Written By: - Date published: 11:10 am, January 16th, 2008 - 212 comments
Categories: workers' rights -
Tags: workers' rights
The Herald has an interesting article about shift work posted today pointing out the impact shift work has on workers’ families. The article focuses on bus drivers – who have faced some of the biggest attacks on their conditions over the last 17 years. Auckland Bus driver Jim Kelly puts it thus:
I see young guys come into the industry and I have said to quite a few of them, ‘If you’ve got three kids at home, mate, this is not the job to be in, because it will just kill your family life’
This follows research from the States late last year that showed shiftwork increases workers’ risk of cancer.
So let’s see, working shifts ruins your family life and messes with your health and yet very few shift workers get compensation for doing the job, in fact most non-union workers (and unfortunately there’s a lot of them) don’t get a shift allowance and many don’t even get a higher rate than their regular shift counterparts.
This is a fuckin’ disgrace.
The fact that we’re eight years into a Labour government (which, by the way, was founded by Kiwi workers) and yet the law still allows for this sort of shit to happen is a sad indictment of how far right our political spectrum has swung – sure Labour has undone some of the damage National did with the Employment Contracts Act in ’91 but we’re now heading into an election that could see the Tories back in power and the first thing they will do is attack Kiwi workers some more – and it’s gonna be easier for them this time because Labour has done so little to secure our work rights.
And don’t doubt for a second they won’t. For all of Key’s spin about being on the side of working people his party is the party of employers and that means he wants your wages and conditions (or ‘labour costs’, as he calls them) to be even lower. We’ve seen this with his party’s attempts to bring in a bill that would take all work rights from workers in the first 90 days of their jobs (that’s about 200,000 Kiwi workers in any one year) and in their attacks on every piece of legislation put up to improve the lives of Kiwi workers, including increases in the minimum wage, abolishing the youth minimum wage, paid parental leave, flexible working hours and four weeks annual leave. Oh and just for good measure they want to effectively privatise ACC, which would result in workers’ access to treatment and rehabilitation for work-injuries being severely curtailed (as can be seen from the situation in the USA), and they also want to get rid of workplace health and safety delegates.
So that’s the main party choice this year – you can vote Labour for low wages and poor working conditions or you can vote National and see it all get even worse. Kinda makes all this talk from both parties about supporting families seem a bit hollow really.
It is worth noting that nearly every piece of legislation protecting New Zealand workers, while supported by Labour, has actually been driven by the Alliance and the Greens. As the Alliance no longer exists I’d suggest voting Green is the best way to truly support Kiwi families – after all one of the most important elements to having a decent life is having a decent job.
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Michele,
I suggest you follow up your comments about James Sleep with the National party. He was being educated in the important years (0 – 7) under their watch.
Do not involve me in your ‘intended to be derogatory’ comments about a child.
ignorance of basic economics and how free markets actually operate is a characteristic leftard trait
I would suggest you look at the work of Joseph Stiglitz, Michele – he examines fundamental market failure vis-a-vis asymmetric information and concludes that when markets exist with incomplete information (that means most of the time in the real world) market failure will occur. They gave him the nobel prize. Go figure.
Jum ;why was a child being congratulated by a Prime Minister at a function with alcohol present ?
Was this child drinking when he was praised by our PM ?
“For anyone from a poor background who remains a loser, there are innumerable winners.”
Michele – It’s the statistics stupid.
Sorry to be a pain robinsod, but I think you got the wrong Joseph Stiglitz ?? Didn’t you mean Joseph Stalin ?
No offence intended Tane .
Michele, if this thread is a proxy for your skills, I don’t think I’d be making comments about anyone else.
roger gnome – pity someone that works in the economics’s department at your university went far too f##king far and said damned if you do ?
Sad isn’t it roger ?
Robinsod wrote: “They gave him [Stieglitz] the nobel prize. Go figure.”
