wages
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Workers stand up to exploitative bosses
Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, April 19th, 2009 - 5 comments
Head of the Unite union, Matt McCarten, writes about the Synovate lockout and how foreign-owned businesses try to exploit New Zealand workers: [The] owners offer workers essentially nothing above the minimum wage then expect everyone to roll over and accept it. The normal threat is to close and go offshore. This is supposed to terrify […]
Key on wages
Written By: - Date published: 8:09 pm, March 18th, 2009 - 93 comments
Key’s speech to the CTU today showed an interesting inight into how he thinks you lift wages. NZPA reports: He said it was not good enough for New Zealand to be in the bottom third of the OECD for per-capita incomes, but was cautious about tackling the issue by lifting minimum wage rates. “In reality, […]
Bennett’s lame excuse
Written By: - Date published: 10:22 am, March 12th, 2009 - 15 comments
Morning Report asked Paula Bennett why the public sector had been cut out of the 9 day fortnight scheme this morning and her answer was that it was for businesses that have been hit by the effects of the recession and the public service doesn’t fall into that category. That’s not true. Crown owned company […]
Brief thoughts on the 9 day fortnight
Written By: - Date published: 6:04 pm, March 11th, 2009 - 53 comments
The 9 day fortnight scheme has finally been announced but I’ve got a few questions: Why do the taxpayer and the worker have to pay but the employer not? What about free training? Surely that would fit with the productivity argument National’s been making? Does anyone realise that those on the average wage would take […]
Govt set to deny low-paid workers basic rights
Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, March 4th, 2009 - 24 comments
The National government couldn’t hold off democracy forever, so today we are graced with the first members’ day of the new term. And if we had a pro-worker majority in the House, today would be day of celebration. Labour MP Darien Fenton’s Minimum Wage and Remuneration Bill is up, which would go towards ensuring all […]
National’s real rolling maul
Written By: - Date published: 6:16 am, March 3rd, 2009 - 40 comments
You know what we haven’t heard Key talk about in a long time? Closing the wage gap with Australia. Now he’s in power, is he going to do anything about creating a high wage economy? Doesn’t look like it. The truth is Key’s National/ACT Government is undertaking a rolling maul of anti-worker policies that take away our work […]
Previewing the jobs summit
Written By: - Date published: 5:50 pm, February 26th, 2009 - 20 comments
Tomorrow, John Key’s much anticipated jobs summit will take place. It’s a big deal, it’s got a logo and everything. Unfortunately, John seems to have left The Standard off the invite list along with all but a few unionists, the unemployed, women’s groups, and any party left of centre. If you’re going to be there, […]
Being stupid on the economy
Written By: - Date published: 10:02 am, February 23rd, 2009 - 20 comments
Brian Fallow has some extraordinarily good analysis of the economic situation in his piece today. Here’s some important passages (and my, unfortunately, extensive comments): “We are really talking about two recessions back to back,” AXA Global Investors chief economist Bevan Graham said. “Last year it was a domestic one, that we needed to have. There […]
Minimum wage rise a small but important victory for the Left
Written By: - Date published: 1:08 pm, February 10th, 2009 - 20 comments
Great, through concerted pressure the Left managed to force a 9-cent an hour real increase in the minimum wage from National/ACT. A 9 cent an hour real increase is not much but it’s a hell of a lot better than freezing the minimum wage at $12 an hour and letting inflation eat it as National/ACT had planned. The decision […]
More than words
Written By: - Date published: 11:20 am, February 10th, 2009 - 33 comments
I see the Maori Party has come out saying the increase in the minimum wage to $12.50 an hour isn’t enough, and that they still support both a $15 an hour minimum wage and a tax-free bracket up to $25,000 (about the full-time minimum wage income). Pity they didn’t do something about it when they […]
Who cares if it’s just PR?
Written By: - Date published: 10:09 am, February 9th, 2009 - 34 comments
There is a rumour in the Dom Post and the Herald that the minimum wage will be announced today and the Nats are going to increase it to either $12.50 or $12.40 depending on whether it’s Fairfax or APN you’re reading. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was true as John Key knows full well […]
Does raising the minimum wage really hurt employment?
Written By: - Date published: 10:47 am, February 3rd, 2009 - 23 comments
National’s excuse for illegally* failing to complete the annual review of the minimum wage is that it wants to ensure any increase doesn’t cost jobs. So, it seems pertanent to ask, does raising the minimum wage result in job losses? Every year, the Department of Labour, presents the Minister with a regulatory impact statement with […]
Splits and divisions on minimum wage
Written By: - Date published: 3:53 pm, February 2nd, 2009 - 28 comments
So Cabinet has deferred its decision on the minimum with John Key simply promising “it won’t be very far away at all”. Now that’s just shoddy. In tough economic times we need strong government leadership. Now is the time for certainty and action, it’s not the time to dither and umm and ahh. But we […]
The Standard wager
Written By: - Date published: 5:41 am, February 2nd, 2009 - 34 comments
Today, Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson will be presenting a paper to her Cabinet colleagues regarding the minimum wage. The Department of Labour recommended a fifty cent an hour increase. Word is, Kate Wilkinson will be recommending no change. But John Key was forced to commit to unspecified increases on the campaign trail, so most expect […]
Biz NZ opposes minimum wage increase
Written By: - Date published: 10:38 am, January 28th, 2009 - 32 comments
As we reported on Monday, the Cabinet is set to review the minimum wage. The Labour Department recommended maintaining its purchasing power by increasing the mw from $12 an hour to $12.50. Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson will propose keeping it at $12, a cut in the real value of the mw (many expect there will […]
Wage for minimum wage workers set to drop
Written By: - Date published: 6:22 am, January 26th, 2009 - 46 comments
In the Bay Report in December 2007, John Key was quoted as saying “we would love to see wages drop“. Inexplicably, the media at the time refused to accept the report of their small town colleague. Instead, they accepted Key’s various, contradictory excuses – ‘I was misquoted’, ‘I was joking’, ‘I was talking about Australian […]
A pointless symbolic distraction. At best.
