• Phillip Stevens won the red bandanna from the Hong Kong Buildings, Management and Security Workers’ General Union
• Five people won polo shirts from UNI; Peter Clegg from Westpac Ferrymead, Phil Berghan-Whyman from Westpac Phone Assist, Pat Daw from Southern Cross Building Society, Gayle Downie, a Union Councillor from Westpac Canterbury Centre, and Andrew Leabourne from ANZ LSC.

Congratulations to all those winners, thanks to the others who sent in entries, and keep your eyes open for future competitions!

January Competition

Right, let’s begin the New Year with another competition. After all, I need to empty my office of some of these prizes. I can give away a woman’s small tight fitting tee shirt from British union PCS, two large black polo shirts from UNI, a red Japanese scarf, a book of twenty four collectable postage stamps from China (courtesy of the Trade Union Council of Guangzhou) and a red bandanna from the Hong Kong Buildings, Management and Security Workers’ General Union.

I will give them away in a draw to any Finsec member who either writes a comment on a Gossip website between now and the end of January or who sends me an email. If you don’t think you have anything to say just leave your name, the company you work for and what prize or prizes you would like be in the draw to win as a comment on this story. Below each story’s title is a bit that says either ‘comments‘ or ‘no comments.’ Click on that and then you can type in your comment. We’ll look forward to hearing from you.

Our September competition

We’ve got another competition for you, but first some details of where the prizes came from.

Hong Kong

Finsec President, Sue Boraston and General Secretary, Andrew Casidy, have both just returned from Hong Kong. UNI, the global trade union that Finsec belongs to, held a two day long training seminar for Hong Kong unions sharing with them how other unions organise workers. Hong Kong is the only part of China that has unions that are independent, apolitical and unaffiliated to the Chinese Communist Government.

Developing strong, independent and effective trade unions in China will be crucial, not just to Chinese workers, some of whom live in absolute poverty and face life threatening workplace hazards, but also for the rest of the world’s workers, whose wages and working conditions are being driven down by cheap Chinese labour. UNI hopes that Hong Kong unions can be a beacon or launch pad for independent unions to form in the rest of China. Hence the seminar.

The huge United States union SEIU (1.8 million members in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico) ran a session teaching organising skills for the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions and the Macau Workers Union. The 230,000 member Australian SDA Union ran a seminar and little old Finsec (6,500 members) was invited to run two seminars – one on organising women and one on organising youth.

Competition

So, we have three UNI polo shirts and a Hong Kong Buildings, Management and Security Workers’ General Union bandanna to give away to Finsec members. We will give them away to any member who writes a comment on a Gossip website between now and the end of September. If you don’t think you have anything to say just leave your name and the company you work for as comment on this story, but otherwise be brave and tell us what you think about any of the stories we have written. Below each story’s title is a bit that either says ‘comments‘ or ‘no comments.’ Click on that and then you can type in your comment. We’ll look forward to hearing from you.

(Thanks to pmorgan for the photo)

August competition winners

Finsec’s Barbara Moses has drawn the next round of winners for our gossip subscription competition. The winners of two of the silk scarves are Tracey from Credit Union Baywide and Nicola from BNZ, while Finsec President and avid Gossip reader, Sue Boraston, was lucky enough to take home the third scarf. Julie from ANZ won the polo shirt. Those prizes will all be in the mail to you today.

A new competition

Folks, the freebies are back! This time we have three silk scarves and a black polo shirt to give away to any Finsec members who subscribe to the Gossip before 31 August. Just send an email to Stephen with “Gossip” in the subject line.

The scarves and shirt are courtesy of Christopher Ng, the head of UNI Asia Pacific. UNI is the global union that represents finance workers around the world. Finsec is one of 900 unions (from 140 countries and covering 15 million workers) who are members of UNI. The issues UNI deals with include helping unions to develop global framework agreements, global objectives for decent work and decent rates of pay, minimum standards for health and safety, ensuring collective bargaining rights for all, global solidarity action, global policy development and research and global representation at organisations like the WTO.

Christopher was in New Zealand to meet with Finsec, and other affiliated unions, to talk about how UNI can help us build our capacity to campaign and organise workers in New Zealand. He also discussed how UNI affiliates like Finsec can support programmes aimed at organising workers in Pacific countries where unions either don’t currently exist or are struggling to grow. A good example of this the workers at the ANZ Vanuatu who joined a union and, with assistance and support from Finsec and the Australian FSU, have recently bargained and settled the first ever collective employment agreement.

Malaysian competition winners

Our Malaysian competition finished this week and Finsec General Secretary, Andrew Casidy, randomly drew a range winners names from the lucky cap. Unfortunately no trips to the Perhentian Islands (so yes, the picture is a bit misleading) but Rhys from Lumley and Raewyn from ANZ won polo shirts. Pip from Lumley, Ian from the Reserve Bank and Tim from the New Zealand Association of Credit Unions won key rings. Michal from the Reserve Bank won a cap and Clare from the Reserve Bank and Odette from ANZ won ‘we fight injustice’ headbands. Congratulations to those eight. The prizes are all in the mail this afternoon. No more prizes for a while but you can still subscribe to the gossip by sending us an email.

(Thanks to cgreb for the photo)

Win with Finsec and NUBE!

Last week a very chilly delegation of Malaysian Bank unionists came to visit Finsec. They weren’t ski bunnies. They were in fact here to learn about performance pay. It seems that New Zealand banks have been leading the way introducing performance pay and target based pay into their pay systems. And now some of the Malaysian banks were considering following us down that particularly treacherous road. So, the National Union of Bank Employees in Malaysia, who had clearly already been told the bank management’s arguments for performance pay, arrived to here workers perspectives on performance pay. Well, we were able to talk to them about how performance pay has helped to keep workers’ pay low, cause undue stress, irritate customers and isolate staff.

Our friends from NUBE have kindly left us a collection of gifts that we would like to give away to members. As you can see in the photo we have two polo shirts, one cap two “we fight injustice” headbands (All the rage in Asian union circles) and two key rings to give away in a draw to any members who send us your email address and sign up to receive weekly ‘…the gossip’ emails. Our esteemed General Secretary, Andrew Casidy, will draw the winners from the NUBE caps on 1 August.