Since the Nobel Prize is awarded by a five member commitee elected by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and given socialist domination of higher education, especially in Sweden, it’s hardly surprising that an anti-market polemic would be deemed worthy of approbation.
“Wrong again idiot. An employer is legally allowed to respond to a strike with a lockout. Too easy.”
We were talking about sympathy strikes. Why should a person whose staff would otherwise not strike be forced to lock out his staff because they go on a sympathy strike? If he doesnt lock them out, he has to keep paying them. If he does lock them out his staff will go on strike for their own reasons and all of a sudden HE has an industrial relations problem even though he didnt do anything wrong in the first place!
The ‘stop being paid’ thing was the first logical step. The ‘not return to work’ is the second. Is an employer is able to dismiss the staff and hire a new group? If he isnt able to do this then he doesnt have the option of not hiring them back.
“In any case the current law forbids hiring outside your existing employees to cover work that would normally be done by someone who’s on strike.”
Well that answers that.
You still havent shown how a persons “fundamental right” to withdraw their labour is affected if we ban ‘sympathy strikes’.
You still havent even taken the first step in showing how anyone can be restricted from withdrawing labour!
“This is reasonable as their livelihood needs to be protected.”
But the livelihood of the owners of the business? Well, they can just go fuck a duck, cant they?
“My problem is that this can result in unjust disadvantages for those who don’t have rich parents”
Why is it unjust? That would only be the case if you think that either a) the parents didnt derserve their wealth, or b) that they dont have a right to decide for themselves what to do with it.
What about my example? My parents provided me with a massive advantage when I entered school, by teaching me to read beforehand. Why doesnt that mean that everyone else was at an unjust disadvantage? They did the work, I got the advantage, others did not get an equivalent advantage.
Of for crying out loud, in earlier posts you’ve been more than happy to rely on all manner of international authorities, particularly philosophers read by undergraduate students, but when someone cites a respected and celebrated professional economist (formerly with the World Bank) you argue he’s got no credibility. Seriously, for all your pretensions, you’re quite foolish.
Since the Nobel Prize is awarded by a five member commitee elected by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and given socialist domination of higher education, especially in Sweden, it’s hardly surprising that an anti-market polemic would be deemed worthy of approbation.
Of course! How could I be so foolish – that’ll be why you never won one! Damn these ignorant bigoted Nobel Prize committees! You still haven’t answered the issue of information imbalances Michele, care to try again?
Do you mean the edges of normative la la land where leftards dwell, rather than practical reality where economic rationalists dwell?
Merl, this is the sort of stuff that has provoked the reactions to Michele that you don’t like. It looks ok in isolation but in fact reveals her utter dishonesty.
Michele in other threads has been banging on that property rights are inalienable along with the rights of life and liberty. When asked where these alleged property rights come from, her pathetically question begging response is that people have a moral right to property. On this basic unexpalined point she rests her entire political philosophy, and yet “leftards”, ( who, if Michele’s analysis of politics is correct includes everyone from Hitler to Stalin To Micky Savage through to Nixon, Roosevelt, Clinton, and well every western leader of a mixed economy ever) leftards, are the ones who are reductionist and normative in their thinking.
She is a troll pure and simple who is using sophistry and dishonesty to piss people off in order to mess up any conversation that might otherwise take place. She shows up on any thread and spouts the same boring shite mixed with pre-adolescent comments about “horis” and “faggots” that are designed only to attract attention and annoy.
Why she does so is anyone’s guess, but the fact that she does so is indisputable, as is the fact that she does so, so she says, during her holidays. Instead of doing anything else that is available to do.
Which says it all really.
Dad4Justice,
I repeat, I will not enter a conversation where someone is deliberately being (to their mind) insulting towards a child.
Your last post needs explaining please.
Jum – you ask roger gnome what my last post means please. I am far too busy over at tbr, Whale oil and No Minister .
Pascal’s bookie wrote:
“When asked where these alleged property rights come from, her [Michele's] pathetically question begging response is that people have a moral right to property.”
