The game is rigged

Written By: - Date published: 8:50 am, June 12th, 2012 - 5 comments
Categories: class war, wages - Tags:

Times are tight, right? You’ve probably been told that when your boss says you can’t have a pay rise that keeps up with inflation. Yeah, well. It seems that doesn’t apply to managers. The largest jump in median weekly income has been for managers – twice the change across all workers. In hourly terms, no-one is keeping up with inflation. Welcome to the brighter future.

 

(I would have gone back further but they changed the occupation categories in 2009)

5 comments on “The game is rigged ”

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  1. Carol 1
    12 June 2012 at 9:16 am

    Laila Harre was very good on The Union Report, on Triangle last night. She said the workers that got better rises were in unions. The government’s strategy is now to attack non-unionised workers re collective bargaining etc, and drive a wedge between them and unionised workers. i.e the government is going after the weakest and least powerful workers.

    The relatively higher increases for Community and Personal Service workers may be a reflection of that.

    I don’t know who gets classified as “Managers”. These days all sorts of people get called “managers”, even when they don’t have a lot of status or power within their organisation.

  2. Dr Terry 2
    12 June 2012 at 11:24 am

    Laila Harre is very good, as can be expected. But it is hardly a “game”, it is perverse (putting it mildly). Yes, this government goes after the “weakest and least powerful workers”, but I would go further to say, “This government goes after the weakest and least powerful in general”.

  3. Steve Withers 3
    12 June 2012 at 1:04 pm

    This lines up nicely with what Bill English was saying on Checkpoint on Friday night. The government wants to reduce government debt in order, he says, to lower interest rates and lower the value of the New Zealand dollar. He claimed this would produce prosperity.

    Maybe for foreign-owned corporate farmers….

    I see interest rate reductions cutting the incomes of people who rely on interest in savings. They have been subsidising the indebted for several years already.

    I see a lower exchange increasing inflation on imports – affecting everyone on lower incomes the most. Jobs will still go to China.

    I see lower interest rates continuing to feed the housing price bubble that pushes home ownership further and further beyond the reach of young Kiwis….who earn those lower, contracted-out wages with no overtime for 60 hour weeks this government wants everyone to be on.

    Rigged?

    It’s poked.

    This government is probably the worst I’ve seen in 30 years. Even Muldoon starts to look good because, wrong as he was, at least he put the ordinary Kiwi first.

    • tc 3.1
      12 June 2012 at 1:54 pm

      Muldoon also got some big infrastructure projects done under ‘think big’ some of which his idol is now flogging off.

      That was then and this is now and none of Muldoons era would last a term with this gang of self serving egotists and corrupt corporate sell outs as there was a modicum of integrity to the cause back then, be it left or right.

      lockwood looks very uncomfortable in the speakers chair presiding over this so called ‘democracy’ some days.

  4. joe90 4
    12 June 2012 at 2:04 pm

    Rigged the World over according to this chart pron from the US.