class war

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A(nother) bad day for the dynamic duo

Written By: Eddie - 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.

Intro for International Organisation for a Participatory Society

Written By: Bill - Date published: 8:51 am, April 10th, 2012 - 98 comments

Revolution in Springfield 😉

Milking a Land of Plenty?

Written By: Bill - Date published: 10:39 am, April 4th, 2012 - 86 comments

NZ milk production has apparently risen by 30% since 2005. And, according to sources used by frenz.co.nz, back in 2006 over 14 billion liters of milk and 1.2 billion kilograms of milk solids (were) being processed by dairy companies annually That’s a lot of milk and associated dairy to spread around some four and a […]

AFFCO to extend lockout to avoid holiday pay

Written By: Eddie - 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.

0900 LOCKOUT

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 3:22 pm, April 1st, 2012 - 33 comments

While the PoAL dispute has been raging a thousand meatworkers are entering their fifth week of lockout at Talleys-owned AFFCO.

There’s a war on workers on across the country at the moment but you can help fight back.

On incompetent management

Written By: Guest post - 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.

POAL falling apart

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 2:29 pm, March 30th, 2012 - 47 comments

Things are not going so well for Ports of Auckland. “Ports of Auckland lifts lock-out amid board rift” sums it up…

Tough on crime

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 9:22 am, March 26th, 2012 - 85 comments

New Zealand has one of the highest rates of imprisonment in the world, and an international study has just highlighted the fact.

Back to basics

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:54 pm, March 23rd, 2012 - 5 comments

The Herald editorial says many “saw a more efficient and more flexible port emerging from” contracting out at PoAL. This is an oft-spouted fundamental misunderstanding of what is happening. Contracting out would not reduce time or cost to move freight. It would just reduce the downtime the port pays for amounting to a simple transfer of wealth from wages to profits.

Port developments

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 9:15 am, March 17th, 2012 - 97 comments

Ports of Auckland management may be starting to realise that they have bitten off more than they can chew. Faced with international union action, they have called a halt to the redundancy process.

On those that need to work harder

Written By: Jimmy Reid - Date published: 10:06 am, March 15th, 2012 - 14 comments

Recently, an article appeared in the Wall Street Journal describing how CEOs around the world spend their time. The article drew on data from a larger study, the Executive Time Use Project . This project relied on reports of time use by CEO’s personal assistants; making it more accurate. It came across my usual reading and I thought I might share some of the findings with you.

Incompetent management forces Shearer & Brown off fence

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 10:41 am, March 12th, 2012 - 47 comments

After months on the side-line, David Shearer and Len Brown have been forced to choose a side in the Ports of Auckland dispute by the irrational and unreasonable behaviour of the Ports management. Shearer has come out against casualisation and marched with the workers in Saturday. Brown has offered mediation between the parties.

Some people just don’t learn

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 1:17 pm, March 11th, 2012 - 83 comments

POAL is on the backfoot industrially, legally, and in terms of public relations.

God only knows what kind of hubris made Gibson and his board think they could get away with attacking their workers like this.

It seems that no matter how many times these corporate ratbags get their arses handed to them by union members they just don’t seem to learn.

Port protest gone international

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 11:12 pm, March 10th, 2012 - 48 comments

The labour dispute is turning into a fiasco for Ports of Auckland. Thousands marched today through Auckland in protest, and cargo loaded by non-union labour is being blacklisted internationally. How long will Ports of Auckland stay on their self-destructive course?

How history will remember Len Brown: scab, coward, judas

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 7:23 am, March 9th, 2012 - 86 comments

You betrayed the people you pretended to represent Len.

Management incompetence costs POAL millions

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 2:18 pm, March 8th, 2012 - 28 comments

Ports of Auckland wants to increase profits by slashing pay-packets by 20% – $6m. So far, the process has cost them at least $28m. Add $9m for redundancies. Add the cost of continuing interruption as the contractors are established. Add the cost of blacklisting. Add the cost of customers that have shifted ports. Len Brown should sack the POAL management for incompetence.