Cmon I’ve already dealt to that assertion. Either people have a moral right to property, or people have no natural rights at all. They have only what the state (or those who control it) says they do.
This merely points up the state-worshipping nature of your governing ideology. If people enjoy natural rights, the state exists to uphold, not abrogate them. The state is the SERVANT, not the MASTER of the people. That’s the essence of freedom: the maximum possible liberty consistent with upholding the equal rights of other sovereign individuals.
If the state decides who gets what rights, the state is the MASTER, not the SERVANT of the people. “Freedom is slavery,” anyone?
Cmon I’ve already dealt to that assertion. Either people have a moral right to property, or people have no natural rights at all. They have only what the state (or those who control it) says they do.
Isn’t this then an argument for limiting ownership of scarce resources so that all have a share?
Even John Locke (whose theory you’re murdering) admitted that his prescription for private property rights ownership only held so long as there was as good and as much left for everyone else. In a world of scarcity that’s simply not possible.
So assuming for a moment you need private property in order to have liberty, how does that justify a system in which some are left without property?
Acutally, who am I kidding – there’s no point arguing with Michele. She’s ignorant of even the most basic arguments from POLS 201.
Either people have a moral right to property, or people have no natural rights at all. They have only what the state (or those who control it) says they do.
yawn. The first sentence is a false dichotomy. People can have rights that are not natural rights, but instead are rights that are constructed via a social contract.These rights are protected by whatever form of political system arises to do so. What form that contract can take is irrelevent, it may or may not include private property rights. Personally I think it should, but in a limited fashion. It’s all about utility on the econ side and justice on the moral side.
Tane wrote:
“Isn’t this then an argument for limiting ownership of scarce resources so that all have a share?”
and:
“So assuming for a moment you need private property in order to have liberty, how does that justify a system in which some are left without property?”
Jeez you’re a sophomore intellect, bro.
Everyone enjoys personal property in both their intellect and their labour power. These have value in exchange and can be applied to make money, which become both realised value and a store of value.
This stored value can be exchanged for … lo and behold, PROPERTY. Based on individual decisions with respect to personal utility, this could be either consumption goods or capital goods, which can be used to acquire more … PROPERTY.
You also fall into the standard perception-bound socialist trap of economics as a zero sum game in which more for one is less for another.
If this was so we’d still be fighting over occupancy of drafty caves, with vast masses outside and a handful inside, and any time someone stepped out for food, the trees for miles around would have been stripped bare and a whole pile of gnawed animal bones on the ground.
Another leftard straw man argument demolished.
No, that would make them capitalists.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jul2007/sell-j17.shtml
In the section on Bolivia
Pascal’s bookie — the social contract is one originally entered into for the purpose of upholding natural rights to life, liberty and property.
If these didn’t exist before the social contract was entered into, there would be no reason for the state to exist — except, of course, to create human cattle to be ordered around for the self-aggrandisement of those who enjoy power over others, and plucked for the unearned benefit of those who prefer plunder to working.
This is self-evidently your view of the state.
“Why should a person whose staff would otherwise not strike be forced to lock out his staff because they go on a sympathy strike?”
But the employer isn’t being forced to do anything.
“HE has an industrial relations problem even though he didn’t do anything wrong in the first place!”
Paying a decent wage would usually be enough to avoid such a situation. i.e. union members generally don’t demand unreasonable wage increases because they want to retain their jobs (they don’t want the company to go under).
“You still havent shown how a persons “fundamental right” to withdraw their labour is affected if we ban ‘sympathy strikes’.”
Kimble, amongst the NZ Human Right’s commissions priorities for action, is the Ratification of the International Labour Organisation’s Convention 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise. This can’t be ratified until secondary strikes are legalised. Though what would the human rights commission know about human rights hey?
http://www.hrc.co.nz/report/actionplan/6economic.html
Making it illegal for workers to join together in order to improve their own lives via collective bargaining is in fact the denial of a pretty basic freedom.
