NZ union backed charity educates Fiji workers

Transcript

A charity backed by New Zealand unions is helping Fiji workers learn about their rights as weakened Fiji unions struggle with restrictive decrees.

UnionAid is running a pilot project in Fiji to educate manufacturing workers on their entitlements including how to handle grievances.

The group's executive officer, Michael Naylor, told Sally Round, UnionAid will first help garment workers, who struggle on minimal wages.

MICHAEL NAYLOR: The number of workers in the area that we're focused on which is the garment sector and the manufacturing sector, the number of them who aren't unionised is growing and the number of workers who are not able to realise their rights is growing as well.

SALLY ROUND: And is that because of the regime that's been in control and the decrees around unions and the diminishing power of unions in Fiji?

MN: I think certainly the decrees have made life a lot tougher for the unions for example when I was over there and talking to some of the union leaders; it's simple things like workers not being able to pay their union fees through the pay roll and just the ability for union leaders to speak out has certainly been curtailed.

SR: What is UnionAid seeking to do then to fill this gap?

MN: Our project, we're planning on working with the National Union of Commercial and Factory Workers. We have initially a twelve month period and it's really focused on educating workers in the factories, in the garment sector and the manufacturing sector around what their rights are so it's a really basic kind of project around what their rights are around leave, overtime and around the minimum wages they have. so educating them about their rights, letting them know how they can enforce those, how they can take a claim for grievance and then also what the benefits are of them to join a union if they want to collectively bargain for better wages and better rights.

SR: So how are you going about that education?

MN: We'll be working in partnership with the National Union of Factory and Commercial Workers and we have a brilliant project manager over there, Kuini, and she is going to be developing information flyers, posters, things like that. The nitty gritty is going out and visiting those workplaces or visiting people after hours, just talking to them, letting them know their rights, providing them with a phone line they can call for advice and just building up that relationship there and that's the core work of the rights-based approach to letting people know - educating people and organising them.

SR: Would New Zealanders be involved in that or is it the locals that you're training up to do this?

MN: It's very much run by the local partners there and they do have a lot of skill and experience in doing that so we're providing some of the high level strategic advice and obviously the funding to help them do that but then it's very much on the day-to-day run by them in Fiji.

SR: How free have you been to do this in Fiji, given the restrictions that the government under the previous regime had placed on unions?

MN: Look I found no problems when I was there for my visit. And I think we're hopeful with the election being over the government has talked about opening some dialogue with the unions and trying to rebuild some of that tripartite dialogue between employers and unions and the government so we're hopeful that that will continue and will happen. I didn't feel any restrictions in doing that and actually you know the employers that we visited as well were reasonably open to that idea. It is a very basic plan. We're just educating workers about what their rights are and how to go about that.