workers’ rights

Categories under workers’ rights

health and safety (156)
unemployment (251)
Unions (427)
wages (502)

The changes to employment law

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 7:36 pm, October 28th, 2010 - 44 comments

The government is currently rushing through changes to employment law.

But the change won’t make any difference to the kind of action Actors Equity took.

So what’s the point?

The best country money can buy

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:35 pm, October 28th, 2010 - 97 comments

Today, the Hobbit Enabling Act will be slammed through Parliament by National removing the right of employees working in the film industry to get employment rights if their contract calls them a contractor. It’s the latest in a series of anti-democratic laws that show National is the party of big business, not democracy and ordinary Kiwis.

Q&A on The Hobbit

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 11:30 am, October 28th, 2010 - 84 comments

The Right argues that an already settled labour dispute involving a small union somehow scared a multi-billion film company enough to make them consider abandoning the $100 million already invested in NZ. Blue has gone beyond the slogans and done some excellent research to answers our questions on what really happened.

Caption Contest

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 7:39 am, October 28th, 2010 - 25 comments

There was some expenditure that didn’t qualify under the old scheme…We’ve looked to broaden that out. John Key on Warner Brothers, 27 Oct 2010

The price of our hysteria

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:30 pm, October 27th, 2010 - 180 comments

The Government will give the Hobbit producers an extra $33 million to stay in New Zealand and it’s going to use this ‘crisis’ as an excuse to slam through more anti-worker laws. New Zealand has been played like naive hicks. The Hobbit was never leaving. We let Jackson and his Hollywood mates whip us into a frenzy of fear – now we’re paying the cost.

An invitation to Warner Brothers to be up front

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 10:30 am, October 27th, 2010 - 10 comments

Wallace Chapman has a thoughtful Open Letter to the visiting Warner Brothers executives on his blog, inviting them to front up to the New Zealand public: We have a small segment called “Soapbox” and we’d just love you to come over and join us and speak your mind to camera for 60 seconds. We know […]

Tax Cuts or High Wages?

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 9:00 am, October 27th, 2010 - 17 comments

At the last election we chose tax cuts and unemployment instead of stimulus and stability – which was the more ambitious, high wage way to go?

National are not fulfilling their government’s core reason for existence: closing the wage gap with Australia. No, we’re fast going backwards on that score, and it’s predictable: high unemployment causes low wages.

Bending over for Warner Brothers

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 11:30 am, October 26th, 2010 - 30 comments

Otago Law Professor Paul Roth says possible law changes by the Key Government to provide more tax-payer funded charity to corporate giants Warner Bros Entertainment is ‘Third-World’ lawmaking and a ‘race to the bottom’ in an attempt to compete against developing nations with little or no labour rights. Roth says if we ‘lie back and prostitute ourselves […]

The sea-change on the left

Written By: lprent - Date published: 1:59 pm, October 25th, 2010 - 41 comments

One of the strange things about helping to run a left blog like this is looking at the varied opinions of those on the left of the political spectrum, and then looking at the monolithic opinions that the right seem to have of the left. I was musing on this while reading Matt McCarten’s excellent Saturday article. Now you have to understand that Matt and myself are almost at the ends of the spectrum when it comes to politics on the left….

Performance Pay Paradox

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 8:57 am, October 25th, 2010 - 32 comments

I’ve just been reading The Age of Absurdity, which has many good ideas on modern happiness.

One of the ideas that won’t cause happiness – but will decrease motivation and quality of work – is performance related pay.

(Consumerism and a Sense of Entitlement also causes unhappiness, but big ups to Personal Responsibility. None of that is in this post though)

Labour Day: Thank a unionist

Written By: r0b - Date published: 7:58 am, October 25th, 2010 - 142 comments

The Nats and their repeaters are trying to paint unions as some kind of public enemy. How can we be a public enemy when we are the public? Unions are just people. Unions exist to work for our rights. Rights like the eight hour working day, the origin of the celebration of Labour Day. If you enjoy decent conditions at work, if you’re enjoying your long weekend, why not thank a unionist!

I’ve had enough and I want my share

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 11:47 am, October 24th, 2010 - 10 comments

The Secretary for Education Karen Sewell has just had a minimum pay rise of $30,000p.a. Ironically the same 4% that teachers are after. Here is some maths for Mrs Sewell. Her 4% is 30,000 dollars. 4% of a teachers salary of around $65k is $2,600 dollars.

A noose around students’ necks

Written By: r0b - Date published: 9:35 am, October 22nd, 2010 - 27 comments

Every time I think John Key can’t get any more cynical and hypocritical in his messaging, he manages to take it to a new level. Apparently spending money on the education system will create “a noose around the neck of young New Zealanders”…

Nats find freedom of speech offensive

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 1:30 pm, October 21st, 2010 - 72 comments

National’s bully-boy tactics continue. Young people are trying to voice their concern to the select committee that is looking at the extension of the Fire at Will law to all workers. The Nats on the committee don’t want to listen so they’re bullying submitters and refusing to even accept submissions that don’t toe their line.

Jackson’s bad faith posturing

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 8:15 am, October 21st, 2010 - 516 comments

It looked like Actors Equity and Peter Jackson had come to an agreement.

They’d even written a joint statement to announce the boycott was off.

