Finsec, New Zealand's finance sector union

Employment Advice

Finsec has two Legal Organisers who are able to advise Finsec members on any employment issues they face.

Carl Anderson

You can contact Carl at:
09 358 5566 or 027 687 5394

Carl completed his degrees in Law and Political Studies at Auckland University, and has previously worked for the Department of Labour in various capacities. He enjoys helping members to ensure they are treated fairly at work, and is always willing to help people, whether this involves legal advice, or other practical support.

Oliver Christeller

You can contact Oliver at
04 385 7723 or 027 548 7002

Oliver is currently completing his degrees in Law and Political Science and was the winner of the Victoria University Buddle Findlay Negotiation Competition and was seconded place in the National Buddle Findlay Negotiation Competition.Oliver is passionate about Workers Rights and has experience as a employment advocate based at the Wellington People's Centre.

You can email both of them at advice@finsec.org.nz or you can complete the form below and either Oliver or Carl will be in contact shortly to help you our with your query.

Basic employment advice for delegates.

Oliver and Carl recommend that Finsec members contact them straightaway. But delegates and members should also check out some of the resouces listed below to help you resolve your employment issues qucikly, efficiently and amicably.

The Department of Labour's Employment Relations Service

Collective problem solving in the workplace

A process for Problem Solving in the workplace is:

Gather the Facts
Determine the Issue
Identify the Outcome
Determine the Action

Gathering the Facts

You need to establish the facts by talking with workers and others involved by using active communication techniques.

What has happened?
Why did the problem arise?
Are there other people likely to be effected by this situation?
How deeply do the workers feel care about the issue?
How does this affect them?

Make sure you keep a written record of the facts and include dates.

· Read the notes back to the member to make sure they are accurate.

Don’t get stuck on this step. Get the key information and move onto the next parts of the process.

Determine the Issue

Determine if this is an individual issue or a collective organising issue. Is it widely felt, deeply felt and winnable?

If the problem is an individual one you should contact one of the Legal Organisers at Finsec to help you with resolving the problem.

Identify the Outcome

Determine the outcome that the workers would like to achieve.

Remember to not promise people a particular outcome, as it may not happen. The outcome will be collectively worked towards. It is not a total guarantee of success, but it is better than doing nothing or attempting to fix the problem on your own.

Collective Activities

Identify the steps you could take to solve the problem.

There may be more than one way of attempting to solve the problem. You may need to identify the options and discuss these with the worker(s).

Growing to win – talking with non-members about issues is the best way of getting people to support what you are doing and join up.

Talk to non-members about what you are doing and ask them to join in support of fixing the issue. Non-members are likely to be affected by the issue also, so this is a perfect opportunity to recruit and build power to fix the problem.

By involving other members affected or co-workers the issue is visible, dealt with collectively, is action-based (could be a meeting, petition), and confrontational (confronts the management responsible).

Inoculate members and non-members in preparation for management responses when members become active around an issue.