“But the livelihood of the owners of the business? Well, they can just go fuck a duck, cant they?”
Or cool their heels in a their swimming pool? Take a shopping vacation in Hong Kong maybe? Whatever.
“Why is it unjust? That would only be the case if you think that either a) the parents didnt derserve their wealth, or b) that they dont have a right to decide for themselves what to do with it.”
Feel like it’s not getting through to you Kimble. We’ve already said that there are two sets of conflicting just goals to be balanced. It’s not about absolutes. We merely disagree about the extent that wealth should be distributed in order to pursue the just goal of levelling the playing field. I say that Australia has it about right seeing as their economic growth has been exceptional (their productivity incentives are clearly there) while they’ve done quite a good job at levelling the playing field. Go too far in either direction and you create an unjust society (i.e. the US, or Cuba).
Draco TB takes responds to my statement:
“In a market economy, for someone to ‘pick all the fruit’ would be impossible, unless they could do it by force, which could only be achieved by[mis]using the power of government. This would make them a Communist.
With “No, that would make them capitalists.”
A market economy, with its myriad of competing alternative suppliers and products, naturally militates against anyone “picking all the fruit.” It actually shares the fruit around, i.e. democratises wealth.
Even the much-cited-as-a-reason-for-government regulation, the monopoly provider of a particular good or service, will ultimately be undercut or worked around by the market.
The suggestion that government regulation in this area is required pre-supposes that [a] goods and services are all “necessities”; and [b] consumers have some kind of “entitlement” to things.
How would the market work against someone seeking to procure an ever-growing monopoly on all the fruit?
-there is an optimum size to the firm. Once it passes a certain size structural inefficiencies come into play that will enable portions to be splintered off or taken over by people who see an opportunity to run a more efficient operation.
-a monopoly restricts supply in order to charge a higher price. This leads consumers to either decide the price outweighs the utility to them, which means sales decline; or a competing alternative product that gets the job done will become more attractive.
As noted previously, the free market is a marvellous mechanism for democratising wealth.
It is only under socialism, with massive forced expropriation from individual owners, that a “plucking all the fruit” scenario could eventuate. As seen every time socialism has been tried, this leads to the entrenchment of a priveleged elite class, and to the democratisation, not of wealth, but of grinding poverty, to those outside the banquet room with faces pressed up against the window.
Another sophomore intellect demolished …
Everyone enjoys personal property in both their intellect and their labour power.
That’s the theory, but Locke says absolute ownership of land is only moral so long as there is as much and as good left for everyone else. And clearly there’s not.
But that’s assuming we agree with Locke in how one comes to own land.
Firstly, state of nature justifications are stupid – the state of nature never existed, certainly not as Locke describes it, nor does it have any relevance to a modern industrial society.
Secondly, Locke says land ownership is gained because you own property in your labour and by mixing that with the land you own the land. Why? This has always struck me as mysticism.
Do you you own the stream when you dunk your head in to take a drink, or do you just own the water in your mouth? Do you own a pear tree when you pick a pear off it, or do you just own the pear? It all gets very absurd very quickly.
Thirdly, even if you argue that individual ownership of land is a necessity to live because without it you’d be at the mercy of others (a rather dubious argument, but anyway) that still doesn’t justify ownership of however much you like. All it justifies is enough to live on, and only enough that everyone gets their share.
I’m sorry Michele, but you’re just not convincing anyone.
