employment

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The mantra of ‘Poor Choices’

Written By: - Date published: 1:45 pm, December 12th, 2015 - 195 comments

It is that time of year when poor people realise just how poor they really are – the season for giving, the season to be jolly. Well that may be so for some of us, but some people will be working on Christmas day instead of spending time with loved ones. These will probably be […]

Minister declined to comment…

Written By: - Date published: 2:59 pm, November 9th, 2015 - 9 comments

Isn’t it amazing how many Ministers can’t wait to front up to the media when they are selling. But when it comes to after sale service they just don’t want to front?

Useless on unemployment

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, November 6th, 2015 - 73 comments

“Less debt more jobs” says National’s billboard. Instead we good the opposite. With extra helpings of icing on this Cake of Fail.

Paying a generous wage

Written By: - Date published: 10:12 am, November 1st, 2015 - 116 comments

Well paid staff are happy, productive staff. Who’d have thought it!

Future Jobs

Written By: - Date published: 9:33 am, September 29th, 2015 - 14 comments

I’m going to get to reviewing Labour’s next 3 Future of Work papers, honest.

But in the meantime, I have something to share from Andrew McAfee.

Just a great Ted Talk on YouTube.

OIA on Zero Hours reveals just what an attack on workers it is.

Written By: - Date published: 11:39 am, September 24th, 2015 - 53 comments

We have the documents leading up to the what can only be described as a dreadful piece of law legalising employment agreements which tie workers to an employer without any of the reciprocity of guaranteed hours of work.  At a time like now – where work in this country is so badly paid, with so little protection – we get this.

Regional Realities.

Written By: - Date published: 11:06 am, August 31st, 2015 - 133 comments

FYI. The most populous town in Clutha District is Balclutha, which lies 81km south of Dunedin by road. Balclutha’s population, by the 2006 census, was 4,062 (down from 4,137 in 1996). Other towns are Milton (pop. 1,887), Kaitangata (pop. 810), Tapanui (pop. 744), Lawrence (pop. 432), Owaka (pop. 327), Stirling (pop. 309), Clinton (pop. 291), Kaka Point (pop. 201), and Benhar (pop. 96). For a while in the 1980s Balclutha was New Zealand’s most wealthy town, per capita

National Ltd™ Enabling Corporate Murderers

Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, August 14th, 2015 - 12 comments

But wait there’s more . . . National Ltd™’s attitude to worker safety has, it seems, been successfully installed into the very government agency responsible for holding employers to account for worker deaths.

NRT: 43,000 unemployed under National

Written By: - Date published: 11:50 am, August 5th, 2015 - 93 comments

Unemployment has risen for two quarters in a row despite the optimistic Treasury forecasts.

# Talleyban

Written By: - Date published: 5:50 pm, August 4th, 2015 - 47 comments

Talleys have fired the first shots in National’s new class war. You can stand with the AFFCO workers and reject the Tories new anti-union law. Boycott Talleys. Make a stand for your fellow Kiwis.

Deborah McMillan’s story

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, August 3rd, 2015 - 36 comments

Deborah McMillan’s husband and Skyla McMillan’s dad Shane was killed in a workplace accident five years ago.  They are part of a campaign to strengthen the currently weakened health and safety legislation.

The modern precariat and the Unconditional Basic Income

Written By: - Date published: 2:09 pm, August 2nd, 2015 - 127 comments

A UBI would allow ordinary people to shift their daily focus from doing paid jobs making money for others, to doing useful work of their own choice, under their own control.

The Future of…Jobs?

Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, August 1st, 2015 - 78 comments

A relevant and real “Future of Work Commission” needs to be centred on building creativity, increasing collectivity, dealing with climate change and achieving fossil fuel transition.

Not the “end to zero hour contracts” you were looking for

Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, July 12th, 2015 - 30 comments

Who would have suspected that Michael Woodhouse would be completely ineffectual in cracking down on zero-hour contracts?

Youth rates and youth employment

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, June 29th, 2015 - 43 comments

Remember how National’s youth rates were going to raise levels of youth employment? Turns out not so much.

