Matt McCarten: Triumphant locked-out workers buoyed by support

Over the past four weeks Woolworths Australia tried to starve its New Zealand employees into submission - and lost.

It was arguably the ugliest example of a multi-national corporate using its power against a group of workers in a generation. These, mainly Polynesian, workers sacrificed a month's pay and endured enormous hardship to show an international employer that they wouldn't be intimidated.

The fight was about a promise last year to distribution workers to discuss a national agreement to include equal pay for the same work. But after their employer, Progressive - owner of Foodtown, Countdown and Woolworths stores - was bought by Woolworths Australia, that changed.

The hard-line strategy of reneging on this agreement and the resulting lockout was devised in Australia and egged on by ideologues in their senior management in New Zealand. In the end their stupidity has alienated their workforce and, of more concern to their shareholders, their customers. Someone in management told the union that in the first week of the lockout Progressive lost over $5 million in sales and it got worse every week.

I met dozens of people in the past month who said they were boycotting Progressive stores. It won't be easy to get some of them back. The Progressive board of directors should be asking some very hard questions of the senior management team. A few sackings might be in order. This was a dispute that has caused the brand enormous damage for no gain.

The deal negotiated by the union has won these workers pay parity and a realignment of their allowances across all New Zealand centres. Progressive's CEO is putting on a brave face, claiming the union has not achieved a national collective agreement - a face-saving exercise that Laila Harre, the head of the National Distribution Union, allowed the company. The agreement was bargained nationally and all rates and allowances will become the same. The company was beaten by the workers.

It was a battle thousands of other New Zealanders identified with. The entire trade union movement mobilised collections on worksites from other workers. The 1500 workers at NZ Steel volunteered to raise $30,000 a week by all chipping in $20 each a week until the dispute was won. Other big sites were also pledging thousands.

There was a completely new initiative by grassroots union activists to stand on street corners with buckets collecting donations for these locked-out workers. They collected thousands. The longer the dispute went on, the more money came in.

TV3 had coverage this week of a locked-out worker's tears as she told the reporter that she couldn't send her 4-year-old daughter to kindergarten because she couldn't afford it. The teacher told the mother to send her child anyway. But she still couldn't send her because she had no money for her lunch. The mother was a mix of gratitude and humiliation as she told the nation that the teacher insisted on making her daughter's lunch at her own expense. The mother's tears over this act of kindness would have moved everyone who saw it.

The Progressive strategists watching this would have had their head in their hands. The locked-out workers had many stories of acts of kindness from ordinary New Zealanders like this. But this quiet moment of truth sealed the defeat of Goliath. After all, no one likes a corporate bully. Especially when the kids get hurt.

And as shoppers started to desert Progressive's half-empty stores in droves, managing director Marty Hamnett finally bit the bullet, phoned Harre and sued for peace.

On Friday morning I was privileged to join hundreds of union members as they marched back onto their worksite in Mangere led by Harre and their delegates. They returned singing with their heads held high. This was the mood of a winning army. The new Australian owners have lost their moral authority and effectively handed leadership of their workforce to the union delegates.

New Zealand workers owe these workers their gratitude. Many employers will now think twice about attacking their workers and only the foolish will try the lockout tactic. But without the support of thousands of people they would not have won.

I leave you with the following note sent to Harre that sums up the very best in us: "Dear Laila, I would like to help by giving you a cheque for $1000. This I hope would be used to help the neediest of the families that have been affected by this lockout strike. I have never done anything like this before but I feel that I should.

"Monday of this week I decided that I would like to give away $1000. I spoke to my wife and my children. They were all stunned and a little taken aback. Some of my family thought I was nuts. But nevertheless I persisted and asked them to come up with what they thought would be the most worthy of causes for our first ever $1000 donation. We got the usual, like give it to me, I need this. To standard ones like the church, the schools, sports clubs, etc. It was only last night Wednesday evening that the idea of the families on strike was suggested. It was like a fire storm. We all were affected. We felt this in our hearts. This was the one. My only regrets to this, is that I wish we could give more. Please accept this donation as our gift from my family to your families. May God stand with you all."