Petition for safer workplaces

13 comments on “Petition for safer workplaces ”

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1. Tom Gould 1

   9 June 2015 at 2:20 pm

   Really, another petition? They might have been effective in the 19th century, but now?
   • Charles 1.1

     9 June 2015 at 2:34 pm

     I would’ve agreed up till about the year 2000. From that point onward it has become increasingly necessary for the comfortable classes to remind themselves where they came from and that others are still there, and will always be there, because a diet of self-interest tends to blunten once sharp minds. No one is going to help them remember, in fact, the opposite seems to be true. Simple, easy, cost-free – and yes, perhaps even pointless – gestures are more about staying personally aware, self-checking one’s own integrity, than the potential effect they’ll have on the closed minds in the government. Do it to stay awake. Anything else that happens is all bonus.
   • Tracey 1.2

     9 June 2015 at 4:32 pm

     i guess you havent been watching the adoption of lp and green ideas in the form of petitions…
   • Draco T Bastard 1.3

     9 June 2015 at 4:48 pm

     Actually, through the use of social media I think petitions are becoming ever more effective. We’re no longer seeing petitions with hundreds or even thousand being presented to parliament but tens of thousands.

     Part of the reason why they’re effective is because it engages people in politics again. Something that hasn’t happened well in a long time.

     Another reason is because they’re actually easy. You don’t need people hanging round on street corners bugging people as they go past and people who want to sign don’t need to be out looking for places to sign at.

     All of this would indicate to me that modern petitions are a great way to bring accountability back to our democracy rather than leaving it as an elected dictatorship.
2. the Pink Postman 2

   9 June 2015 at 2:26 pm

   I think its time to seriously think about compulsory unionism . The lack of strong unions is a disgrace and the result is that workers have no voice or say in the health and safety at work , or in fact their conditions at work.
   • te reo putake 2.1

     9 June 2015 at 3:17 pm

     Yep. Spot on as usual, pink postie. At the very least it should be done on a site by site basis. That is, if the majority are union, and there’s a collective agreement, then all who benefit from that agreement should both pay dues and have a say on what’s in it, what the pay rise should be etc. And union fees should be tax deductible; the bosses Employers Association dues always have been.
   • Tom Gould 2.2

     9 June 2015 at 4:18 pm

     I’m still gobsmacked that there are still seemingly rational people alive who can seriously propose such a crazy idea. Has it ever occurred that most people don’t join unions because they are completely irrelevant to their lives? But I guess the enlightened higher beings of the left know what’s best for the poor ignorant working classes?
     • Tracey 2.2.1

       9 June 2015 at 4:35 pm

       blah bpah blah

       the systematic demonizing of unions has seen their decline BECAUSE union members tend to be paid more and have better conditions than non union workers. it makes no sense that people would choose to be paid less and have worse conditions unless they are being conned.
     • Atiawa 2.2.2

       9 June 2015 at 4:46 pm

       Unionism has never, in the last 25 years being more relevant to working people and their families than what it is today. There is ample evidence that overwhelmingly supports a return to compulsory unionism.
       I find it difficult to comprehend why the “Tom’s” of the world along with right-wing governments of the past and the present, have continually legislated against organised labour if they weren’t so successful in ensuring that working people had a collective workplace voice & bargaining power.
       And please don’t attempt to justify any anti compulsion argument on the basis of how unions may have operated in the 70’s. Any such argument pales in comparison to the greed & larger slice of the economic pie secured by CEO’s & shareholder’s, at the expense of workers and their pay packets.
       • Molly 2.2.2.1

         9 June 2015 at 5:35 pm

         +100.
     • the pigman 2.2.3

       9 June 2015 at 9:09 pm

       Colour me bonkers… because buying into anything other than your beige, Blairite brand of left-wing politics is just TOTALLY INSANE right Tom?

       It has left the Left (and the workers) so hale and hearty globally, after all.
3. blue 3

   9 June 2015 at 7:00 pm

   Unions are part of the balance of democracy, giving strength to the voice of the workers, which is most of us. The parliament, the courts, the unions, the public service, all act as balance to each other and provide a path towards a decent, equitable and civil society. What we have now is the unbalancing effect of free marketeers whose self interest is unfettered and knows no (or few) bounds. Not even ecological and social crises slow the ‘progress’ of these ‘uber menschen’ because they have structurally altered the balance of power to favour one aspect of our society, i.e. themselves. Time to rebalance the show.
   • Anne 3.1

     9 June 2015 at 8:01 pm

     And in doing so, they have moved the political centre so far to the right that the actual centre – as recognised by successive governments on both sides of the spectrum – is now referred to as the “Far Left”.

     Savage, Fraser, Holland (yep even Holland), Nash, Holyoake, Marshall, Kirk, Rowling, Muldoon and Lange (after his cup of tea) must be ‘spinning like tops in their respective graves’.

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