Why the Right wants to deny that unions increase wages

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 7:17 am, February 29th, 2012 - 98 comments

Union wage rises beat non-union every time. It’s basic market theory. If workers bargain individually they are in perfect competition with each other and become price takers. Together they have market power. Hence: “united we bargain, divided we beg”. But the Right doesn’t want you to know that. They want to break the unions to strangle wage rises.

Bosses move to drive wages down

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:30 am, February 27th, 2012 - 89 comments

John Key said he “would love to see wages drop“, and his government has achieved that but they’re just getting started. This is the year when the gloves come off. Ports of Auckland is trying to slash its wage bill by 20%. Talley’s-AFFCO is locking out 750 workers indefinitely. And DHBs are trying to scare nurses ahead of their pay negotiations with the spectre of job cuts.

The neoliberal plague

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 9:03 am, February 23rd, 2012 - 131 comments

Since New Zealand skulled the neoliberal cool-aid, hospital admissions for infectious diseases, the diseases of poverty, increased 51% while dropping in the countries we should consider our peers. The working class life has gotten worse; our wages are lower, our jobs gone, and our families living in unhealthy houses owned by slum landlords.

NRT: And so its come to this…

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 9:17 am, February 18th, 2012 - 16 comments

No Right Turn on the plight of democracy in Greece.

More columns from O’Sullivan, please

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:07 am, February 4th, 2012 - 133 comments

Every time some rightwing ideologue calls 80% of New Zealanders racist or xenophobic because we don’t want to lose control of our future and sell our strategic assets to fall into the hands of a foreign dictatorship that is going around the world buying up key resources to secure their own supply chains at the cost of our sovereignty, and reminds us that National is letting this happen, I smile. Keep it up, Fran.

Show me the money!

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 5:59 pm, January 24th, 2012 - 138 comments

Farrar, Slater and their POAL masters are getting all antsy about how much port workers get paid.

Maybe it’s time they came clean about their own rorting, eh?

John Key and POAL

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 1:26 pm, January 23rd, 2012 - 43 comments

With the house due to sit in a couple of weeks John Key’s people will be weighing up their response to the POAL dispute.

My guess is they’ll base their decision on what they can get away with politically.

Whatever they do it’ll be no good for the port workers and certainly no good for Key’s goal of closing the wage gap with Australia.

Nats built the poverty trap, let’s destroy it

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:59 am, January 18th, 2012 - 92 comments

A new study confirms that growing up in poverty means you’ll likely be impoverished as an adult. With the negative consequences for the individual and society. The Nats’ low-wage, high unemployment policies create the poverty trap. Poverty is a design feature of the rightwing economy. Hypocritical and useless to demand their victims save themselves from poverty. Change the policies, fix the problem.

Meet the wharfies and their families

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 11:50 am, January 15th, 2012 - 157 comments

The Port of Auckland and its National Party allies would have you believe that the stevedores are monsters for not be willing to accept a 20% pay cut so that POA can try to undercut Port of Tauranga (where’s the ‘national interest’ in that, again?). But, let’s hear from these workers, and their families, as they struggle to protect their livelihood.

POAL, DPF, and the politics of envy

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 7:31 am, January 12th, 2012 - 142 comments

DPF has joined the chorus of overpaid righties calling for working people to have their pay cut.

That’s despite him being on a pretty good wicket himself.

What is it with the right and the politics of envy?

What’s really going on at Ports of Auckland 2

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 8:03 am, January 10th, 2012 - 256 comments

Since my post yesterday, Ports of Auckland has upped the ante threatening to sack all its workers and contract out (to quick and loud cheers from the National-aligned blogs they are working with – Cameron Slater’s rate is $10,000 for an operation like this). What they’re proposing is a breach of the law and wouldn’t work, but its just setting the scene for the next stage.

What’s really going on at Ports of Auckland

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 7:42 pm, January 9th, 2012 - 125 comments

The Right is up to its old tricks over the Ports of Auckland. It’s the usual pattern: make up some bullshit about how the workers are spoiled and unreasonable, cry that the sky will fall if the company doesn’t get its way, and (this is the long-game) suggest privatisation as the solution. What you haven’t heard is the cause of the ‘crisis’: the Port’s attempt to cut the workers’ conditions and pay.