Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, July 21st, 2010 - 35 comments
No Right Turn has a good post pointing out that John Key’s petty fascism on sick leave is already covered by the law. An employer can demand a worker provide a medical certificate after one day’s sick leave. All Key’s law change will do is remove the requirement for our employers to behave reasonably when we’re sick.
Written By: - Date published: 11:20 am, July 20th, 2010 - 36 comments
The textbooks tell us that free trade is good because it means a more efficient use of resources. But the reality is that often the ‘competitive advantage’ one country has in producing a product compared to others isn’t some natural resource or better legal or physical infrastructure that makes business more efficient. Too often, the cheapest countries are the cheapest because they pay their workers the least and don’t protect their environment.
Written By: - Date published: 10:13 pm, July 19th, 2010 - 105 comments
Over at Kiwipolitico Pablo has a good post tracing the ancestry of Key’s attack on unions to Pinochet.
Not that we should be surprised of course:
National and Act have both been influenced by that regime in the past. Especially when it comes to dealing to workers.
Written By: - Date published: 8:50 am, July 19th, 2010 - 67 comments
Does John Key have any evidence or official advice to back up his claim that taking away workers’ rights to basic fairness and natural justice promotes growth? Will Kiwi workers be as a result of taking away our job security and bargaining power?
Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, July 19th, 2010 - 157 comments
Extending Fire at Will and attacking union access to worksites undermines workers’ rights and is simply economic vandalism. Weaker work rights will tend to lead to lower wages (already falling under John Key’s watch), low wages lead to underinvestment and poor economic performance, and lack of work rights increases the risk in changing jobs making labour allocation less efficient.
Written By: - Date published: 3:10 pm, July 18th, 2010 - 70 comments
Key’s trying to spin his way out of taking responsibility for his attack on workers.
And he thinks union-bashing is the way to do it.
Perhaps he needs reminding that unions are just groups of workers who’re working together for a fair deal?
Written By: - Date published: 11:51 am, July 18th, 2010 - 98 comments
Word is numbers at the protest are up to 500. Not bad for a protest organised in a couple of days. According to the Herald an EPMU flag-waving Sue Bradford and forty protesters broke through security. The changes have been officially announced. As well as the 90 day fire at will extension and cutting workers’ […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:50 am, July 18th, 2010 - 47 comments
It was mainly young and poor workers on the minimum wage who were its victims of Fire at Will before. But now the middle class’s jobs will be on the knife edge too and they’re not happy. This will be an issue that causes National to bleed votes, especially if Labour and the unions organise a strong campaign. Middle NZ doesn’t care about poor workers but it’s different when it’s your job at risk.
Written By: - Date published: 2:03 pm, July 17th, 2010 - 30 comments
National is claiming its donations are strong but the numbers tell another story all together.
With an election possible within 12 months, National needs to scare up some cash – and quick.
Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, July 17th, 2010 - 17 comments
The recent global recession represented a spectacular failure of unfettered capitalism. We never felt the full force and completeness of that failure because the worst was averted – or rather just delayed – by vast injections of Government bailout money. America has learned its lesson, yesterday passing the strictest restrictions on banks and Wall Street since the Great Depression.
Written By: - Date published: 9:57 am, July 17th, 2010 - 23 comments
This weekend Key will start (literally) cashing in his political capital by trading off Kiwi workers’ rights for business backing.
But by pushing for these changes his backers risk the second-term National majority they need to get their hands on our assets.
It seems their bad habit of putting short-term profit ahead of long-term sustainable gains has carried over into the political sphere.
Written By: - Date published: 2:05 pm, July 16th, 2010 - 57 comments
At the National Party conference in Auckland this weekend, John Key is expected to announce drastic attacks on workers’ rights.
You can stand up and fight back against this madness by joining the protest at 10am on Sunday at Sky City Hotel in Auckland.
Written By: - Date published: 9:21 am, July 16th, 2010 - 32 comments
I wonder if Dr Brash thought close scrutiny would have faded once he left the political limelight? He certainly sounds entirely comfortable with spending the tax taskforce’s entire three-year budget for his meeting fees as chairman in just one year, reported in today’s Dom Post: Dr Brash was paid $1200 a day to chair the […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:56 pm, July 15th, 2010 - 248 comments
With National’s donations flagging something was needed to loosen the purse-strings.
It seems they’ve decided giving business an early present of wage-lowering laws will do the trick.
And every working Kiwi will pay the price.
Written By: - Date published: 11:39 am, July 15th, 2010 - 16 comments
Prime Minister John Key today conceded that growth remains too weak, unemployment is too high, and that it is unacceptable that workers’ wages are going backwards when he promised they would match Australia’s in just 15 years. Speaking to a rapturous crowd of schoolchildren and journalists, Key announced a bold new economic agenda.
