Written By: - Date published: 10:34 am, May 23rd, 2012 - 17 comments
The Service and Food Workers Union is launching a campaign for a living wage at 12 o’clock today.
[Update: Campaign site]
Written By: - Date published: 3:40 pm, May 22nd, 2012 - 16 comments
The government has correctly bowed to pressure and banned foreign-flagged fishing boats from operating in our waters.
We don’t have too many posts praising this government, and to have 2 today may surprise some. But credit where it’s due.
Written By: - Date published: 7:21 am, May 22nd, 2012 - 38 comments
News in that Talley’s/AFFCO and the Meatworkers reached an agreement at 5am this morning. The workers will keep their wage and job security provisions and still be covered by a collective. The workers have displayed incredible strength with support from up and down the country. Next time, bosses will think twice before attacking their workers.
Written By: - Date published: 6:45 pm, May 21st, 2012 - 12 comments
National have become a very adept PR machine. While not adept at running the country, they’ve become great at running statistics. John Key was pushing things a little too far with his lines that unemployment rising to 6.7% showed an improved economy and that Europe electing anti-austerity leaders showed their austerity policies were right, but …
Written By: - Date published: 9:14 am, May 19th, 2012 - 21 comments
Another poll to add to current mix. Not a big shift, but in the right direction, and getting the right kinds of headline. And here’s another headline that isn’t going to help the Nats – the wage gap with Australia is growing at the rate of $1 a month.
Written By: - Date published: 9:48 am, May 15th, 2012 - 7 comments
Sometimes during union bargaining that has hit a wall, workers will vote to ‘work to rule’ – ie not do extras beyond the terms of you contract. It’s perfectly legal. In fact, it should be what we all do every day. Working beyond rule is gifting time and effort to the boss for no compensation. But National wants employers to be able to cut your pay for doing your job.
Written By: - Date published: 7:32 am, May 15th, 2012 - 125 comments
Remember when John Key said he’d love to see wages drop? Yep? How about when Bill English claimed our low wages were our competitive advantage. Uh-huh.
Well the changes they’re bringing in to undermine working Kiwis’ bargaining power will do exactly that.
Written By: - Date published: 5:02 pm, May 14th, 2012 - 8 comments
An interesting press release from David Clark, sponsor of the “Mondayisation” bill. It looks like the process of constructing the official advice on this matter was deliberately biased. Why?
Written By: - Date published: 6:43 am, May 14th, 2012 - 68 comments
I chuckled to read Fran O’Shillivan on Sunday: “John Key has made a strategic decision to burn some political capital and front-foot major Government decisions” – yeah, all those major decisions: $1m for contraception, ‘tackling cyber-bullying’, a petty pokies for convention centre deal, even their centrepiece policy – asset sales – won’t benefit the economy a jot.
Written By: - Date published: 12:50 pm, May 11th, 2012 - 18 comments
The CTU have launched an appeal for donations towards the food and essential bills of AFFCO workers.
Please Donate to NZCTU DISPUTES FUND, 38 9007 0894028 08. Money will go direct to workers.
Written By: - Date published: 7:35 am, May 11th, 2012 - 54 comments
The tories are all puffed up about finally getting their secret ballot law passed. It’s about freedom they say, they’re on the side of the working man.
Thing is it’s not. And they most certainly aren’t.
Written By: - Date published: 6:21 am, May 8th, 2012 - 136 comments
Don’t get me wrong. Apart from a couple of policies (asset sales, overseas investment, no borrowing for tax cuts), Colin Craig’s politics are bad. But I like his Boscawen-like mad honesty. It’s fun. Mainly because it makes him so uncomfortable for his new National suitors. But his up-frontness ends when asked about his compulsory Christianity employment contracts.
Written By: - Date published: 10:54 am, May 7th, 2012 - 11 comments
Over the past few months, we’ve seen Auckland City’s wholly-owned port, Ports of Auckland, waging war against its own workforce, costing the city millions of dollars in lost dividends. Now, the Auckland Council has acted, requiring its intermediate Auckland Council Investments Limited to impose “good employer” provisions on its subsidiaries.
Written By: - Date published: 6:51 am, May 4th, 2012 - 36 comments
It is a fundamental injustice of our society that one family, which already has more than it can ever need, can hold 1,300 families, who have very little, to ransom just to make a little more cash. But the union makes us working people strong. By standing together, the workers are beating Talley’s in the AFFCO lockout. Talley’s cracked. Wants half them back. The workers have said ‘all of us or none of us’.
Written By: - Date published: 2:17 pm, May 3rd, 2012 - 28 comments
The unemployment rate has jumped to 6.7%, as National delivered only 20,000 of the 36,000 jobs promised last budget. Last quarter there were 12,000 more jobless.
Where’s our recovery John? Have you sold that off too?
Written By: - Date published: 7:27 am, May 2nd, 2012 - 25 comments
For the first time under this National government, average wages and salaries actually rose (2%) faster than inflation (1.6%), so in the last year people are ever so slightly better off – I think congratulations are in order!
