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We can do better on health and safety

Written By: - Date published: 9:53 am, July 30th, 2015 - 8 comments

Labour is proposing a set of amendments to fix the Health and Safety Reform Bill. They need the support of Peter Dunne and the Māori Party. Will they do the right thing?

left wing leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn well ahead

Written By: - Date published: 2:34 pm, July 29th, 2015 - 25 comments

Hard lefty Jeremy Corbyn has a 22 pt lead in the UK Labour leadership race. The Labour Party Blairites are definitely not happy.

291 workers dead since Pike River: where’s the law we were promised?

Written By: - Date published: 12:02 pm, July 26th, 2015 - 45 comments

National Party delegates were greeted at their conference today by a sea of crosses representing the 291 workers who have died on the job since the Pike River disaster.

Health and Safety

Written By: - Date published: 2:20 pm, July 24th, 2015 - 2 comments

The CTU’s excellent campaign to get a stronger version of National’s post-Pike River Health and Safety law has produced this excellent video, and you can sign to support Iain Lees-Galloway’s amendments to improve the bill.

My Daddy Was Killed at Work

Written By: - Date published: 9:11 pm, July 13th, 2015 - 12 comments

Can you help us share this clip?  It’s powerful and about the reality of workplace deaths for families that suffer them. The health and safety law going through the Parliament will betray these families if it is changed as the Government is proposing.

Helen Kelly

Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, July 13th, 2015 - 19 comments

helen-kelly

Peter Talley on health and safety law: unions are evil, workers’ lives cheap

Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, June 15th, 2015 - 116 comments

Whenever unionists talk about the bad employers who put profit over people’s lives, the right wave it away as fear-mongering. Well, here it is straight from the horse’s mouth.

Petition for safer workplaces

Written By: - Date published: 2:04 pm, June 9th, 2015 - 13 comments

Helen Kelly: “Sign our petition and tell John Key that you support better health and safety in workplaces!”

Anti-union rant in The Herald

Written By: - Date published: 12:43 pm, June 8th, 2015 - 72 comments

An anonymous editorial in The Herald this morning really is atrocious. Apparently the limited uptake one of the Nats’ pet education policies is all the fault of the unions.

Helen Kelly Q+A on health and safety

Written By: - Date published: 12:02 pm, June 7th, 2015 - 15 comments

kelly-Q+A

Attack on Unite

Written By: - Date published: 9:38 am, April 17th, 2015 - 48 comments

“Unite Union’s office robbed, trashed”. WTF?

Michael Woodhouse: a fool or a liar?

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, April 14th, 2015 - 88 comments

When the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety doesn’t know the first thing about his portfolio, there’s only one option left: he’s lying.

Dear Maccas, Burger King and Wendys, about those zero hour contracts

Written By: - Date published: 4:56 pm, April 10th, 2015 - 11 comments

Following its success in persuading Restaurant Brands to do away with zero hour contracts Unite Union has set up a webpage where people can email these organisations.

Restaurant Brands to end zero hour contracts

Written By: - Date published: 8:36 am, April 9th, 2015 - 15 comments

Unite has achieved a significant victory by persuading Restaurant Brands to do away with zero hour contracts and to guarantee minimum working hours for staff.

Victory for the workers at Cotton On

Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, April 1st, 2015 - 29 comments

FIRST Union has announced the ratification of the first ever collective agreement for workers at Cotton On.

Woodhouse: tough on bad employers?

Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, March 26th, 2015 - 22 comments

Michael Woodhouse is talking tough on bad employers … but what does it really mean, coming from this government?

Kiwis Stand Up To Corporate Bully

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, March 25th, 2015 - 14 comments

Cotton On’s act of provocation is matched in its cynicism only by the company’s contempt for the negotiation process. While attempting to feign an understanding of how the new law actually works, Cotton On simultaneously may also have breached the newly amended sections 4 and 32 of the ERA

Expect more zero-hours crisis cases

Written By: - Date published: 8:15 am, March 5th, 2015 - 8 comments

Today is not a good day for workers. Employment law changes that take effect today weaken workers’ rights and will result in more cases of zero-hour contract “excesses”. Labour’s Iain Lees-Galloway has been doing good work on this issue (sign the petition). In contrast National’s position now appears confused, with Workplace Relations & Safety Minister Michael Woodhouse acknowledging problems even as today’s changes make matters worse.

