Mood of the smokoroom – fearful

mickysavage
4 months ago
Categories: uncategorized

The Council of Trade Unions has completed its annual survey of workers and the mood is grim.

The survey, the sixth ‘Mood of the Workforce’ conducted annually by the CTU, gathered 2000 responses. Responses were from people who responded to an email from the CTU to a random selection of 50,000 people from the CTU’s ‘Together’ email list.

The email list is a database of people the CTU had contacted with over the last seven years via petitions, parliamentary submission calls, community events, and fundraising for community causes.

The CTU – which is closely aligned with, although not part of, the Labour Party – said the results of the survey showed more than two-thirds of working people felt the Government would make it harder to meet cost of living pressures, and more than three quarters of respondents believed the Government’s policies would make it harder to secure a “fair” pay rise.

President Richard Wagstaff said the results showed working people felt “insecure at work”.

“The feedback from this year’s survey is that many people are worried about the future of their jobs and well-being of their families.

“It’s clear the rushed and backwards looking repeal of employment legislation passed without consultation has signalled to working people that the Government does not care about their interests or the interests of most New Zealanders.

TV One’s reporting has somewhat toned down the tenor of the comments made. The CTU’s analysis included these bullet points:

80% of respondents said that the performance of the new government was bad or very bad
70% of respondents said that the new government’s policies would make it more difficult to meet the cost of living over the next 12 months.
53% of respondents said that the new government’s policies would make their job security worse.
Many comments from participants identified economic and/or societal divisiveness. They expressed ideas such as the new government “only cares about high-income workers not low-income”, that it “is working for donors not the rest of us”, and that its policies “will increase inequality”.
10% of comments provided described the government as racist or pandering to racists/racial division
The sentiment “the government is taking NZ backwards” appeared in 140 comments.

National’s Nicola Willis replied with a glib throw away line about how the survey only attracted a 4% response. This displays a disturbing lack of comprehension. The survey email was sent to a sample of the CTU’s contact list, not every member. And the responses poured in.

Of course National could surprise us all, work to improve the plight of ordinary workers, and increase their bargaining power so that wages can increase to address the cost of living crisis National trumpeted about. But so far its policies have been retrograde. Getting rid of fair pay agreements and extending the 90 day fire at will law will not improve worker’s conditions.

This National Government is not a John Key Labour lite with privatisation sort of Government. It is more of the Ruth Richardson mother of all budgets Employment Contracts mode proudly brought to you by its right wing sponsors. Workers are totally justified to be pessimistic about their future.