Michele Cabiling:
You’re just sounding like another frothing libertarian to be honest. Most people recognise that the market is a great productive machine. Yet most of us also recognise that the centralisation of wealth that results from wealth accumulation results creates injustices. i.e. I get tired of repeating myself, but you seem to have no answer for this question. Why should someone who’s born into a rich family have such a material advantage over someone who’s born into a poor family? They didn’t “mix their labour” with anything to get that money, it simply appeared in their lap as a result of a hand out from their parents. This is where any libertarian concept of justice abjectly fails. And it’s why the Act party continues to abjectly fail.
michele’s been banned, bro.
doh, again in english …
Michele Cabiling:
You’re just sounding like another frothing libertarian to be honest. Most people recognise that the market is a great productive machine. Yet most of us also recognise that the centralisation of wealth that results from market forces creates injustices. i.e. I get tired of repeating myself, but you seem to have no answer for this question. Why should someone who’s born into a rich family have such a material advantage over someone who’s born into a poor family? They didn’t “mix their labour” with anything to get that money, it simply appeared in their lap as a result of a hand out from their parents. This is where any libertarian concept of justice abjectly fails. And it’s why the Act party continues to abjectly fail.
roger gnome Michele has been banned . Nice work at Otago University eh
The example I gave was of the market being monopolised by a capitalist company with the help of the state. Ownership became the problem in that it prevented competition resulting in market failure. This market failure was upheld by the then government of Bolivia using deadly force. An example of conditions that you ascribed to communism which, in reality, belongs to capitalism.
There’s no point in addressing any of your other points because they become null and void as soon as market failure occurs and that happens as soon as excessive property rights are introduced. Capitalism cannot function without such excessive property rights.
D4J – If you’re talking about that fatal stabbing, it’s not really something to joke about.
The example I gave was of the market being monopolised by a capitalist company with the help of the state. Ownership became the problem in that it prevented competition resulting in market failure.
Draco TB, the problem you have here is a libertarian will refuse to recognise the power big business has over the state in a capitalist economy. The fact that it’s an inevitable outcome of their system escapes them – it’s just an example of ‘crony capitalism’ and as such they refuse to address it.
Read Atlas Shrugged and see all the mighty industrialists who refuse state subsidies on principle. Rand had obviously never worked in either business or government or she’d have realised how absurd her understanding of the system was.
Sod – nah she’s probably ditched us for a hot ‘n steamy session with one of her Tony Robins videos
Nah nome, Irish banned her for posting filth on the Hone Tuwhare obit. Irish was mates with him or something.
“But the employer isn’t being forced to do anything.”
No, he isn’t. But it is either lock out his employees or be forced to pay them while they are striking. Which is the problem I identified and you said was so easy to solve.
“HE has an industrial relations problem even though he didn’t do anything wrong in the first place!”
“Paying a decent wage would usually be enough to avoid such a situation.”
Yup, and usually paying a decent wage while your staff is striking in support of other people not being paid enough by a different employer is a good way to send franchise owners into arrears on their debts.
“Making it illegal for workers to join together in order to improve their own lives via collective bargaining is in fact the denial of a pretty basic freedom.”
And unions aren’t banned in NZ, never have been.
“Or cool their heels in a their swimming pool? Take a shopping vacation in Hong Kong maybe? Whatever.”
You just don’t care. This confirms what I said before about National being the party for all New Zealanders. We care about poor people, as well as rich people. We care about all races and religions. You lot dont give a shit about business owners.
National isnt the Party of Business, it is one of the only parties that cares about people who own businesses.
“Feel like it’s not getting through to you Kimble. We’ve already said that there are two sets of conflicting just goals to be balanced.”
No it isnt getting through.
The examples you provided previously were things like art classes, trips to museums and home computers. A home computer is very cheap in the US, if you dont mind the speed of it. There are also computers in most public schools. Open access museums have been available in the US forever and so have libraries, so access to books and the like are not restricted. Art supplies can be purchased anywhere. Kids dont need art ‘classes’ to benefit from the exercise.
When asked about the US specific imbalances you talk about people getting money to buy houses and start businesses from their parents, as if these were specific things that need redressing. But the reality is that they cant be!
Irish Bill
Re Hone Tuwhare
You’re quite right Irish Bill
My apologies.
Kimble – sympathy strikes are legal in most OECD countries, and their economies haven’t gone down the gurgler. In reality they are used sparingly in extreme circumstances. Employers generally get by with them ok.