A letter to UNITE

A Keeping Stock reader has joined me in expressing his disgust at the attitude displayed by Matt Jones from UNITE which we blogged about yesterday. He has e-mailed Matt Jones, and given us permission to re-publish what follows. He writes:

I have been reading your media releases and other comments and quite frankly I am very disappointed. Your threats to name and shame employers are not helpful in anyway:

"Unite is prepared to name and shame businesses that abandon or rip-off their workers in the aftermath of the earthquake. Workers’ can call 0800 2 UNITE (0800 286 483) to share their story and seek workplace advice."

Here in Christchurch we are simply attempting to get back to work and keep business ticking over as best we can. Unfortunately there are a large number of businesses, especially smaller ones in older smaller blocks of shops which have been decimated by the earthquake. There are others who have stable buildings but have had the area and the clients disrupted to the point where they may not recover.

Your concern for workers is understandable and well founded but your response has been ill conceived and lacking. The council has employed structural engineers to rate buildings based on green for all clear, yellow for access only in an emergency and red for no entry under and circumstances. However Unite unionists, without any engineering qualifications have now taken it upon themselves to "inform workers of their rights" which entails telling them to go home if they don't want to work. This on its own might be forgivable out of your concern for safety.

However more pressing is that Unite's next step which is to then blackmail those businesses with negative media publicity into paying those workers who refuse to work in green stickered buildings. Businesses have suffered major disruption with large parts of town closed off and their customers restricted in movement, you then encourage their employees not to turn up then attempt to force them to pay them regardless without the revenue to contribute.

Are you so convinced that all employers are the enemy that you are prepared to wage war on them even as they pick up the pieces of their failing businesses after a major natural catastrophe?

Oh, that we could write such a coherent and well-reasoned piece ourselves. We agree 100% with the sentiments expressed, and are grateful both that one of our readers felt the same sense of outrage which we did, and did something about it. A response such as this is one of the things that makes blogging seem worthwhile.