So why has the whole thing blown up?

National day of action for work rights

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:51 pm, October 20th, 2010 - 115 comments

Thousands of workers are now leaving their work places to attend one of the 27 protests taking place today from Kaiatia to the Bluff against National’s draconian anti-worker policies. This one could be big. This is the day that Kiwi workers stand up and say that they have had enough of this government attacking our wages and work conditions. Update: 5-6 thousand at Parliament.

I’m confused

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:00 am, October 20th, 2010 - 32 comments

Trying to get my head around the economic arguments going on. Hearing contradictory things. Who’s telling the truth? ls Labour’s new overseas investment policy Stalinism that will ruin the economy, as Key claimed on Monday and Tuesday? Or is the same as the existing law, as Key claimed on Monday and Tuesday?

Keith Ng: Nat bullshit on inflation and earnings

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 7:02 am, October 20th, 2010 - 44 comments

National have been running some fine lines of bullshit lately. Keith Ng’s recent post at Public Address calls them out on two of them. The first, National is trying to claim credit for low inflation. The Second, National is trying to claim that recent wage increases have been better than the previous 9 years. Keith takes the bullshit apart – dirty work, but someone has to do it.

Nats’ war on education: cutting wages

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:00 am, October 19th, 2010 - 87 comments

For some reason, the Nats hate public education. Even an elitist fool should be able to see that a well-educated workforce is valuable and public education is the cheapest way to achieve it. Yet National is attacking education at every level. The latest ‘offer’ to the secondary teachers would see them take 2 years of after-inflation pay cuts.

October 20th, day of action for work rights

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 6:45 am, October 19th, 2010 - 12 comments

Unemployment is up, wages are down. But the Nats want to put the boot into workers to keep costs down for their rich mates. They’re trying to take away workers’ rights, remove protections, cut pay, reduce holidays and diminish access to sick leave. Tomorrow is the national day of action when we fight back.

Why the Right is worried 1: Economy

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:00 am, October 18th, 2010 - 35 comments

Yesterday, former National media trainer Paul Holmes and former National Party President Michelle Boag attempted an extraordinary hatchet job on Phil Goff on Q+A. No analysis of the real policy divide that Goff and Labour with National carved out at the national conference, just attack – why? The economy, policy, Key’s fading brand, and the polls.

NoRightTurn: Nats let IHC burn

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 6:14 am, October 15th, 2010 - 20 comments

The government is refusing to step up to save IHC providers that are insolvent due to a recent court case that resulted in IHC carers being awarded hundreds of millions in back wages. The government is washing its hands, even though it is the primary funder of the services. Will the Nats let IHC collapse or will they use this to bring in their corporate mates?

Doing nothing as dole numbers rise

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:15 am, October 13th, 2010 - 17 comments

It was a year ago that Paula Bennett first declared victory over rising unemployment. Since then, John Key has been working his economic strategy hard: high-fiving every schoolgirl he can find, playing with spiders, announcing and re-annoucing literally tens of kilometres of cycleway, smiling and waving till it hurts. But dole numbers are rising.

Key loves to see wages drop

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:01 pm, October 7th, 2010 - 36 comments

The just released Income Survey is more evidence of the Key Government’s failure to deliver for working Kiwis. After inflation, this is the third successive year in which the median income of New Zealanders has fallen. It’s now nearly 5% lower than when National came to power. This year alone, the median income fell 3.5%.

A Case of IHG?

Written By: Bill - Date published: 11:30 pm, October 6th, 2010 - 31 comments

Seems these days that when people get in to financial strife, the Government is all too happy to offer a helping hand loaded down with wadges of cash. Sometimes…

And then sometimes something altogether more short and sharp is offered. Depending…

A couple of points about the Hobbit dispute

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 9:26 pm, October 4th, 2010 - 62 comments

Actors Equity have the Aussie actors’ minimum standards up on their site and they look pretty minimal.

So what’s all the fuss about and why is John Key suddenly interested in getting involved in an industrial dispute?

After all he’s previously claimed it’s “not appropriate” for the government to intervene in other disputes.

Extremist NZ Actors Equity demands outrageous fortune

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 8:24 am, October 3rd, 2010 - 17 comments

Wondering who Actors’ Equity are and what they do? Well here’s a video from AE explaining just that. Actors’ Equity also have a good website that lays out their position in Peter Jackson’s Das Hobbitski fiasco. It’s been funny watching the msm contort itself while struggling with its rarely conflicting predilections for both celebrities and […]

One of these things is not like the other XII

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 7:10 am, October 3rd, 2010 - 28 comments

One of these things is not like the other, One of these things is not quite the same. Can you guess which one is not like the other, Can you tell me before I finish the game?

Some advice for Actors Equity

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 11:45 am, October 2nd, 2010 - 32 comments

The Hobbit dispute is being run to a very familiar playbook.

Let’s have a look at the employers’ tactics and what the union can do to counter them.

From Hounds to Foxes

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 2:28 pm, October 1st, 2010 - 31 comments

As you sit there reading this, think about how industrial action is growing across the country – Secondary teachers, Junior Doctors, Radiographers, State Servants, Actors. There is a lot more to come as National and business try to force wages down. Do you want to wait for them to come for you?