Nats getting squeamish on zero hour contracts

Written By: - Date published: 10:14 am, March 4th, 2015 - 61 comments

Zero hour contracts are the logical end point of National’s agenda for employment legislation. But last night Workplace Relations & Safety Minister Michael Woodhouse promised legislation to “prohibit the worst excesses”. “Excesses” in the free market – who would have thought?

Brassneck

Written By: - Date published: 12:21 pm, March 2nd, 2015 - 64 comments

The release of the candidate donation returns has shown us that the National Party are still rorting the system. However, there are issues for the NZ Labour Party as well. Four MP’s have taken money from sources that do not have the interests of the Labour party or, indeed, the majority of Kiwis at heart. Brassneck or bought and sold?

Andrew Little; leadership, loyalty and lasting the distance.

Written By: - Date published: 1:19 pm, February 26th, 2015 - 64 comments

Its 100 days since the NZ Labour Party elected Andrew Little as its leader. What an inspired decision that has turned out to be! Little has galvanised the party, united the caucus and looks set to be the next PM. How has he turned Labour around?

The Continuing Fight for Justice at Pike River

Written By: - Date published: 4:16 pm, February 25th, 2015 - 7 comments

Yesterday the families lost only a small bit of the battle for justice at Pike in an application to get some of the documentation on the Peter Whittall decision. It is clear from the decision that the process of filing itself caused MBIE to agree to release a number of the key documents.

The right to strike

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, February 17th, 2015 - 54 comments

Celebrate International Right to Strike Day on 18 February by sending a message to Kiwi employers: stop undermining our right to strike!

Labour takes a stand against zero-hour contracts

Written By: - Date published: 5:00 pm, February 12th, 2015 - 92 comments

Zero-hour contracts are the perfect illustration of when “flexibility” in employment relations goes all one way.

The lie about productivity and wages

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, February 5th, 2015 - 49 comments

The Productivity Commission has a new report out which looks at changes in the labour income share, or LIS, from 1978 to 2010. The labour income share is described in the report’s summary as: The labour income share (LIS) measures the split of national income between workers who supply labour and the owners of capital. […]

AFFCO Talley’s and Jobs That Count

Written By: - Date published: 7:21 am, February 5th, 2015 - 9 comments

Darien Fenton at Jobs That Count brings us the details of the fight for decent pay and conditions at Talley’s meat processing plants

Jobs That Count

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, December 17th, 2014 - 20 comments

The Meatworkers Union today launch a campaign for Jobs That Count – to try to get better conditions for these marginalised workers who face it all – seasonal work, dangerous jobs, casual and zero hours contracts and anti-union pressure.

‘Ditch the [misleading] rhetoric’

Written By: - Date published: 9:39 am, December 12th, 2014 - 16 comments

On RNZ this morning PSA National Secretary Richard Wagstaff criticised Bill English for his misleading rhetoric about rises in “average wages”.  NZ’s income and wealth gaps have increased in recent decades.  The lowest income remain low; the top earners get big salary increases.

Exploited workers need union protection

Written By: - Date published: 11:20 am, December 1st, 2014 - 30 comments

Another example of a bad employer unfairly docking a worker’s pay. But this worker was a union member…

’81: knowing your position

Written By: - Date published: 9:21 am, November 22nd, 2014 - 103 comments

Andrea Vance has written an informative article about Andrew Little.  In it, among other things, we learn that Little remembers exactly which side he was on during the 1981 Springbok rugby tour.

Labour and the unions

Written By: - Date published: 8:26 am, November 19th, 2014 - 109 comments

In which I ponder my 2c on the leadership race, and the path ahead for Labour and the unions…