Business claims crisis as country approaches full employment and wages increase
Anyone else getting tired of the media presenting the fact that New Zealand essentially has full employment is a very bad thing?
Economy
workers’ rights
Mick Lynch is a working class hero
In the UK Rail Maritime and Transport boss Mick Lynch has caused a media sensation by strongly and clearly advocating for workers rights as the Conservative Government aims to deal with inflation by eroding further workers wages and job conditions.
Matariki and Prime Minister Ardern
Plenty of experts will tell you about what Matariki ‘means to us’. Here’s what it means to Ardern.
BusinessNZ has been telling porkies about fair pay agreements
BusinessNZ’s attempt to put New Zealand on the ILO naughty list because of fair pay agreements has failed.
Has Business NZ been telling porkies?
Business NZ has claimed that the proposed Fair Play legislation breaches International Labour Law and that the International Labour Organisation agrees with it. But its claims appear to be on the wrong side of what we could politely describe as the truth.
What Can Be Saved?
The tide of this government is running out. There’s 18 months left in the term. What would you save?
Tame shows media how to interview Luxon
Jack Tame’s interview of Chris Luxon on Q&A suggests that the post leadership change honeymoon may now be over and that Luxon does not really understand how difficult a job being Prime Minister would be.
Change nothing
You get to a point – and Ardern must be close – where the most you can do is hang on.
The right to protest Christchurch version
Christchurch Council has billed Destiny Church for traffic management fees relating to recent protests. For once I am firmly if reluctantly on the side of Destiny Church. Exercising the right to protest should not attract Council bills.
Indications of wages rising
It sounds like the Industrial and Trades sector of the economy has had a significiant wage rise over the last year. While we wait for the wages stats data, this is an interesting indicator. The national median hourly pay in the sector is now $27 an hour, up $2 from 2020/21. But this isn’t just here, the world labour market is shifting just as the supply chains are.
And what have they done anyway?
With Ardern getting a good-old media beat-down, remember here’s how to change a country for good like no one else but Labour can.
Book Review Helen Kelly: her life
The Helen Kelly biography by Rebacca Macfie provides a clear and intense overview of what has happened to New Zealand society over the past 40 years from a time of high union membership and equality to now where unions struggle and inequality is significant.
What Starts off in Support of Alabama’s Miners …
What Starts off in Support of Alabama’s Miners turns into a homily from Beau on the power of getting community change going when and only when you have the organisational power to pull it off month after month after month.
The pandemic is resiliency training
Fear and loathing on both sides of the fence, or adaptation and resiliency? We do have some choices.
Clearing the decks
The draft report into Nick Smith’s treatment of a young staff member that eventually saw him leave Parliament has made its way into the public realm, just in time to be lost in the pre Christmas media wash up.
Fair pay agreements – the employers fight back
BusinessNZ and Federated Farmers have this week attacked the Government for intending to implement policy designed to improve the plight of poorly paid workers.
See what happens when you put a woman in charge?
Remarkably low Covid death and infection rates, good and improving vaccination rates, low unemployment and debt to GDP …
Why vaccine mandates are needed
The Government has announced vaccine mandates for some publicly facing businesses designed to help minimise the spread of a virus that has killed millions of people world wide.
Friday will change Us As Citizens
While we may have been lifted out of martial lockdowns and some rights have been reinstated in limited form, we have surrendered to another more pervasive power. The power of big data.
How Far Ought The State Go In A Pandemic?
Even in a time of crisis, people have human rights that must be upheld.
RIP Michael Cullen
Former Labour Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen has died.
What if all New Zealanders had enough to live on?
Rather than economics, can we talk about the values that underlie how we manage the country?
Aotearoa New Zealand approaches full employment
Yesterday Statistics New Zealand announced a dramatic drip in the unemployment rate as well as solid increases in wage rates and average weekly earnings for workers. While the Government celebrated Employers thought it was a crisis.
Nurses refuse pay offer
NZNO members who work in district health boards (DHBs) have voted by clear majority to reject the latest offer in their negotiations with the DHBs, saying it fails to address the chronic and systemic safe staffing issues in a way that would ensure and protect the future of the health system.
Minister Robertson’s Economic Development Strategy
Minister Roberston’s recent speech to the Trans Tasman Business Circle sets out both how this government is using the pandemic to reset whole sectors of the economy, and also how it is getting its head around economic and social challenges. The points made were unsurprising, but his intended direction was unclear.
Social insurance, a premium not afforded to all.
One of the details announced in the budget was funding to explore a ‘social unemployment insurance’ scheme. This scheme has been pushed by the Council of Trade Unions and Business NZ, which will work with the Government in a newly set-up Tripartite Working Party. When we dig into it though, we realise it is no safety net. It’s a parachute that slows our drop, giving us time, before we hit that real net – down so far below.
The National Party Caucus knew nuffink about Nick Smith’s problems
Last night the story about Nick Smith’s issues that caused his resignation finally broke, or did it?
Guest post – let the outrage continue!
Outrage at suggestions that nurses, teachers, social workers, and doctors were not worthy of a pay rise this year has been swift.
Government backs away from public service wage announcement
Some good news from yesterday. The Government has decided to walk back earlier comments suggesting a wage freeze for teachers and nurses.
Onya Michael
Yesterday Minister of Labour Michael Wood led the announcement of a policy that conceivably could do more to address the decline in workers wages and conditions over the past 40 years than anything else tried recently.
The Public Service pay freeze
Mindboggling.
Branko Marcetic: Labour’s public sector pay freeze isn’t just a betrayal of frontline workers – it’s a rejection of mainstream economic thinking
Consistent with how they’ve governed so far, Ardern and Robertson are happy to demand workers sacrifice for the greater good — but asking the rich to do the same is a red line they simply won’t cross.
About the public service pay freeze
A few of us on the left have issues with the public service wage freeze announced yesterday. By setting the salary level so low, at $60,000 per annum, the threat is that previous gains for teachers and nurses will be undermined.
About Trevor Mallard
- Trevor Mallard has made a concerted effort to change the tone of Parliament. But last night got caught in a bickering match with National.
National’s very bad day
Yesterday was a day where National focussed on dog whistle racism, supported religious extremists and moaned about workers receiving a modest increase in the minimum wage.
Resistance
Chris Trotter recently asked the question about why there isn’t more resistance to the degree of inequality that we face in New Zealand. He’s partially right, we do spend an awfully amount of time arguing with each other about matters of smaller and smaller moment while inequality slides downhill from glacier to avalanche. But intersectionalism isn’t the primary cause of activist cooling.