Written By: - Date published: 7:31 am, July 15th, 2010 - 31 comments
Business New Zealand CEO Phil O’Reilly has come out against Clare Curran’s procurement bill despite the fact procurement legislation would benefit his members.
It makes you wonder just who exactly Business lobby groups represent.
Written By: - Date published: 1:49 pm, July 14th, 2010 - 49 comments
The protest rally held in Rotorua, held its slogan high with nearly a hundred people in tow. “Kill the Future Focus Bill, or it will kill you!” was out in front along with cut outs of Paula Bennett, complete with fangs, risque cleavage and that famous leopard skin trenchcoat -all the props of an actor satirising the working class as she attacks us.
Written By: - Date published: 11:48 am, July 14th, 2010 - 31 comments
Should be no surprise to anyone that the Nats and Maori Party are cutting help for tobacco addicts while upping the cost of their ciggies. They don’t care about better health. Don’t care about helping poor people get off an expensive habit. It’s all about sopping the poor and give aways for the rich. But you know who did grind my gears? Those tabacco execs the other week.
Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, July 14th, 2010 - 24 comments
Clare Curran is preparing a private members bill designed to make sure Kiwi Businesses get preference for government work.
It’s an idea that would see more jobs for Kiwi workers and help strengthen our economy but will business help push the government to back it?
Written By: - Date published: 7:57 am, July 13th, 2010 - 10 comments
English is talking more cuts at a time where cutting could well push the economy into a downward spiral.
But he knows that better than most – he was a minister in the cabinet that did just that in the ’90s.
Written By: - Date published: 6:55 am, July 13th, 2010 - 9 comments
Judith Collins is lauding the $1.2 billion of economic activity that will suppoedly result from the private prison at Wiri. But wait, the government is planning to spend $101 million on construction and $40m per year for 30 years on wages. That’s $1.3b spent for only in $1.2b of economic activity. How’s that? Oh, yeah, the private foreign owner who will be taking hundreds of millions offshore.
Written By: - Date published: 11:26 pm, July 11th, 2010 - 48 comments
Can someone explain to me this ‘deepening the stockmarket’ line that the Right uses for privatisation? I consider myself reasonably well informed on these issues but I just can’t see the value to the country of the government selling public assets to a handful of stockmarket participants. Why is ‘deepening’ the stockmarket by giving up our public assets a good thing?
Written By: - Date published: 2:24 pm, July 11th, 2010 - 22 comments
This is based on a lecture at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).
It is a hell of an effective way to present an economic argument.
Written By: - Date published: 10:32 am, July 10th, 2010 - 52 comments
This guy writes what I would aspire to write if I had the time and the cojones. For a lazy Saturday morning rant, read on.
Written By: - Date published: 8:39 am, July 10th, 2010 - 10 comments
Thousands of tenants in Auckland’s CBD face rent rises from next year as the landlords start, after a 15 year moratorium, to charge market rental. Why is that news? Ahh well, read on…
Written By: - Date published: 1:16 pm, July 8th, 2010 - 32 comments
I thought Germany were going to power in to the finals – but Spain had other plans! Funny old game. According to football legend John Barnes the best football teams are socialist in nature. They play for each other, and individual brilliance is often subservient to the common good…
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, July 8th, 2010 - 4 comments
Auckland Transport Blog saying the bleeding obvious about the aggrandizement project that appears to be Steven Joyce’s grand vision for the future of transport in Auckland. If he was concentrating on reducing the road toll on this stretch of road, there are simpler and cheaper ways than wasting taxpayers money.
Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, July 7th, 2010 - 72 comments
Supermarkets are squeezing producers while marking up the prices of fruit and vegetables by up to 500%. The worst side of capitalism in action. Support your local farmers’ market, and the Green’s call for a supermarket code of conduct.
Written By: - Date published: 6:32 am, July 7th, 2010 - 17 comments
Key’s worried about us being even more bought out by foreigners. Key’s in South Korea about to sign a Free Trade Agreement. New Zealand already has nearly no tariffs. Everyone knows the sweetener for the other side in these deals is opening up investment in NZ. So, Key’s railing against foreign ownership while making it […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:15 pm, July 6th, 2010 - 14 comments
Economists, bankers, Treasury officials, financial wizards of various kinds, they like to pretend that they know what they’re talking about. All too often they don’t. Predicting the behaviour of complex systems is hard. Consider for example, the big banks’ predictions on the winner of the Football World Cup…
Written By: - Date published: 11:16 am, July 6th, 2010 - 46 comments
PM warns against Kiwis becoming ‘tenants’ – The Herald. John Key says that we’ve got to make sure we don’t sell too many of our assets and end up sending the profits overseas. Good stuff, it’s exactly what the Left has been saying and the opposite of National’s policy until now. I guess we’ll have to see if Key backs up his words with action.
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