The myth of “Retirement Savings”

Written By: - Date published: 10:18 am, June 9th, 2015 - 101 comments

Advocates of Kiwisaver and other funded “retirement savings” schemes perpetuate the fundamental misunderstanding that “conventional” in New Zealand’s case “neo-liberal” economists, speculators, finance companies, politicians and those with a lot of share holding wealth in non-productive enterprises like to perpetuate.

ILO – 75% of world jobs insecure

Written By: - Date published: 12:44 pm, May 20th, 2015 - 8 comments

Only a quarter of the world’s workers have permanent jobs. A worldwide trend away from secure jobs risked “perpetuating a vicious circle of weak global demand and slow job creation” that has dogged many countries since the 2008 crisis, the ILO reports. Decoupling of wages from productivity has led to a loss of aggregate demand the report estimates at $3.7trillion.

Human Synergistics, Richard Prebble, and the end of government

Written By: - Date published: 6:08 am, May 17th, 2015 - 64 comments

Back in March 1988 David Lange had a clear idea about what lay ahead for New Zealanders as the long-term consequences of Roger Douglas’ psychopathic worshipping of the metaphysical Invisible Hand gradually materialised.

Michael Woodhouse: a fool or a liar?

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, April 14th, 2015 - 88 comments

When the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety doesn’t know the first thing about his portfolio, there’s only one option left: he’s lying.

Woodhouse: tough on bad employers?

Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, March 26th, 2015 - 22 comments

Michael Woodhouse is talking tough on bad employers … but what does it really mean, coming from this government?

Cottoning on to new ways of exploiting workers

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, March 24th, 2015 - 67 comments

Cotton On has become the first employer in the news for trying to take away its workers’ rest breaks.

The “Brighter future”.

Written By: - Date published: 10:36 am, March 21st, 2015 - 34 comments

Labour, in 1984, with Richard Prebble and Roger Douglas, promised that if we adopted their prescription we would have a “Brighter Future”. Ruth Richardson in the 90’s promised a “Brighter Future”. Again in 2014 John Key’s National promises a “Brighter Future”.

A “Brighter Future”. For whom?

 

Northland’s ghost jobs

Written By: - Date published: 9:24 am, March 20th, 2015 - 42 comments

One of National’s big claims in the Northland buy election was that they had created 7500 new jobs in Northland. Lies lies lies.

Dita de Boni on zero-hour contracts

Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, March 6th, 2015 - 7 comments

When Michael Woodhouse and the bosses’ lobby are talking about “workplace flexibility”, you know who’s flexing their muscles.

What has Michael Woodhouse actually got right about employment relations?

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, March 5th, 2015 - 17 comments

For someone responsible for managing employment relations in New Zealand, Michael Woodhouse doesn’t seem to understand what “employment relations” means.

Dim-Post on *that* $168k cake story

Written By: - Date published: 12:07 pm, March 3rd, 2015 - 80 comments

Danyl at the Dim-Post has looked more closely at the decision to award a worker $168k over a cake and a Facebook post – and what it tells us about National’s employment law reforms.

The right to strike

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, February 17th, 2015 - 54 comments

Celebrate International Right to Strike Day on 18 February by sending a message to Kiwi employers: stop undermining our right to strike!

Labour takes a stand against zero-hour contracts

Written By: - Date published: 5:00 pm, February 12th, 2015 - 92 comments

Zero-hour contracts are the perfect illustration of when “flexibility” in employment relations goes all one way.

The lie about productivity and wages

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, February 5th, 2015 - 49 comments

The Productivity Commission has a new report out which looks at changes in the labour income share, or LIS, from 1978 to 2010. The labour income share is described in the report’s summary as: The labour income share (LIS) measures the split of national income between workers who supply labour and the owners of capital. […]

AFFCO Talley’s and Jobs That Count

Written By: - Date published: 7:21 am, February 5th, 2015 - 9 comments

Darien Fenton at Jobs That Count brings us the details of the fight for decent pay and conditions at Talley’s meat processing plants

Thumbs down for Joyce’s ministerial domain

Written By: - Date published: 8:23 am, December 22nd, 2014 - 33 comments

A new report shows that Steven Joyce’s MBIE fiefdom is failing miserably.  Meanwhile the MBIE is under fire for the major cost blow out of the Sky City Casino deal – another deal with Joyce’s imprints all over it.