Return of May Day celebrations

By CATHY ARONSON

Unions celebrated May Day yesterday with rallies in Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin supporting the Employment Relations Bill and recognising International Workers Day.

In Auckland hundreds of workers joined two separate marches, one organised by the Service and Food Workers Union in Avondale and the annual May Day Committee parade in Queen St.

Service and Food Workers Union national secretary Darien Fenton said this year's rally was the first time in nine years that the union had been able to celebrate May Day.

"It was a nice change to have a positive rally in support of the bill. For the last nine years employers have gone far too far and May Day has been used to highlight the terrible experience of the Employment Contracts Act."

But Auckland National MP Belinda Vernon said May Day 2000 would go down in history as dragging back an industrial regime that most workers did not want.

"There is no cause for workers to celebrate. As more details of the Employment Relations Bill are exposed, employees are realising that the Government is swinging the pendulum back too far."

But Ms Fenton said the changes were moderate and seemed radical only because industrial laws had previously gone too far in favour of employers.