He’s whatever you want him to be – except if you’re a worker

Written By: - Date published: 2:39 pm, September 5th, 2007 - Comments Off on He’s whatever you want him to be – except if you’re a worker
Categories: john key, workers' rights - Tags: ,

John Key’s swallowed a lot of rats to make National look electable: nuclear free, war in Iraq, fighter jets, paid parental leave, climate change etc,etc. But you can always trust a Tory to stay true to type over the one thing that they care about more than anything – cutting workers’ pay and conditions. It’s just what they do. They’re really dependable about it. It’s almost endearing in a weird kind of way. It’s a like a wife whose husband wants her to play kinky sex games and she finally draws the line. “Look Bill, I’ve been a good sport haven’t I? But now that really hurts!”

So no big surprise today to read that John Key, in a speech to healthcare providers, promises to “remove the Government’s de facto compulsory unionism requirements for aged-care workers.”

Yeah, those fat-cat aged care workers are really creaming it with the first decent pay increase in many, many years thanks to the union’s FairShare campaign that led to the government making District Health Boards make sure the money set aside to address the shocking low pay of aged care providers actually made it to the workers’ pay packets through collective negotiations. Before that, for the past 8 years at least most of them got a pay increase when Labour increased the minimum wage.

Keep it up, John – all the workers haven’t heard you yet.

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