News

Industry Council

The EPMU Print and Media council met in Wellington from April 1-2 to discuss industry trends and review our strategy for 2008. Industry councils are a core part of the EPMU’s democratic structures and provide an opportunity for elected workplace delegates from across the country have real input into the union’s strategy for each industry.

Our council convener is Brent Edwards from Radio New Zealand in Wellington and the deputy convener is Jason Watson from PMP Print Ltd in Christchurch.

We held a 2 day meeting and in that time managed to build a robust plan for growth, organisation and bargaining within in our industries. Thank you to Jason Watson (PMP), Ryan Smith (PMP) and Kerry Noble (Blue Star) for their contributions to our commercial print planning. Anyone interested in reading the plan can call our Union Support Centre for a copy.



Blue Star

We have been continuing our campaign to link up our Collective Agreements at Blue Star companies across New Zealand this year to promote stronger industry standards. Delegates from the sites held a telephone conference last week where we agreed to work together in solidarity for a single national agreement.

Thank you to Steve Coburn (Format), Shaun Nepe (Format) Mark Tauroa (Printlink) Chris Morete (Securacopy), Richard Lambert (Webstar), Bernard Watt (Webstar) and Kerry Noble (Mccollums) for participating in that organising meeting.



Geon

The EPMU have just completed a round of bargaining at Geon in Highbrook after 5 months of negotiations. Phil Townsend, the site organiser said “Although the negotiations took a while to complete it was worth it because we got a result that members were happy with.”

In future our union will be working hard to build union density at all Geon sites, including Highbrook, so we can standardise the core conditions of work at these sites. We have been talking to our sister union in Australia – the AMWU Print Division - about working together to build stronger terms and conditions right across the Geon Group in Australasia.



APN Print (Manukau)

New technology at APN Manukau bindery may mean up to 10 redundancies at the site; this is on the back of 80 last year when the bindery at the Ellerslie site was disestablished.

Chapel father Silvanus Raimona says he will continue to support members through these significant changes: “We are working though a process, and we’re here to ensure that our member’s interests are represented through that.”



Private equity

The growth of private equity is a major issue affecting workers in the Print industry. As you’re probably aware, private equity companies like Geon and Blue Star have expanded rapidly in recent times by investing huge amounts of borrowed money to buy up large chunks of New Zealand’s print industry.

The private equity business is geared towards extremely high rates of return on capital, averaging from 20-25% and up to 40% in some of the biggest funds. In order to achieve such incredible rates of return private equity companies have to extract as much money from the company as possible over the short-term.

Experience in New Zealand and overseas has shown this often means loading the acquired company with debt at the cost of long-term productive investment, jobs and employment security. Frequently this has meant attacks on collective bargaining and other basic rights at work.

In Australia and New Zealand private equity firms are centralising some operations in the Print industry and consolidating others. How will effect plans affect the quality of your working life, your pay and your jobs?

You can find out more about private equity and what it means for workers in the IUF’s Workers’ Guide to Private Equity Buyouts, available for download here [PDF, 500k]. It’s a useful and accessible guide written with union members in mind.



Your union officials

Paul Tolich, Senior National Industrial Officer

Louisa Jones, National Industry Organiser

John Kerr, Print organiser, Wellington

Mike Kirwood, Print organiser, Dunedin

Jo McLean, Print organiser, Christchurch



Contacting us

If you are an EPMU member we need to be able to get in touch with you and this means we need your contact details (especially your home email). You can supply us with these by calling 0800 1 UNION (0800 186 466) and talking to our support centre staff or by emailing us@epmu.org.nz. You can unsubscribe from this newsletter by sending us an email at communication@epmu.org.nz with “unsubscribe print” in the subject line.



Feedback

If you have any comments or questions about the EPMU Print industry or this e-newsletter please email us at: communication@epmu.org.nz. We endeavour to answer your emails within 24 hours.