wages

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And now, some good news

Written By: - Date published: 9:46 am, October 23rd, 2012 - 8 comments

Union members are the ones who win decent wages and conditions for everyone. And the good news is union membership is increasing, despite rising unemployment.

Adventures in the slave trade

Written By: - Date published: 9:50 am, October 22nd, 2012 - 74 comments

Slavery was abolished in the 19th century, wasn’t it? From wage-slavery to human-trafficking, modern day forms of slavery have many faces, all in the interests of profits for the few.  What are these different faces, and what impact do they have on the lives of ordinary people?

A sincere question about CE pay

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, October 13th, 2012 - 139 comments

Seriously, people, what on Earth can David Smol, CE of MoBIE, possibly do to earn $590k a year?

The race to the bottom

Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, October 11th, 2012 - 21 comments

Youth rates are an admission of economic failure.

Banks and Dunne vote down minimum wage

Written By: - Date published: 9:49 am, September 20th, 2012 - 51 comments

David Clark’s private member’s Bill to increase the minimum wage was voted down 61 to 59 last night. Shame on John Banks and Peter Dunne.

Clark on the minimum wage

Written By: - Date published: 8:55 am, September 5th, 2012 - 18 comments

David Clark’s opinion piece in The Herald – “The PM’s cleaner deserves more pay” – makes for welcome reading…

10 Jacks are as good as their master

Written By: - Date published: 6:43 am, August 21st, 2012 - 128 comments

Compare the latest figures on CEO pay to the median income of New Zealanders and to the minimum wage. The average CEO gets 10 times the pay of a full-time minimum wage worker or the income of the typical Kiwi. The gap is growing. The CEO pay increase was 26 times the median income increase, 56 times what a full-time minimum wage earner got. Does anyone think this is a recipe for a happy and successful New Zealand?

Hands on Labour

Written By: - Date published: 9:51 pm, August 16th, 2012 - 32 comments

Fresh ideas to grow a stronger manufacturing sector, on top of the major changes Labour has already signalled featured in a speech given today by David Parker to a union audience in Wellington. David Cunliffe was there too,  and I particularly liked the  discussion afterwards. The key players are receptive to good ideas and it looks like Labour will have a real alternative to offer at the next election.

The rich get richer

Written By: - Date published: 11:14 am, July 30th, 2012 - 30 comments

The pay of CEOs in our largest listed companies increased at more than four times the rate of the pay of workers last year. And workers’ pay actually went backwards after inflation. Meanwhile, the average CEO has pocketed more than $1,500 a week of tax cuts from National. Meanwhile, the 150 richest New Zealanders saw their wealth increase by 18% in the past year.

Can you afford to buy shares?

Written By: - Date published: 9:27 am, July 5th, 2012 - 106 comments

The median household has $1700 in the bank – you couldn’t really term that savings, it’s operating cash. The Nats want us to fork out at least a grand a time to participate in each share float. That just doesn’t add up. Labour and the Greens are right, this isn’t an opportunity for ordinary people to invest, it’s a wealth transfer to the elite.

Police to march?

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, June 21st, 2012 - 34 comments

Who guards the guardians if the police march on Parliament?

The game is rigged

Written By: - Date published: 8:50 am, June 12th, 2012 - 5 comments

Times are tight, right? You’ve probably been told that when your boss says you can’t have a pay rise that keeps up with inflation. Yeah, well. It seems that doesn’t apply to managers. The largest jump in median weekly income has been for managers – twice the change across all workers. In hourly terms, no-one is keeping up with inflation. Welcome to the brighter future.

Great (Tom) Scott!

Written By: - Date published: 10:10 am, May 31st, 2012 - 15 comments

A living wage

Written By: - Date published: 10:34 am, May 23rd, 2012 - 17 comments

The Service and Food Workers Union is launching a campaign for a living wage at 12 o’clock today.

[Update: Campaign site]

Polls and elections

Written By: - Date published: 9:14 am, May 19th, 2012 - 21 comments

Another poll to add to current mix. Not a big shift, but in the right direction, and getting the right kinds of headline.  And here’s another headline that isn’t going to help the Nats – the wage gap with Australia is growing at the rate of $1 a month.

I’d love to see wages drop

Written By: - Date published: 7:32 am, May 15th, 2012 - 125 comments

Remember when John Key said he’d love to see wages drop? Yep? How about when Bill English claimed our low wages were our competitive advantage. Uh-huh.

Well the changes they’re bringing in to undermine working Kiwis’ bargaining power will do exactly that.

Wages rise faster than inflation!

Written By: - Date published: 7:27 am, May 2nd, 2012 - 26 comments

For the first time under this National government, average wages and salaries actually rose (2%) faster than inflation (1.6%), so in the last year people are ever so slightly better off – I think congratulations are in order!

The other wage gap

Written By: - Date published: 12:26 pm, April 20th, 2012 - 22 comments

In his speech yesterday, David Shearer talked about how wages have lagged productivity gains since the neoliberal revolution. Here’s what he was talking about:

Vision part 2: a more equal NZ

Written By: - Date published: 10:31 pm, April 19th, 2012 - 23 comments

David Shearer’s delivered his second “Vision” speech. It’s good to hear he wants to lead a government that tackles inequality, wants proper jobs rather than casualised ones and our kids earning or learning.

Winning the race to the bottom

Written By: - Date published: 11:38 am, April 19th, 2012 - 42 comments

You don’t get fat off the crumbs from someone else’s table and you don’t get rich by being someone else’s butler. So, why the Nats are so happy that Australia is sending a few call centre and cigarette jobs here, where wages are lower, I don’t know. We’ll be wealthier if we produce more wealth, more stuff of real value. Not if our competitive advantage is low wages and insecure jobs.

How wealthy do you feel?

Written By: - Date published: 9:14 am, April 9th, 2012 - 112 comments

If everyone earned the same amount (including babies) across the entire world, we’d each get about $USD10,000 each.  So a family of four anywhere in the world would get about $NZD49,000.  That figure makes world poverty pretty hard to stomach.  It’s not that there’s not enough in this world – only that some people haven’t learnt to share.

Back to basics

Written By: - Date published: 12:54 pm, March 23rd, 2012 - 5 comments

The Herald editorial says many “saw a more efficient and more flexible port emerging from” contracting out at PoAL. This is an oft-spouted fundamental misunderstanding of what is happening. Contracting out would not reduce time or cost to move freight. It would just reduce the downtime the port pays for amounting to a simple transfer of wealth from wages to profits.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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…

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.