Written By: - Date published: 9:41 am, February 1st, 2019 - 33 comments
Westpac Bank has agreed to become an accredited living wage employer which means that its contractors as well as its staff are to be paid a living wage.
Written By: - Date published: 9:23 am, January 31st, 2019 - 36 comments
The Working Group on Wage Bargaining reform has reported back. Good news for the working poor, bad news for the filthy rich.
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, January 8th, 2019 - 81 comments
The CTU has released the results of its recent cost of living and income survey. The results suggest that urgent change is needed.
Written By: - Date published: 7:49 am, December 11th, 2018 - 53 comments
Air New Zealand has provoked industrial action from its workers by trying to wind back wages and conditions at a time it is making near record profits.
Written By: - Date published: 9:06 am, November 30th, 2018 - 76 comments
Dan Bidois this week in Parliament confirmed what we have always known, that National want there to be no unions around.
Written By: - Date published: 9:28 am, November 28th, 2018 - 40 comments
The Labour Party sponsored amendments to the Employment Relations Act are a step closer to becoming law. That’s a good thing for working people and a good thing for coalition politics.
Written By: - Date published: 1:31 pm, November 19th, 2018 - 70 comments
Ngai Tahu and Tainui remind us that they like exploiting working people as much as the next capitalist. They’ve locked out their Waikato bus drivers for asking to be paid the Living Wage.
Written By: - Date published: 8:13 am, November 14th, 2018 - 121 comments
Pike River mine is to be re-entered and finally the truth will be told. Victory for the 29 is victory for all of us.
Written By: - Date published: 8:41 am, October 22nd, 2018 - 15 comments
We’ve written a bit about Labour Day over the years – see the archives for the origins, history, and importance of the day. Enjoying your weekend? Thank a unionist!
Written By: - Date published: 5:10 pm, October 11th, 2018 - 7 comments
Information concerning a hui scheduled for October 19 and 20 at Auckland University to set out what an alternative and progressive trade strategy should look like.
Written By: - Date published: 8:18 am, September 12th, 2018 - 65 comments
Business NZ has admitted that a poll that it ran was fundamentally flawed but has threatened to go to the ILO about Labour’s rather modest proposed changes to Industrial Relations law. And Radio New Zealand has reported on an industrial dispute involving Sistema plastics where union workers are working 60 hour working weeks without overtime pay on not much more than the minimum wage.
Written By: - Date published: 8:43 am, September 9th, 2018 - 26 comments
It is high time we wean ourselves off the indiscriminate use of fossil fuels. We need to grow up.
Written By: - Date published: 11:13 am, August 31st, 2018 - 37 comments
Lately the news has been all doom and gloom about business confidence. But what is the reality? And should we worry what an Australian Bank is telling us?
Written By: - Date published: 7:26 am, August 28th, 2018 - 3 comments
Forward In 2016 I wrote the below dissertation as part of my History Honours degree at Victoria University. This dissertation explores the 1950s equal pay campaign, and specifically looks at the Jean Parker Case. Jean Parker was a PSA member employed at IRD, who like Kristine Bartlett 60 years later, won a landmark equal pay legal […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:21 am, August 27th, 2018 - 7 comments
On Friday 27 July 2018, Wellington Tramways Union Vice President Chris Morley passed away after a short battle with Cancer, aged 62. Chris had been a Wellington bus driver since 1978, when public transport in the city was run and controlled by Wellington City Council. In 2008 I was privileged to be elected to the Tramways Union […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:20 pm, August 20th, 2018 - 139 comments
What’s the point of the Green party? Do we really need them? Really?
Written By: - Date published: 7:31 am, August 9th, 2018 - 68 comments
We need more radical voices again here. But it’s like MMP has turned us once again into the passionless people. It always looks like “hate speech” when you hate it.
Written By: - Date published: 12:31 pm, July 27th, 2018 - 76 comments
There’s a sickness affecting our health system.
Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, July 23rd, 2018 - 7 comments
In 2015 Helen Kelly agreed to let documentary maker Tony Sutorius – the award winning director of Campaign – into her life to document her last year of activism. The result is Helen Kelly: Together – a stunning affirmation of both her dedication to justice, and her friendships with those she fought alongside.
Written By: - Date published: 8:38 am, July 20th, 2018 - 41 comments
Occasional Standard reader Matthew Hooton has written a cogent column on industrial relations in which he realises and accepts that wages for ordinary workers are too low.
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, July 4th, 2018 - 56 comments
Teachers have indicated they will also be seeking a significant catch up in salaries and job conditions after a decade of neglect.
Written By: - Date published: 4:35 pm, June 28th, 2018 - 51 comments
Barry Soper in the Herald has fallen for National’s fake news concerning something said by Jacinda Ardern that was taken totally out of context.
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, June 27th, 2018 - 102 comments
National has claimed that Jacinda Ardern ruled out national strikes during the last year’s election campaign. And has trimmed a video and taken comments out of context to justify its claim.
Written By: - Date published: 2:17 pm, June 18th, 2018 - 26 comments
Twitter in the right hands can be a very dangerous thing. As shown by Jessica Williams when she questioned the intellectual grunt of the taxpayers union in this series of tweets.
Written By: - Date published: 8:15 am, June 11th, 2018 - 15 comments
Darien Fenton writes about Business New Zealand’s early approach to the Fair Pay panel.
Written By: - Date published: 8:43 am, June 6th, 2018 - 112 comments
National thinks that getting back to full employment, having wages and conditions sufficient to allow a working family to live in decency on one full time wage, and home ownership rates of about 70% are a bad thing.
Written By: - Date published: 9:07 am, June 4th, 2018 - 133 comments
National MP Parmjeet Parmar has been accused of threatening to tell the employers of submitters to a Select Committee what they had said in evidence if they did not withdraw their statements.
Written By: - Date published: 3:52 pm, May 28th, 2018 - 21 comments
For the first time possibly ever a National leader has supported the right of the rank and file to engage in industrial action to improve their living conditions.
Written By: - Date published: 9:17 am, May 13th, 2018 - 40 comments
This is as good a year as it is going to get to squeeze your employer for a fair wage.
Written By: - Date published: 12:01 pm, February 26th, 2018 - 50 comments
RMTU members are working to rule to oppose Auckland Transport and Transdev’s attempts to weaken security arrangements on Auckland’s trains.
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, February 14th, 2018 - 35 comments
Had anyone with a job (other than the top 2 tiers of management) had a wage increase higher than inflation recently?
Recent Comments