The union organiser for staff at a medicine manufacturer says workers are losing money going to work as they grapple with low wages.<\/p>\n
Workers First Union members at Biomed Ltd, which makes IV products for hospitals, will strike for three hours on Friday, with some considering a career change over the low wages.<\/p>\n
Union organiser Liam Bloomfield told RNZ many start off earning just over minimum wage.<\/p>\n
“A lot of them are losing money coming in to work with the increased cost of transport, and rent, and everything else,” he said.<\/p>\n
“They just want to be able to actually come into work, participate in society by being able to afford it.”<\/p>\n
Bloomfield said workers were currently on an overtime ban.<\/p>\n
“There was just so much overtime that it was almost part and parcel with the job,” he said.<\/p>\n
“[The members] are genuinely dedicated entirely to wanting to do the role, to support the healthcare system, but getting to where we are now, it’s been a massive step for a lot of them.”<\/p>\n
Many hadn’t gone on strike before, Bloomfield said.<\/p>\n
“We’ve been in negotiations and bargaining since April or May, so it’s been going on for quite a while, and effectively we’ve exhausted all other avenues.”<\/p>\n
Biomed Ltd has been approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The union organiser for staff at a medicine manufacturer says workers are losing money going to work as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-619578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}