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Another win for union members
Written By: - Date published: 7:50 am, July 26th, 2010 - 54 comments
The Herald reports that Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union members have won the right to a substitute holiday to make up for the fact that Anzac Day and Easter Monday fall on the same day this year as well as a three percent pay rise for this year and another next year.
You read that right, at a time when the government is attacking workers rights two thousand EPMU members are increasing their holidays and getting a pay rise.
National’s attack on working Kiwis
Written By: - Date published: 6:56 pm, July 15th, 2010 - 248 comments
With National’s donations flagging something was needed to loosen the purse-strings.
It seems they’ve decided giving business an early present of wage-lowering laws will do the trick.
And every working Kiwi will pay the price.
Magical Budget causes imaginary closure of wage gap – Wong
Written By: - Date published: 9:57 am, July 2nd, 2010 - 25 comments
Pansy Wong on the gender wage gap: “It was the case that the gap was between men and women was at 12% since 2001. After 18 months of the National Government the pay gap is now 11%.” Um. No, it’s 12.3%. When are these Nats going to learn that in the age of the internet and publicly accessible statistics you can’t just lie and expect to get away with it?
Key proud to have imaginary Kiwis’ support
Written By: - Date published: 10:38 am, July 1st, 2010 - 30 comments
John Key wilted yesterday as he attempted to cover for the fact that most Kiwis will be worse off thanks to his GST hike and cuts to public services like early childhood education, which don’t eliminate costs, just pushes them on to families. He went wrong pretty quickly, claiming a couple called ‘Bill and Mary Smith’ had called to thank him, then admitting he had made them up.
Money for tax cuts for rich, none for doctors’ pay
Written By: - Date published: 12:22 pm, June 21st, 2010 - 9 comments
Tony Ryall, like Anne Tolley, is facing a big fight over wages. The health budget is chock-full of cuts as it is and Ryall says there simply isn’t any money to give doctors pay rises as they and other workers face nearly 6% inflation next year. The government can find billions for tax cuts for the rich but not to pay doctors and teachers. Priorities.
The next attack on working Kiwis
Written By: - Date published: 10:34 am, June 11th, 2010 - 15 comments
According to Treasury, Kiwi workers’ combined incomes will be $1.5 billion lower when Key leaves office than when he entered. But the Nats aren’t done. The next stage is to attack holidays. The method of calculating sick and holiday is going to be changed to shaft shift workers. While the ‘choice’ to sell one week’s annual leave to the boss will see your work hours go up more than your pay.
Working Kiwis aren’t lazy
Written By: - Date published: 11:39 pm, May 24th, 2010 - 74 comments
The Right claims that people who aren’t on high incomes are just lazy and need to work harder, and, so, are undeserving of a fair deal. It’s insulting, it’s false, it’s just another excuse for maintaining the wealthy’s privileged position. Most people who work long hours are on low and middle incomes. And there are hundreds of thousands of low income Kiwis wanting more work.
Closing the wage gap
Written By: - Date published: 7:44 am, May 19th, 2010 - 5 comments
Unions are closing the wage gap in the oil industry using collective action
Meanwhile the government is preparing to give rich individuals tax cuts and has been eroding the rights of workers.
Goff speech on Labour’s vision
Written By: - Date published: 1:47 pm, May 12th, 2010 - 72 comments
Phil Goff has delivered his speech on Labour’s economic vision ahead of the Budget. It’s a good one, filled with core Labour values and ideas that will get New Zealand moving ahead. Goff talks about fairer tax rather than tax cuts for the rich, better monetary policy, and investing in New Zealand’s future.
Pay rises for CEOs, pay cuts for workers
Written By: - Date published: 12:53 pm, May 7th, 2010 - 13 comments
The other day I wrote about pay rises for workers. 75% of non-union workers took a pay cut last year. Seems their bosses made off a lot better. Despite all the business collapses and the 21,000 lost jobs, half of all CEOs got a pay rise last year and the typical pay rise was a massive 5% (only 10% of workers got a 5%+ way rise). It’s the essence of class war.
