The hairdressers of Levin and Foxton

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, September 13th, 2014 - 44 comments
Categories: election 2014, labour, minimum wage - Tags: , , , , , ,

John Key reckons increasing the minimum wage would hurt “the hairdressers in Levin or Foxton”. So Rob McCann, Labour’s candidate for Ōtaki, asked one how she felt about that.

http://youtu.be/E_tDKMqmU3w

44 comments on “The hairdressers of Levin and Foxton ”

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  1. RedBaronCV 1
    13 September 2014 at 1:47 pm

    There’s a lotta nice people out there – and a great explanation

  2. Rodel 2
    13 September 2014 at 1:59 pm

    Well said Victoria. Like many good employers she probably already pays above the minimum wage and is therefore not affected.

  3. dv 3
    13 September 2014 at 2:21 pm

    Key made play about raising the min wage just under $2 in 6 years.

    Labour wants to raise it $2 in 2 years
    Nats say Labour proposal will cost at least 6000 jobs

    SO how many jobs , did the nat rise of $2 cost?

    On a pro rata that would be 2000 jobs!!!

  4. Sable 4
    13 September 2014 at 2:32 pm

    Keys is really grasping at straws but then I do not believe he had much to offer to start with…..

    • Rodel 4.1
      13 September 2014 at 2:44 pm

      Can’t remember the details but when Labour was last in power our unemployment rate was the lowest in the OECD. i.e. people had jobs.

      Key and English boast of 82,000 new jobs in the last 12 months. Yeh, maybe, but starting from the very low bench mark they created themselves.

      I’d bet a signed bottle of wine that we are nowhere near the high employment levels that Clark and Cullen achieved.Anyone got the figures?

  5. indiana 5
    13 September 2014 at 2:55 pm

    Why don’t we just make minimum wage $30 per hour? Why mess around with micro increments? What harm could possibly happen?

    • One Anonymous Bloke 5.1
      13 September 2014 at 4:13 pm

      Look everyone, a ratfucker arguing in bad faith.

    • Paul 5.2
      13 September 2014 at 4:17 pm

      A very silly argument by someone trying to derail
      Probably from the Slater/Collins/Ede school of politics.

    • Hanswurst 5.3
      13 September 2014 at 6:38 pm

      Or why don’t we increase the 90-day fire-at-will option to 100 years? That would really give employers confidence to employ whomever they like.

      Also, I thought National were all about making employment more attractive than being on benefits? What better way than ensuring wages are higher?

  6. Used to be a socialist 6
    13 September 2014 at 3:17 pm

    Agree with Indiana, everyone should have an increase of 100%. Or alternatively everyone should be paid $40 per hour regardless of occupation/profession.

    • quartz 6.1
      13 September 2014 at 4:03 pm

      Or nothing. You should ask to be paid nothing. Then your boss could create another job or two.

      • Chris 6.1.1
        14 September 2014 at 1:11 pm

        But only one or two. It still costs to employ people so anything more than that starts to affect the new bottom line created by not paying wages.

    • One Anonymous Bloke 6.2
      13 September 2014 at 4:15 pm

      A brace of ratfuckers arguing in bad faith, like a tag team comprised of two pieces of dogshit.

    • Paul 6.3
      13 September 2014 at 4:20 pm

      Another Slater clone.
      Have you read Dirty Politics yet?

    • Terry Bond 6.4
      13 September 2014 at 4:45 pm

      My boss (the owner of the company I do some work for) was complaining about the minimum wage being increased (and pay increases in general) but can afford to give himself a significant pay rise as well as a new BMW & beach house.

      I’ve always found it interesting that executives pay rises can always be justified. But Joe Blow on the shop floor, who by the way is praised when the company is doing really well, and is encouraged to work harder with the promise of a rise & bonus, is then told things are “tight” at pay rise time.

      • One Anonymous Bloke 6.4.1
        13 September 2014 at 4:51 pm

        Yeah, it must have been terrible for him under Lab5 what with Cullen putting the minimum wage up every year and unemployment falling to its lowest level in NZ history.

        The cognitive dissonance: think of the headaches!

    • KJT 6.5
      13 September 2014 at 6:00 pm

      Good idea. Worked fine in Cuba. Didn’t stop them from having some of the worlds best Doctors.

    • Draco T Bastard 6.6
      13 September 2014 at 7:00 pm

      Believe it or not but if everyone simply had enough to live well on our economy would be far more dynamic. There just wouldn’t be any rich people who are actually the problem.

    • Little Boy Bleu 6.7
      14 September 2014 at 12:42 am

      Why are you no longer a socialist? Let me guess. You had a vision of becoming a boss with endless mountains of money as a result of paying your workers peanuts. Tsk, three weeks on the minimum wage and you’d be screaming your head off for Key to raise it.

  7. millsy 7
    13 September 2014 at 3:24 pm

    Hairdressers spend 8-10 hours a day standing up, and working with very sharp tools and dangerous chemicals around some of the most vulnerable parts of the human body. One wrong move and you can fuck things up in a major way.

    All the while having to come up with small talk, and deal with a variety of hair styles and headshapes, and the personalities that own them.

    You have to be pretty onto it when haidressing, and it is a high skilled job.

    And John Key doesnt want them to have a pay rise…

  8. rich the other 8
    13 September 2014 at 4:25 pm

    Perhaps it is affordable ?? I don’t know .
    What happens to those currently being paid $2 an hour above the minimum , presumably they will also want to maintain their relativity , this may flow on right up the pay scale .
    Can employers afford to pay what will probably be a chain reaction or will they simply cut staff , that’s the risk .

    • Paul 8.1
      13 September 2014 at 4:28 pm

      Concerned Tory?

