Parliamentary staff begin industrial action

Written By: - Date published: 4:23 pm, October 5th, 2009 - 6 comments
Categories: Parliament, workers' rights - Tags: ,

Low-level industrial action has begun at Parliament after workers rejected an offer from the employer that would have slashed redundancy provisions and kept pay outside the collective, meaning wage cuts for the foreseeable future.

The management is trying to please their political bosses by cutting wages and is looking at outsourcing the provision of security at the Parliamentary complex (hence, the desire to slash redundancy provisions). This cynical attack is just another reason why we need to get basic redundancy protections enshrined in law.

40% of the 300 non-political staff at the Parliamentary complex are in the PSA. Among the security guards, it’s 80%. At present they’re just doing one-hour stopworks but if the bosses can’t come up with a reasonable offer soon, the workers will be able to effectively close down Parliament if the security staff walk off the job, and then there’ll be some seriously pissed off MPs for the bosses to deal with.

6 comments on “Parliamentary staff begin industrial action ”

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  1. Sean 1
    5 October 2009 at 5:58 pm

    wage freeze for the foreseeable future like the rest of us, or “wage cuts for the foreseeable future” as you claim?

    • Daveo 1.1
      5 October 2009 at 6:11 pm

      He’s clearly referring to both nominal and real wages. A nominal pay freeze is a real term pay cut. Quite simple really.

      Also, we’re not all getting pay freezes. That’s what they want you to believe to dampen down expectations. The reality is most unionised workers are getting pay increases.

    • Eddie 1.2
      5 October 2009 at 7:01 pm

      Sean. try some maths. as a clever rightie, I’m sure you can handle it.

      If your wage doesn’t rise for three years and your cost of living (inflation) rises 2% per year, what happens to your wage in real terms? That is, what happens to your wage’s ability to pay for your cost of living? It falls eh?

      A pay freeze is a pay cut, and most workers aren’t getting a pay freeze, they are getting an increase to match inflation or better it. If you are happy meekly accept having your wages cut that’s your problem but don’t expect others to meekly accept the same.

  2. burt 2
    5 October 2009 at 7:16 pm

    Eddie

    Try this… If you wages rise every year and the tax thresholds stay static – what happens to your wage in real terms? ….

    Please, where was the concern for middle income earners when fiscal drag was removing their spending power ?

    • Marty G 2.1
      5 October 2009 at 7:42 pm

      It’s virtually impossible for fiscal drag to reduce your wages in real terms, they need to have been right on a threshold, the jump in tax rate needs to be big, and you need to have got an increase just a sliver above inflation.

      Labour’s tax cut package was designed to totally undo the effect of fiscal drag between 1999 and 2011 and give a tax cut to the poor. I believe at the time the Standard authors welcomed Labour’s move to tackle fiscal drag. Hard to criticise them for not doing so earlier – it was the first budget since the Standard came online.

  3. Rex Widerstrom 3
    5 October 2009 at 7:29 pm

    It would be a mistake to leave the security of our Parliamentary complex to outside firms. I’m possibly the only person who’s both worked in the complex and owned a security company.

    Parliament is a nutter magnet (and I don’t just mean the ones elected to it) moreso than any other building in the country. Yet at the same time there are citizens with genuine grievances and a right to access our decision makers. A security guard can’t simply resort to “Piss off pal, this is private property” as they can at a nightclub or even an office… they need high levels of tact and people skills as well as an above-average ability to spot and handle trouble.

    In my experience the people employed at Parliament to do security were far more highly skilled than the average security guard (as well as being amongst the nicest bunch of people one could hope to meet).

    And just how bad are private security guards? Well my former firm picked up a lot of work from the “big name” firms and I got to hear all sorts of stories.

    One that sticks in my mind was a house in Wellington that was being used to shoot a TV series. Overnight, every single piece of equipment was marched out the front door. The production company, commenting on their reasons for sacking the security firm that was on duty during the robbery, said “We could just about have excused the fact that the guard slept through the whole thing. It was the fact that his bloody dog was asleep too that sealed it” 😀