From bad to worse for workers
Written By: - Date published: 2:18 pm, May 4th, 2010 - 11 comments
While John’s off playing soldiers, things are getting worse and worse for Kiwi workers. Wages are falling for the first time in a decade. The average hourly wage was $25.80 when National came to power. Now, it’s $25.30. I had hoped unemployment would start falling about now but the signs are discouraging. Only unionised workers able to protect themselves from the storm.
Anyone else make a connection?
Written By: - Date published: 12:34 pm, April 16th, 2010 - 34 comments
Last year, Telecom screws over its engineers. Decides to make them dependent contractors. EPMU wins real jobs for most of them. Better contract conditions for others. But a sh*tload of experienced engineers say screw Telecom and leave the industry. Then the faults start. XT becomes a laughingstock. Customers leave in droves. Next, profit warning.
Kiwis report future less bright under National
Written By: - Date published: 4:01 pm, April 6th, 2010 - 58 comments
In 2008, John Key was promising us a brighter future. 18 months on, we’re in that future he was talking about and Kiwis are reporting their lives are worse than they were before he came to power. 83% of Kiwis surveyed by ShapeNZ rated their quality of life as ‘good’ or better, down from 89% in 2008 and 92% in 2007. Key has a responsibility to live up to his promises
Nats’ wage drop plan progressing well
Written By: - Date published: 2:16 pm, March 24th, 2010 - 11 comments
How’s that brighter future looking? A couple of years back, Steve wrote a piece on how National could reduce pay packs accordance with John Key’s statement that he “would love to see wages drop”. Now, wages are dropping thanks to a combination of government neglect on job creation and policies that are actively designed to suppress wage rises. Let’s see how the plan is playing out:
Wage gap is the John Key credibility gap
Written By: - Date published: 10:34 am, March 13th, 2010 - 46 comments
There’s a nickname for John Key that’s picking up currency from both Left and Right around the blogosphere: ‘smile and wave’. The one thing Key can be depended on is to turn up grinning in some cheesy photo op. All his promises fall by the wayside. Meanwhile, 276,000 Kiwis are jobless, the wage gap with Australia keeps widening, and so does Key’s credibility gap.
High unemployment helps Nats keep wages down
Written By: - Date published: 9:12 am, March 11th, 2010 - 21 comments
While other countries have used their strong public sectors to steady the private sector and keep unemployment down during the economic downturn, our government is compounding unemployment by cutting the public sector, throwing people out of jobs and feeding worker insecurity.
Aussie wages outstripping NZ
Written By: - Date published: 7:40 am, March 9th, 2010 - 19 comments
In NZ, the average FTE wage rose 2.86% after inflation – $891 to $934 – over the past year. In Aussie, it was 3.6% above inflation – $1159 to $1226. When will John Key admit that he sold us a lie? When will the media call on him to resign if no progress is made on the one substantial promise of a ‘brighter future’ at he made?
Aussie pay gap widening, Key does nothing
Written By: - Date published: 12:32 am, March 2nd, 2010 - 28 comments
The total pay packet fell for Kiwi workers last year and it will get worse in coming years. Aussie wages continue to rise, their unemployment is falling. If Key is serious about catching Australia he needs a full employment policy. Instead, he will keep doing nothing.
Why not a Maori minimum wage too?
Written By: - Date published: 12:59 pm, February 24th, 2010 - 58 comments
The faulty logic behind Roger Douglas’ bill to cut the wages of young workers could just as easily be applied to any number of groups hit hard by the recession – Maori, students, men, dropouts, singles, people in Northland. What if we were to change a couple of key words in his bill?
Two IR bills from the Right
Written By: - Date published: 6:58 pm, February 23rd, 2010 - 14 comments
Two industrial relations bills from the Right were pulled from the ballot today.