    • One Anonymous Bloke 8.2
      13 September 2014 at 4:29 pm

      The risk? Why does it never happen anywhere in the world ever, then?

      Oh, right, you’re lying.

      • adam 8.2.1
        13 September 2014 at 4:36 pm

        But, that’s all the right know, lies and spin – they don’t have much left to argue with these days OAB. Not like they can argue policy, or that they understand economics.

      • rich the other 8.2.2
        13 September 2014 at 7:08 pm

        Name any country where wages were increased by about %15 (no calculator ) based on a wish , not increased performance of the business , keeping in mind this will be a chain reaction on all wages .
        When you are talking about small town NZ , paying an extra $80 a week per worker will have an impact , the question is, is it negative or positive .
        The greens want twice that .

        • adam 8.2.2.1
          13 September 2014 at 8:51 pm

          And there is my point. Sheesh rich the other, do you understand what economic even is? But it’s actually 11 states and all of them are inside the leader of the 5EYES. But, I digress – don’t confuse micro and macro and don’t think just like a liberal economist, because the good news is – there are many alternatives. So rich the other, how about you get out of you little eighties groove and realise we do know what we are talking about. Because the 80’s are well and truly over, that boat sailed, and we see it for the con it is.

        • Colonial Viper 8.2.2.2
          13 September 2014 at 10:50 pm

          In the USA wages increased by far far more than 15%. The WPA and CCC created millions of jobs, taking on the unemployed, and paying them a living wage.

          In NZ all it takes is a simple redistribution of national income to workers by a mere 1%-2%. That’s not too hard to imagine is it? The country is already earning that income, and hat won’t change, just the distribution of it.

        • Draco T Bastard 8.2.2.3
          14 September 2014 at 12:18 am

          The businesses have been improving and productivity has gone up but, in real terms, wages have been stagnating or going backwards. The problem is that the bludging shareholders and upper management have been taking all the benefits of that increase for themselves and not giving any of it to the people actually doing the production.

          Distribution of the wealth is due for some serious re-balancing.

    • millsy 8.3
      13 September 2014 at 4:45 pm

      So you want to hold down wages then?

      Bet you want to have workers earning just $2 per hour plus tips, like in the USA, and then sleep in their car after work.

      Do you want to get rip of paid holidays and sick leave as well

      • Paul 8.3.1
        13 September 2014 at 4:53 pm

        Yes, if the only way a business can operate is by paying its workers salaries that make it impossible for them to keep up with the cost of living, should that company be in business.

        Of course a massive number of lowly paid jobs in fast food, supermarkets, call centres and the cleaning sector are for massive companies who could easily afford to pay their workers a lot more….it’s just that greedy overseas shareholders( usually banks, investment and insurance companies) want their profits to be large and short term.
        There’s always an excuse made by Tories for not paying workers a decent wage.
        It can be summarised in one word. Greed.

      • Draco T Bastard 8.3.2
        13 September 2014 at 7:17 pm

        Bet you want to have workers earning just $2 per hour plus tips, like in the USA, and then sleep in their car after work.

        And then quietly die just like they do in the US.

  9. Lan 9
    13 September 2014 at 5:15 pm

    Have had a few hair trims on way thro from Welly north and seems to be about $30 for half hour. My computer repair small town business was happy to earn this which I advertised as “tradesman’s rates”..$30 for a hair trim seems quite okay to me and half of the small businesses in NZ run on %50 cash basis in my experience.

  10. Potato 10
    13 September 2014 at 5:28 pm

    but…. Mr Key said that it was more important to have ultrafast broadband and overseas opportunities. For hairdressers ?? Yeah Right !!

  11. Lloyd 11
    13 September 2014 at 7:08 pm

    The big job loses that have occurred under the donkey’s government have been government and private manufacturing that has gone overseas because the government and private companies say they can get the same product manufactured overseas at a lower cost because of the high value of the New Zealand dollar. The high dollar means the RELATIVE wage of a New Zealand worker is far more than $2 higher than workers in the countries to which the manufacturing has gone. The donkey has consistently said he can’t do anything about the high value of the New Zealand dollar and that we shouldn’t worry about it.
    If that is the case why should we worry about a mere $2 increase in wages?

    • adam 11.1
      13 September 2014 at 8:56 pm

      We can stop that Lloyd, by god forbid, some mentioned trade barriers. Yeap how about we end this ideological purity buzz we are on, and save peoples jobs. Because neo-liberalism has proving itself to be just as corrupt and dysfunctional ideology as communism or fascism – especially in the realm of economics.

  12. keith ross 12
    14 September 2014 at 7:22 am

    If the people who buy the products do not have the money to spend then the owners will say “we can’t afford it “. If they would realize that business needs money to be spent by customers and if the customer base is larger then they will make more money and be able to hire more people then we could move on from the chicken or the egg argument. There is not much evidence that raising the min wage costs jobs but there is evidence that it creates jobs. In Seattle right now they have made their minimum wage 15 usd an hour. They are the fastest growing city in America today. There are more businesses starting there than anywhere else in the states right now. The national min wage is 7 something an hour, no wonder they are stuck in a permanent slump on the jobs front. Not in Seattle though.
    Capitalism needs money in the hands of the masses to work.

  13. Bren 13
    17 September 2014 at 9:59 pm

    Yes, Minimum wage has to go up to be at least tied with the increased cost of living. But the minimum wage is just that, the bare minimum someone should get paid. There are always going to be people on minimum wage, they are the cleaners and the burger flippers etc. They are the people who flunked out of high school, or have only just emigrated to NZ for a better deal.
    Those with a bit of gumption and tenacity will find a way to move above minimum wage. Those that settle for what they have will complain and blame everything else without looking internally. We are the makers of our own fate!

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