workers’ rights
Categories under workers’ rights
- health and safety (156)
- unemployment (251)
- Unions (427)
- wages (502)
Mythbustin’: Waitakere Man
Written By: - Date published: 10:57 am, March 15th, 2012 - 54 comments
Chris Trotter invented the myth of the so-called ‘Waitakere Man’. It assumes Labour has lost voters because we’re all contractors now or in roles where we could be contractors, and don’t need their union-based labour policies and benefit system but want simpler rules for small business. No factory or retail workers in this model. Problem is, it’s not true.
On those that need to work harder
Written By: - 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.
Pearson goes to ground over privacy scandal
Written By: - Date published: 7:27 am, March 15th, 2012 - 32 comments
It’s a bit rich that PoAL are claiming they’re “investigating” online privacy breaches now when it’s obvious they’ve been colluding with Cameron Slater for months.
It’s also interesting that the limited “no comment” comment PoAL has issued has been in Tony Gibson’s name rather than Richard Pearson’s.
Key’s laundry list of broken promises
Written By: - Date published: 10:58 pm, March 14th, 2012 - 57 comments
He must resign. Surely. Here is Key, speaking to the PSA in 2008, making very specific promises about public service jobs, tax cuts, and asset sales that helped him get elected. Promises he has since broken. There’s no excuse. He wasn’t blind-sided by events. He made these promises never intending to keep them. Key is refusing to comment but if the man has any ethics he’ll resign.
Port protest gone international
Written By: - 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?
Lamington’s Stupidity (and why I hate the rent-a-crowd)
Written By: - Date published: 12:58 pm, March 10th, 2012 - 86 comments
I’m no fan of the people who threw the Lamington at Len Brown. They are the same crew who waltz into every social movement in Auckland, suck the life out of it and move on. But the only winner out of this lamington incident was the Port’s board and the (I’m sure) the self-image of the egotistical morons who threw it. It cost the Maritime Union. It belittled those of us who are infuriated at the Mayor’s response. And it was just plain stupid.
The press release Len Brown should be issuing
Written By: - Date published: 12:25 pm, March 9th, 2012 - 35 comments
A contrite Mayor Len Brown today offered his apology to Port workers for causing their redundancies by demanding higher port profits then giving them the cold shoulder. “I turned my back on the working class. That ‘we’re on a journey’ BS on RNZ was the final straw. I am donating to the workers the $2,000 they gave my election campaign, and the $270,000 3-year payrise they helped me get when I became Auckland mayor.”
Management incompetence costs POAL millions
Written By: - 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.
A Dear Len letter
Written By: - Date published: 11:20 am, March 8th, 2012 - 103 comments
Len Brown gets a Dear Len over his performance over the Ports of Auckland dispute.
“I delivered your leaflets in the rain. I erected your hoardings across Auckland. I phoned and canvassed support for you. I encouraged my friends to vote for you. But it’s over. Frankly, I find your protestations that you could not help the 292 sacked wharfies asking to be able to work to live and not live to work offensive. Don’t play the victim: your salary is too big.”
Dumbarse ports management and owners
Written By: - Date published: 11:24 am, March 7th, 2012 - 278 comments
Today Ports of Auckland sacked 292 employees in the pursuit of the unobtainable by the idiotic. The Ports of Auckland from the start intended to provide a conflict with the intent of sacking all the workers and rehiring them on worse conditions, saving $6m (20%) in wages a year. The amount of money saved was a pittance compared to the underlying problems the port needs to fix.
POAL back to bargaining table
Written By: - Date published: 11:08 am, March 2nd, 2012 - 47 comments
4 days into 4 weeks of strikes, Ports of Auckland is back at the bargaining table. From usually docking 4 ships a day, they’ve docked 2 in 4 – 88% reduction. POAL can’t provide service. Ships are going elsewhere in our over-capitalised port system and might not come back. The Council will be screaming blue murder at the loss of revenue and business disruption. How long till management folds?
The real story of the ports dispute
Written By: - Date published: 1:14 pm, February 29th, 2012 - 120 comments
MUNZ workers and their families explain in their own words how changes being promoted by management of the Auckland City owned Ports of Auckland will affect their families. Watch this video to find out what the Ports of Auckland dispute is really about:
Does working pay?
Written By: - Date published: 11:02 am, February 29th, 2012 - 72 comments
Maybe it’s the influence of Bill ‘Guess’ English but National has this strange habit of only doing half the sum. Paula Bennett counts people going off the benefit, but not people going on. John Key looks at normal job creation but ignores normal job destruction. Now, he’s claiming that a mother with a 1-year old is better off working, but he’s not counting the costs of working.
Why the Right wants to deny that unions increase wages
Written By: - 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.
