Former union boss and now Labour list MP Andrew Little hardly had to change hats when he spoke to unionists in Whangarei.
Job growth and shoring up workers' rights are still high on the party's agenda, its Labour Issues spokesman told an EPMU delegates' political forum last week.
Before becoming a Labour MP, Mr Little was head of the EPMU, New Zealand's largest private sector union, for 11 years.
Mr Little said he told the delegates that workers' right to belong to unions needed to be written into employment law. He said bosses learned to listen to and work with employees and lawmakers over Health and Safety legislation and the same needed to happen over wage concerns.
Asked by the Northern Advocate later about Westpac Bank's findings that economic confidence has grown in Northland more elsewhere in the North Island in the last financial quarter, Mr Little said he was sceptical about such surveys.