The Unite Union (Unite) is a trade union in New Zealand. It is the sponsor of the Supersizemypay.com campaign directed towards improving working conditions for fast food workers in the country, in addition to representing other hospitality and retail workers. The current secretary of Unite is Matt McCarten.
Unite is affiliated with the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions.
It was the inspiration for the Australian UNITE Union, which was founded in Melbourne in 2003.
In response to the Key Government's amendment to the Employment Relations Act 2000 allowing small businesses greater liberty to 'hire and fire' workers in the first 90 days, Unite established the 'Rat Patrol' to name and shame companies that abuse the legislation.
McCarten's United Support Services, a company he formed to supply support services to the union, was placed into liquidation on 17 June 2011 owing $92,000 in unpaid taxes to the IRD.
Famous quotes containing the words unite and/or union:
“The earliest instinct of the child, and the ripest experience of age, unite in affirming simplicity to be the truest and profoundest part for man. Likewise this simplicity is so universal and all-containing as a rule for human life, that the subtlest bad man, and the purest good man, as well as the profoundest wise man, do all alike present it on that side which they socially turn to the inquisitive and unscrupulous world.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“If the Union is once severed, the line of separation will grow wider and wider, and the controversies which are now debated and settled in the halls of legislation will then be tried in fields of battle and determined by the sword.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)