Whale discovers that joining the union pays
Written By: - Date published: 10:38 am, February 28th, 2012 - 105 comments
Cameron Slater reckons he’s cracked it; wages are growing after all. What’s his proof? A graph from the EPMU that shows wages have risen 17% and inflation only 15.7%. Wages are up, no crisis! But the man-boy genius needs to check his info better. Turns out that’s the average payrise for EPMU members since 2007. For all workers, the average pay rise was just 13%.
Bosses move to drive wages down
Written By: - 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.
Support MUNZ workers in port dispute
Written By: - Date published: 7:05 am, February 24th, 2012 - 52 comments
Show your support for the MUNZ workers in the Ports of Auckland dispute, including a picket today from 10am.
What would Wilberforce say?
Written By: - Date published: 3:51 pm, February 21st, 2012 - 33 comments
Consciences are uncomfortable things and mine’s been giving me a bit of trouble lately. I’ve been on the horns of a dilemma (sorry for the cliche but who can resist the imagery?) about employment practices. We allow ourselves a handwringing moment, a short burst of outraged righteousness and then run off to buy a pair […]
Save our Port
Written By: - Date published: 12:15 am, February 9th, 2012 - 186 comments
It’s slipped down the news agenda but is about to come back up it: The Ports of Auckland Dispute. Tony Gibson is wasting our money on his union-busting campaign that will result in reduced profits for ratepayers. Sign up to make him see sense.
Congrats on raising the minimum wage John
Written By: - Date published: 1:59 pm, February 8th, 2012 - 66 comments
Shame you couldn’t raise it to a living one though. The working poor will appreciate the extra $1000 per year coming this April, but it still won’t cover their bills…
POAL sleaze
Written By: - Date published: 7:26 am, February 3rd, 2012 - 80 comments
I’ve heard that POAL has private detectives following union officials around and taking photos.
I’d imagine that’s where “scoops” like this are coming from.
Marryatt must go
Written By: - Date published: 6:41 am, January 31st, 2012 - 84 comments
Most Kiwis have had no payrise, if they’re lucky enough to have kept their jobs, in the past few years. Yet Christchurch City Council CEO Tony Marryatt has kept on getting pay rises on his obscene salary, even as his job performance has declined. Now the arrogant bastard is saying he’ll keep $34,000 he doesn’t deserve unless the elected council ‘behaves’. There is no justification for this madness. Sack him.
Ports of Auckland and casualisation
Written By: - Date published: 12:57 pm, January 27th, 2012 - 11 comments
CTU President Helen Kelly talks about the Ports of Auckland and the effects of casualisation on workers and workplace health and safety.
Ports of Auckland vs 400,000 wharfies
Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, January 21st, 2012 - 116 comments
Tony Gibson with his $750,000 salary and his senior managers on half a million each may have thought they had it easy beating up on some $27 an hour workers so that they could increase profits by cutting wages but they failed to calculate that those 330 workers are backed by 400,000 brothers and sisters around the world.
Local board members support wharfies
Written By: - Date published: 7:24 am, January 18th, 2012 - 6 comments
The travesty of the Port of Auckland dispute is that we have a publicly-owned company trying to slash its workers’ pay so that it can try to undercut another majority publicly owned company that has already slashed wages, the only winners being the foreign shipping lines. Well, here’s some of our representatives standing up for Auckland workers.
There is no alternative
Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, January 17th, 2012 - 182 comments
Work conditions in the Right’s ideal world:
- Stevedores only paid while actually unloading containers
- Firemen only paid when fighting fires
- Emergency doctors only paid while saving lives
- Soldiers only paid if under fire
- All Blacks only paid while handling the ball/tackling
MPs only paid while in the HouseCEOs not paid while at their Papamoa beach-house
1951 it ain’t, for now
Written By: - Date published: 8:38 am, January 16th, 2012 - 120 comments
Some have compared the Port of Auckland dispute to the 1890 waterfront dispute, 1913 general strike, and 1951 lockout. They want Labour and the Greens to get involved. Actually, this is no 1951 redux. The POA fight is just about one company trying to undercut another. The net effect on New Zealand is zero. The last thing the workers need is Labour creating an excuse for National to attack them.
Meet the wharfies and their families
Written By: - 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.
Report shows ports not to blame for freight costs
Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, January 13th, 2012 - 5 comments
The Productivity Commission reports that freight costs are 25% higher here than in Australia and freight costs as a % of cargo value has risen in recent years. Their solution? Make the public and port workers poorer by privatisation and casualisation. Of course, those are ideological goals, not solutions to the freight cost issue, which has nothing to do with ports.
Stick a fork in Port management, they’re done
Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, January 13th, 2012 - 264 comments
A leaked Ports of Auckland strategy document shows their goal is to reduce the stevedores’ wages by 20%. They were planning to manufacture a crisis even before the stevedores’ collective expired. They’ve been rumbled breaking the law by not bargaining in good faith. Their political support will now evaporate. They should cut their losses, and a deal with the workers, now.
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