Written By: - Date published: 11:24 am, January 23rd, 2009 - 17 comments
I’m the last person who’d criticise freezing the pay of our MPs but John Key’s cynical opportunism is at best a piece of pointless and time wasting PR and at worst a signal to attack Kiwi wages. Now before any of our regular right-wingers claim I’m reading too much into this it might pay to […]
Key delivers a Christmas kicking for workers
Written By: - Date published: 2:35 pm, December 19th, 2008 - 52 comments
We always said that a National/ACT government would be anti-worker but I’m surprised by how blatant they are being about it. In a series of hasty, secretive laws, they’ve put up taxes on workers, cut their Kiwisaver, and removed their work rights for the first 90 days of employment. Now, they have officially dropped the […]
Be pragmatic
Written By: - Date published: 2:22 pm, December 16th, 2008 - 3 comments
A fundamental of social democratic politics is full employment. It is sometimes said that work is the best form of welfare. When people are in work they have a sense of belonging and self-worth, they commit fewer crimes, they contribute to funding public services, they can afford a better standard of living for their families. […]
Credit where it’s due
Written By: - Date published: 12:04 pm, November 19th, 2008 - 30 comments
It’s exam season for high school students. So, for 10 points explain how the following statement (in the ACT-National agreement and repeated uncritically by the media) can be true, closing the income gap with Australia by 2025… will require a sustained lift in New Zealand’s productivity growth to 3 per cent a year. given: – […]
How to stimulate the economy
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, November 11th, 2008 - 9 comments
During the debate over the economic stimulus package in the US earlier this year, Moody’s produced a model that shows which stimulus options result in the most increase in GDP per dollar of government spending/tax reduction. I’ve highlighted the three options that are relevant to NZ (the Bush tax cuts are remarkably similar to the […]
Economy healthier than expected
Written By: - Date published: 11:42 am, November 4th, 2008 - 34 comments
The latest government accounts show the economy is in better condition than was expected. Tax take was $500 million higher than expected due to higher-than-expected income tax revenue. That means more money was being earned from wages and salaries than Treasury had forecast; in other words, unemployment is not rising as fast as Treasury had […]
Hypocrite
Written By: - Date published: 9:45 pm, November 3rd, 2008 - 47 comments
Watching Key tour Progressive Enterprises today was bad enough but watching him claim to support those workers in the leaders debate was sickening considering his party’s stance in 2006 when those same workers were locked out of their employment for daring to ask for a decent pay rise. At the time National’s employment spokesperson (who […]
Wages still growing strongly
Written By: - Date published: 1:48 pm, November 3rd, 2008 - 31 comments
Despite the recession, wages have continued to grow at a record rate and, crucially, faster than inflation. The average hourly rate was up 5.5% over the past year. The percentage of the economy that goes to workers (rather than to the capital owners) continues to increase. This is the outcome of running a low unemployment […]
Tories’ crack at socialism a poor substitute
Written By: - Date published: 1:39 pm, October 31st, 2008 - 5 comments
National’s redundancy package would effectively continue Working for Families payments for some people who would otherwise lose them after redunancy. Only people who have been in the same job for six months would get it, cutting out labourers, temps, and contract workers. For about the same cost, it would deliver more money to fewer people […]
Ripping the stuffing out
Written By: - Date published: 11:40 am, October 30th, 2008 - 1 comment
The CTU has released a second great youtube vid. Well worth a watch and emailing around.
Labour’s labour policy good for labourers
Written By: - Date published: 7:50 pm, October 27th, 2008 - 19 comments
Labour has unveiled its work rights policy, and it’s a good one: – minimum wage increases at least at the rate of inflation or the average wage increase, whichever is higher. That would bring it to nearly $15 a year by 2011. Why they didn’t just commit to $15 like the rest of the Left, […]
Make-work don’t work
Written By: - Date published: 2:15 pm, October 15th, 2008 - 24 comments
The Maori Party wants the dole abolished to be replaced by work schemes. It’s a bad idea but it’s not too far from being a good one. Make work schemes are bad in several ways. They distort the market for low-skill work. The State with an army of cheap, semi-involuntary labour ends up undercutting the […]
Labour chickens out on $15 minimum wage
Written By: - Date published: 2:54 pm, October 14th, 2008 - 23 comments
Labour, why do you do this to me? One day you’re announcing neo-Keynesian policies to help us through the coming recession, then you stand up for the principle that access to education shouldn’t be dependent on the wealth of ones parents, and, then, just when I’m starting to believe that you really are a true […]
Working our way forward
Written By: - Date published: 11:50 am, October 13th, 2008 - 16 comments
It was inevitable that the focus of media coverage of Labour’s announements yesterday would be the deposit insurance, it’s a good self-centred middle-class story. But the important stuff, as Irish pointed out last night, is the re-training money, the speed-up of infrastructure construction, the money for sewerage, housing, and anti-erosion projects. The deposit insurance simply acts to […]
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