Written By: - Date published: 9:05 am, April 27th, 2012 - 188 comments
Remember way back when the government were changing the law to take rights off film workers and increase tax breaks for Warners? It was all about keeping Kiwi jobs they said.
Well it turns out that at the same time they were doing this they were also making promises to Peter Jackson that those Kiwi jobs would be given to imported workers.
Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, April 25th, 2012 - 14 comments
Steven Joyce’s personal fiefdom of Economic Development, Science and Innovation, Building and Housing, and Labour is confirmed. Now for the redundancies…
Written By: - Date published: 11:25 am, April 23rd, 2012 - 76 comments
This country produces $200 billion of wealth a year. Yet half of adults have incomes less than $29,000 a year. 200,000 kids live in poverty, may in working families. A tiny few – the 1% – pocket the lion’s share. There is no justification. It is bad for society and the economy. Helen Kelly confronts the greed irrational of one rich family, the Talley’s, and how it’s hurting 1,300 poor working families.
Written By: - Date published: 12:26 pm, April 20th, 2012 - 22 comments
In his speech yesterday, David Shearer talked about how wages have lagged productivity gains since the neoliberal revolution. Here’s what he was talking about:
Written By: - Date published: 10:31 pm, April 19th, 2012 - 23 comments
David Shearer’s delivered his second “Vision” speech. It’s good to hear he wants to lead a government that tackles inequality, wants proper jobs rather than casualised ones and our kids earning or learning.
Written By: - Date published: 11:38 am, April 19th, 2012 - 41 comments
You don’t get fat off the crumbs from someone else’s table and you don’t get rich by being someone else’s butler. So, why the Nats are so happy that Australia is sending a few call centre and cigarette jobs here, where wages are lower, I don’t know. We’ll be wealthier if we produce more wealth, more stuff of real value. Not if our competitive advantage is low wages and insecure jobs.
Written By: - Date published: 12:36 pm, April 13th, 2012 - 43 comments
When even your friends are telling you you’ve got it wrong, it’s time to reconsider. So Bill: the Employers Union (EMA) and Family First want Paid Parental leave. It’s not too expensive, it’s back by all childcare experts, and the cost is even delayed. Just do it.
Written By: - Date published: 9:05 am, April 13th, 2012 - 40 comments
It was a bad day yesterday for the ‘heavy hitters’ of the Collins faction, Slater and Lusk. First, Ports of Auckland admitted supplying them with a workers’ private details. Then, the smear on the Meatworkers that they had orchestrated with Talley’s was shot down by the SFO in record time. Finally, Michelle Boag gave them a public serve on RNZ, fueling civil war talk.
Written By: - Date published: 7:08 am, April 12th, 2012 - 170 comments
Slater/Lusk have been running a series of posts on the finances of the unions. Pretty weak stuff. All Slater/Lusk have proven is that they don’t understand the corporate structure of unions, they can’t read accounts, and they can’t do research. Still, you knew they were seeding something. And then came the Talleys’ complaint to the SFO about the Meatworkers’ Union.
Written By: - Date published: 9:14 am, April 9th, 2012 - 112 comments
If everyone earned the same amount (including babies) across the entire world, we’d each get about $USD10,000 each. So a family of four anywhere in the world would get about $NZD49,000. That figure makes world poverty pretty hard to stomach. It’s not that there’s not enough in this world – only that some people haven’t learnt to share.
Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, April 4th, 2012 - 81 comments
Talley’s has sunk to a new low in the AFFCO lockout. Not content with trying to starve out 1,000 workers and force them to accept 20% pay cuts, Talley’s-owned AFFCO meatworks are planning to lockout hundreds more workers on the Easter statutory holidays – just to save on paying its workers holiday leave. It’s a despicable, and hopefully illegal, move.
Written By: - Date published: 12:15 pm, April 3rd, 2012 - 10 comments
Something to do in Auckland tonight: What: Special screening of The Muppets Where: Hoyts Sylvia Park, Mt Wellington When: Tonight, April 3rd, 6.10pm to 8.30pm Don’t let those muppets at the Ports of Auckland get you down, come laugh at the real Muppets instead! Some door sales will be available, or you can email julie.fairey@gmail.com …
Written By: - Date published: 9:03 am, April 1st, 2012 - 28 comments
Once upon a time, decades ago now, ports were run by a person called the Harbourmaster. He used to be a highly qualified and experienced Master Mariner, who had extensive knowledge of shipping and decades of experience, at sea and within the port. All this competence and experience came at a wage, at most, five times the average wage.
Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, March 31st, 2012 - 50 comments
The PoAL management looks as incompetent and divided as the Nats after their ‘bullet-proof’ contracting out plans were shot down by the Employment Court and a director resigned publicly admonishment management’s strategy. Time to use that bully pulpit, Len. Say you have no confidence in Pearson and Gibson, demand they drop their plans, and get the port back to work.
Written By: - Date published: 8:32 am, March 28th, 2012 - 43 comments
Ports of Auckland must pay the permanent workers among the union members it had illegally locked out. It’s only a partial victory for workers who want to work and have long-term job security, not just get paid for two weeks. But it’s yet another costly defeat for management. How long will they keep burning ratepayers’ money like this before the council acts?
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