Battle of employment philosophies spreading

The weekend’s announcement by AFFCO of a lockout at five of itsNorth Islandmeat plants comes hard on the heels of the three week strike by the Ports of Auckland stevedores, following several months of increasingly acrimonious negotiations.

Joint plan aims to address labour market problems

A tripartite working group, led by the Department of Labour and Meat Industry Association, was established two years ago to produce the Meat Industry Labour Market and Skills Plan, having recognised what it termed a two dimensional problem: first, the dominant culture of independence and competitiveness which means a lack of engagement across the industry, second, the difficulty of bringing about new behaviours to increase industry viability, productivity, health and safety and wealth creation.

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