Posts Tagged ‘CTU’

October 20th, day of action for work rights

Written By: - Date published: 6:45 am, October 19th, 2010 - 12 comments

Unemployment is up, wages are down. But the Nats want to put the boot into workers to keep costs down for their rich mates. They’re trying to take away workers’ rights, remove protections, cut pay, reduce holidays and diminish access to sick leave. Tomorrow is the national day of action when we fight back.

CTU’s Alternative Economic Strategy

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, October 12th, 2010 - 17 comments

The CTU has just released its Alternative Economic Strategy. Well, they call it ‘alternative’ but it’s not like the Nats have one beyond Key smiling and waving. Anyway, the CTU’s Economic Strategy is an extremely impressive document. It goes through the current problems and suggests 100 reforms for a more successful, fair economy and country.

Kiwis against Nats’ Fire at Will

Written By: - Date published: 11:10 am, September 20th, 2010 - 84 comments

A UMR poll just out asked 750 Kiwis if workers should have the right to appeal if they think they are unfairly dismissed within the first 90 days of employment. 80% said yes. That’s a damning rejection of National’s Fire at Will law, which the government wants to extend to every new worker. Will Key and Co listen? Fat chance.

Sacked 90 day worker wins justice

Written By: - Date published: 1:50 pm, August 25th, 2010 - 17 comments

Heather Smith, the pharmacy worker who was sacked unfairly under the 90 day fire at will law and featured in a recent advert for the campaign has won a CTU-backed case against her employer in the Employment Court.

Unions launch name and shame

Written By: - Date published: 7:09 am, August 13th, 2010 - 144 comments

John Key challenged the unions to “put up or shut up”. So they’re going to put up. The CTU has launched a campaign to name and shame businesses that are abusing the fire at will (90 day probation) bill. It’s a campaign based around personal stories. Heather Smith tells the first of many…

Widening movement for monetary policy reform

Written By: - Date published: 11:15 pm, June 24th, 2010 - 42 comments

Unique in the world, we task our Reserve Bank with only one goal – keeping inflation in the target range – and give it one blunt tool to achieve it. Adding other objectives would bring us into line with other countries and giving the Bank better tools is long overdue. We need a smarter, more sophisticated approach to monetary policy. It is great to see the Left pushing for it.

Not even miners will dig Gerry out

Written By: - Date published: 2:42 pm, May 4th, 2010 - 25 comments

When you’re that far on the backfoot, it’s not hard to teeter further. The CTU has today come out against the Government’s mining plans; a position even Brownlee admits is “a bit of a surprise” given the union’s membership includes miners. What’s the score now? I say time for a quick tally. We’ve got the […]

Unions call for secret ballots for lockouts

Written By: - Date published: 10:40 am, February 26th, 2010 - 46 comments

If National is going to legislate democratic procedures for unions taking industrial action, aren’t they bound by consistency to do the same for employers?

Requiring a secret ballot of shareholders before lockouts are allowed would be a good start.

There is power in a union

Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, December 10th, 2009 - 7 comments

About a month ago I used the Stats NZ Labour Cost Index to come up with the approximate distribution of payrises for unionised and non-unionised workers. I showed that most union members got payrises this year and most non-union members didn’t. Turns out that was pretty much on the money. The EPMU released figures yesterday […]

Reflections on the ERA

Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, October 22nd, 2009 - 4 comments

There’s been a fair bit of coverage of John Key’s use of the CTU conference to divide and rule over wages and announce he’ll be making it even easier for employers to sack people without going through the proper process, but it was this statement that really caught my attention: … the National Party’s election […]

Pay equity video

Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, July 3rd, 2009 - 11 comments

A short video from the NZEI from Tuesday’s pay equity rally at Parliament. There are also a bunch of photos on flickr from the CTU, EPMU and TEU.

Ripping the stuffing out

Written By: - Date published: 11:40 am, October 30th, 2008 - 1 comment

The CTU has released a second great youtube vid. Well worth a watch and emailing around.

CTU YouTube vid

Written By: - Date published: 10:38 pm, October 22nd, 2008 - 25 comments

Yep, that’s a pusy Roger Douglas zombie eye staring at you. Ew.

CTU on closing the wage gap

Written By: - Date published: 4:20 pm, October 3rd, 2008 - 4 comments

The Council of Trade Unions has done a lot of work on why wages are low for many workers in New Zealand and how they can be increased to close the wage gap with Australia. They offer six proposals: Increase the minimum wage to at least $15 per/hour We know from the painful experience of […]

Chutzpah

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, September 16th, 2008 - 17 comments

When the EPMU released its investigation notes on Shawn Tan it was obvious that some right-wing bloggers would seize on the fact that Tan had been employed on a probationary agreement and stupidly claim that, therefore, the union was hypocritical for opposing National’s fire at will policy (which creates a 90 day no-rights period for […]

Reaction roundup: Nats’ work rights policy

Written By: - Date published: 11:14 am, July 25th, 2008 - 39 comments

Democratic, voluntary organisations of workers: Finsec: “Within the current framework, many workers have been able to achieve real wage increases like the 5% increase from Westpac our members have been offered this week…These pay rises have come as a result of staff being able to bargain collectively through their own independent union. National’s policies undermining […]

CTU Secretary selected for Maungakiekie

Written By: - Date published: 9:09 am, May 3rd, 2008 - 49 comments

CTU Secretary Carol Beaumont is set for a change of career later this year. She’s been selected as the Labour candidate for the safe Auckland seat of Maungakiekie currently held by Mark Gosche. As we know, Mark is standing for the list only this year, in order to spend more time with his family and […]

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