Planned strikes at the McDonald's in Andersons Bay Rd and McDonald's outlets across the country were called off by Unite union yesterday after it reached a ''historic'' agreement with the fast-food chain over zero-hour contracts.
Because it was ''too late to cancel the planned gatherings'' in some places, such as Dunedin, Unite national director Mike Treen encouraged supporters to have ''a victory celebration but not interfere with customer access''.
Such a celebration was held at the McDonald's in Andersons Bay Rd from about 5.30pm to 6pm yesterday.
In recent weeks, Unite has reached similar agreements on zero-hour contracts with Burger King and Restaurant Brands in which ''80% of hours worked over a three-month period will be guaranteed''.
''We haven't finalised all details in the agreement but we are convinced there is goodwill on both sides to work through the remaining issues without further protests being required,'' Mr Treen said.
One of those details may be the start date of the new agreement - a Unite press release said the agreement would begin on July 1, while a McDonald's release said October 1.
In the McDonald's release, a spokeswoman went on to say the agreement had been in the works since April 13.
''We know that having security of hours is important to our people, which is why on April 13 we announced that a guarantee of hours would be formally written into our employment agreements.
"Since April 13 we have been working through the technical detail with Unite, along with other elements of the agreement.''
An agreement still had yet to be reached between Wendy's and Unite on zero-hour contracts, union member and Andersons Bay Rd McDonald's employee Alastair Reith said.
''We're switching targets,'' he said, ''[Wendy's is] the last hold-out.''
Unite South Island spokesman Ben Peterson said he was ''quite confident that upon having another round of negotiations [with Wendy's], there should be significant movement from them''.
Since the last round of negotiations with Wendy's, ''the ground has changed underneath them'' as Restaurant Brands, Burger King and McDonald's all reached agreements on zero-hour contracts with Unite, Mr Peterson said.
''In three months, we've gone from all companies saying it was impossible to the fast-food industry pretty overwhelmingly moving from zero-hour contracts to job security,'' he said.
''We're pretty stoked.''