The first, Roger Douglas’ bill to restore youth rates, is just the usual ACT Party kick the poor stuff.
But Tau Henare’s bill on strike ballots is just plain stupid.
Wee gripes: Cop attacks, whaling, dr shortage
Written By: - Date published: 1:15 pm, February 22nd, 2010 - 26 comments
No chance some gang f#ckwits would be deterred by longer sentences.
What happened to that plan of Key’s to end whaling?
How do we get a high wage economy when National opposes each and every wage rise?
Pansy Wong bids for worst minister award
Written By: - Date published: 11:22 am, February 19th, 2010 - 11 comments
When you’ve got a Finance Minister who can’t get stats right, a Social Welfare Minister who can’t define her flagship policy, and an Education Minister who can’t explain her flagship policy, it’s easy for an incompetent Women’s Affairs Minister to slip through.
The lie behind the Right’s attack on wages
Written By: - Date published: 7:39 am, February 12th, 2010 - 35 comments
Paying a person doing the same work as another person less money because of their sex or religion or ethnicity or any other grounds prohibited under the Human Rights Act is illegal and abhorrent. Yet, the Right wants to do just that with a private member’s bill from Roger Douglas reintroducing a lower minimum wage for 16 and […]
Nats eyeing up youth minimum wage?
Written By: - Date published: 4:29 pm, February 11th, 2010 - 38 comments
Over the last month or so National’s pollster David Farrar has been running a series of posts desperately trying to pin the spike in youth unemployment under National to Labour’s decision to abolish youth rates. I’d been wondering why the obsession with youth rates until I saw this exchange between Roger Douglas and Kate Wilkinson […]
Fair share for workers best way to close gap with Aussie
Written By: - Date published: 10:56 am, February 9th, 2010 - 21 comments
30 years ago, according to John Key, wages in Australia and New Zealand were the same. Since then New Zealand wages have stagnated and Australian wages haven grown away from us to the point where they are nearly 40% higher. The conventional wisdom is that this is due to faster economic growth in Australia, driven […]
Wages dropping under Key, as promised
Written By: - Date published: 11:26 am, February 3rd, 2010 - 28 comments
Remember how John Key said he “would love to see wages drop“. You might remember the big corporate media refused to run it, and the head of APN held an emergency meeting with Key then pressured the journalist who had reported the comments to retract them, which he would not do, and then APN published […]
Unionised workers win pay rises, others get cuts
Written By: - Date published: 8:33 am, February 3rd, 2010 - 70 comments
The latest round of the Labour Cost Index is out and it shows that the nation’s 400,000 union members are the workers holding their ground as businesses try to cut wage costs to preserve their profit margins: Inflation was 2% this year. If you didn’t get a pay rise to match or beat that, your […]
The lucky country: Aussie tax system more progressive than NZ’s
Written By: - Date published: 10:25 am, January 21st, 2010 - 57 comments
It fascinates me that in all this talk about ‘catching up with Australia’ via tax cuts, nobody bothers to look at the Aussie tax system to see what they’re doing. Keith Ng has a cool interactive graph on the portion of all income earnt by different income groups and the tax they pay. He compares what […]
A fair pay-rise not unreasonable
Written By: - Date published: 8:23 am, December 28th, 2009 - 10 comments
An interesting piece on the SST yesterday: English has warned public servants such as teachers and nurses not to expect pay increases that are “out of line with realistic expectations”. “I think we will see quite a few sparks fly,” O’Reilly said. “Government departments are being told how much they can spend so you’re going […]
There is power in a union
Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, December 10th, 2009 - 7 comments
About a month ago I used the Stats NZ Labour Cost Index to come up with the approximate distribution of payrises for unionised and non-unionised workers. I showed that most union members got payrises this year and most non-union members didn’t. Turns out that was pretty much on the money. The EPMU released figures yesterday […]
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