Written By: - Date published: 8:59 am, December 18th, 2018 - 62 comments
A Hawkes Bay man has been charged with slavery and human trafficking. Why are we surprised?
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, May 17th, 2018 - 20 comments
The National Party has recently been on the Government’s case for increasing strikes under their watch. But is that really a fair criticism, and does it jive well with the other things the Opposition has been claiming to value?
Written By: - Date published: 9:22 am, September 29th, 2017 - 49 comments
National’s one and only strategy this election was lying about Labour, specifically Labour’s budget and their tax policy. The $11.7bn hole lie just made the Nats look stupid, but the evidence suggests that the tax lie did real damage. Why are we so angry about tax and so apathetic about the much more important issue of low pay?
Written By: - Date published: 8:29 am, August 17th, 2017 - 15 comments
Expect plenty of Nat boasting on “the economy” in the election campaign. They’ll be desperate to hide the inconvenient fact that ordinary workers are going backwards.
Written By: - Date published: 4:05 pm, June 29th, 2017 - 107 comments
Labour: “After nine years of National, working people’s share of the economy is falling. Less than 40 per cent of economic growth under National has gone into working people’s wages. If working people’s slice of the economy hadn’t shrunk under National, workers’ pay packets would have been $23 billion larger.”
Written By: - Date published: 9:38 am, May 30th, 2017 - 40 comments
Bill English knows that our low wage economy is a ticking time-bomb for the government. He must be starting to get worried. The repeated promises of jam tomorrow are well worn out now.
Written By: - Date published: 9:46 am, May 24th, 2017 - 39 comments
I don’t know of a single piece written in support of Bennett’s proposal. She has been in the bubble too long, and lost touch with the values of NZ.
Written By: - Date published: 7:04 am, May 11th, 2017 - 44 comments
As usual National proves itself to be no friend of women. They have voted the Equal Pay Amendment Bill down because they will always choose employers over people.
Written By: - Date published: 7:01 am, April 26th, 2017 - 31 comments
In the warm afterglow of the huge wage increase for health care workers the case for addressing NZ’s creaking low-wage economy is getting some recognition (along with the effect of immigration on wages).
Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, April 19th, 2017 - 38 comments
National is about to execute a flip flop on immigration, not for any constructive reason, but to try and head off Winston Peters’ big issue.
Written By: - Date published: 8:39 am, November 26th, 2016 - 13 comments
Audrey Young writes on growing union numbers, strengths, and wins for their members. Excellent!
Written By: - Date published: 9:16 am, October 23rd, 2016 - 198 comments
Convincing workers not to organise in their own best interests is one of the great successes of right-wing politics.
Written By: - Date published: 7:05 am, August 22nd, 2016 - 79 comments
Hickey: “The best way for an economy to grow is for the market to allow wages to grow. Allowing a flood of low-skilled migrants is frustrating that market mechanism with the short-term aim of keeping wages low for employers.”
Written By: - Date published: 8:05 am, August 15th, 2016 - 30 comments
Our wages are too low generally, and this is one of the main economic challenges that we face. A few more employers committing to paying a living wage would be a good place to start.
Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, August 12th, 2016 - 91 comments
Reprinted with permission, by Deborah Russell from Left Side Story: What do New Zealanders actually earn? And why we need to understand these figures.
Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, August 9th, 2016 - 179 comments
The Nats would have you believe that the economy is in good shape, in which case there is no excuse for the ongoing stagnation of wages. Of course it’s not as simple as that.
Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, May 23rd, 2016 - 116 comments
A great reception for Little’s speech, and a take-home message that resonates well.
Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, April 14th, 2016 - 72 comments
Our “business leaders” are doing an objectively poor job. Perhaps instead of insulting Kiwi workers as “pretty damned hopeless”, Bill English should be taking aim at these captains of industry.
Written By: - Date published: 8:46 am, February 6th, 2016 - 54 comments
Boring stuff about boring old jobs and wages.
Written By: - Date published: 10:12 am, November 1st, 2015 - 116 comments
Well paid staff are happy, productive staff. Who’d have thought it!
Written By: - Date published: 11:20 am, December 1st, 2014 - 30 comments
Another example of a bad employer unfairly docking a worker’s pay. But this worker was a union member…
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, March 8th, 2014 - 28 comments
The official theme of International Women’s Day this year is “Inspiring Change”. It’s a little vague, a little aspirational, not too confrontational – fairly typical for this kind of awareness-raising exercise. But it is 2014, and it’s an election year, and the way we talk about women, and women’s work, does have the potential to […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:32 am, April 27th, 2013 - 5 comments
Key said “we would love to see wages drop”. Sure enough National’s anti-worker employment Bill is designed to have that effect, as stated in a Cabinet briefing paper.
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, June 21st, 2012 - 34 comments
Who guards the guardians if the police march on Parliament?
Written By: - Date published: 8:31 am, March 22nd, 2011 - 17 comments
According to Scoop, the PM is telling porkies about the average income of New Zealanders. On behalf of the various authors here at The Standard I’d just like to say, well, gosh! — imagine our surprise.
Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, October 20th, 2010 - 44 comments
National have been running some fine lines of bullshit lately. Keith Ng’s recent post at Public Address calls them out on two of them. The first, National is trying to claim credit for low inflation. The Second, National is trying to claim that recent wage increases have been better than the previous 9 years. Keith takes the bullshit apart – dirty work, but someone has to do it.
Written By: - Date published: 12:58 pm, May 5th, 2008 - 17 comments
The Labour Cost Index rose a record 3.4% for the March year. That means wages and salaries for doing the same job rose an average of 3.4% over the year. Public sector wages were up 3.3% and private sector wages up 3.5%. Retail and other low-paid workers did especially well, with their pay up 5.1%, […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:37 pm, March 25th, 2008 - 17 comments
Congratulations to Kiwisaver’s 500,000th member, baby Remy Van Cruysen, whose parents, Jules and Megan, signed him up today. By the time Remy is an adult he will have a nest-egg worth $49,000 in today’s money. Kiwisaver has been enormously popular. People have signed up at twice the expected rate 500,000 have joined in less than eight months, […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:38 pm, March 20th, 2008 - 74 comments
NZers’ wallets will bulge under Act, says Roger Douglas. Sure they will Roger – with the bills from our kids’ user-pays schools, our privatised hospital fees, water charges, private accident insurance premiums and, if your party gets half a chance, the privatised oxygen from the air we breathe. Because we all know who gets rich […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:58 pm, February 28th, 2008 - 103 comments
Like most of his policy positions John Key’s story on his comment “we would love to see wages drop” just keeps on changing. First he was “misrepresented”, then his comment was “lighthearted”, and now he’s claiming he never said it. Which is it John? In an interview today with Mickey Havoc, Key now denies ever […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:25 pm, February 25th, 2008 - 23 comments
Far North Labour MP Shane Jones laid down the gauntlet to Key over the ‘we would love to see wages drop‘ scandal. Jones reminds Key that: “all it takes to ruin a Teflon pan is one scratch” and in a second press release lays out his challenge: ‘there’s only one way for Mr Key to […]
The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.
Recent Comments