Stop Stop! Stop! ATS workers

Taitusi Sokiveta, Phoenix Arizona, USA

All go back to work.

End the strike.

The company has given a deadline date for everyone to return to work or lose their current jobs and re-apply with new applicants meaning the company can hire new employees and will not re-hire you.

If you miss the deadline to return to work they have every right to do that. In 1971 Kiwi United South Pacific Limited in Walu Bay Suva, half of its employees went on strike.

There was trade a unionist James Anthony.

I remember he came into the factory floor.

I was one of the youngest employees back then and my elder brother Keith Smith who was an accountant for the company now lives in Sydney Australia told me not to go on strike.

He reminded me that he gave me the job. I listened to my elder brother and obeyed him.

None of the strikers were rehired. James Anthony could not give them back their jobs.

He disappeared in thin air, we were a skeleton crew that stayed and worked.

I don't know if they are still alive today but despite threats from strikers they courageously worked.

I remember some of them from memory Jese Ratubuli (Kadavu), Joe Andrea (Rotuma), foreman Dennis Fong, Mr Motorcycle supervisor Jackup Fasala (Rotuma) boiler room, a tireless worker Narayan from Rewa street, Peter Sorby forklift driver from Raiwaqa, Saula ex Policemen from Tailevu who travelled daily from Tailevu to Walu Bay Suva and never missed work, Kathy Joe Andrea's niece who married a New Zealander and now lives there. Ah Sam the supervisor.

If it wasn't for these workers and others, Kiwi United Company would have packed up their bags and left Fiji because no one would be left to run the company. Kiwi United now moved its factory to Newtown or Kinoya that's what I heard. ATS workers please go back to work and save your jobs