Anyone that may have visited the Sky City Casino in New Zealand over the last couple of weekends might have noticed some major disruptions regarding the operation of that popular and often very busy land-based casino.
That is due to some 900 staff who are members of the Unite Union having gone on strike for the last two weekends, opting out of all shifts covering 10pm on Saturday night until 8am on Monday.
The reason for that strike action is that the employees feel hard done by due to the unsocial hours that many of them are being forced to have to work.
Whilst it is obvious that any land-based casino is going to be busy over the weekend, many employees feel that they are being forced to have to work those shifts instead of the management first asking if any employees have a preference for working throughout the weekend.
Whilst some customers have not really noticed any major disruptions, some customers have, and as there is no sign of the situation being resolved any time soon the strike action is likely to continue for the very near future.
What the union would like to see the management team doing, is putting together a system whereby employees that are more than happy to work the night shifts and over the weekend being given the option to do so first, and then a random but fair system is adopted whereby other employees are then placed on a rota to work those unsociable shifts.
Whether or not that will be something the management team do finally decide to agree to remains to be seen, but if they do not then the casino is eventually going to start taking some financial hits due to the ongoing strike action.
