workers' rights

wages

Local Bodies: Novopay Exemplifies National’s Governance

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 26 comments

This National led Government is strong on ideology, weak on process and reluctant to accept responsibility. The Novopay debacle exemplifies all of these well. When questioned about Novopay, National Ministers will never accept full responsibility. Stephen Joyce has just announced that the Government will be taking over the management of Novopay after almost two years of stress and wide-ranging issues. No matter what National and its Ministers claim, Novopay is largely their fault, and taking responsibility and making apologies are not what this Government does readily.

Wages up – Work secure – Labour policy

Written By: Mike Smith
Date published: - 165 comments

Labour has today released its Work and Wages policy. An immediate lift to $15 in the minimum wage, and a raise to $16.25 in April next year. 90 day free sacking option for employers to go in first 100 days. Core public service to get the Living Wage first, others to follow. That’ll put some money where it’s most needed.

NRT: So much for the surplus

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 40 comments

As was generally expected by anyone who’d been watching the actual economy rather than just the dairy exports, business profits are lower than expected. And there aren’t the jobs and pay increases in our “rockstar” economy. So consumer spending measured by GST is low as well. Meanwhile the price inflation keeps increasing government costs. So we are already on track for a large deficit next year rather than the government’s much-touted imaginary surplus. You have to ask why we deserve a government that appears to live more in a universe of wishful thinking than reality.

CTU: Why is the Reserve Bank happy with low wage growth?

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 124 comments

There seems little prospect for better wage growth if the Reserve Bank is to be believed. There is a high risk that growth peaks this year without most people seeing any sign of it in their pay packets. People are being forced into the job market because stagnant wages mean more people have to work for the needs of their households. At the same time harsher rules on social welfare benefits and the low level of those benefits force people into a job market where as the bank says, there is ‘elevated unemployment’.

Labour please take note.

Written By: KJT
Date published: - 71 comments

The more that National publicly adopts “left wing” “socialist”  party policies, such as “free” medical care for children under 13, keeping the retirement age as it is, and balancing the budget, the more they rise in the polls.

Green Party pre-budget policy launch

Written By: karol
Date published: - 10 comments

The Green Party will do a pre-budget economic policy launch: livestream here 11am 11.30am-12.30pm.They are pretty adept at interacting with Kiwis via social media, and on TV. They are grounded in grassroots activities, that link to their policies aimed at making life better for low-to-middle income Kiwis. [Updated#1: got start time wrong: #2 policy here – Green Investment Bank; news reports]

Polity: Economic plans compared

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 9 comments

Labour looks at increasing jobs, wage growth, and having the government run surpluses. National looks at a 1% wage growth after inflation after years of falling real wages and no drop in real unemployment as being a sign of a healthy economy? Yeah right. Most of the growth in the economy is simply passing wage-earners by. It is going elsewhere. That is National’s legacy: strong growth for the fortunate few, lagging and insipid growth for everyone else

NRT: All about distribution

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 29 comments

Distribution – who pays, who gets what – is one of (or perhaps the) key question in politics. It is the big problem with Labour’s new monetary policy. We’ve all seen how the theoretical ability to compensate the losers of policies which produce net gains tends to be forgotten in practice. Which means that the acceptability of the policy is going to depend crucially on whether Labour follows through on this promise.

Highlighting the income gap

Written By: karol
Date published: - 84 comments

A high proportion of Kiwis know that there is too big an income inequality gap. Economic power & media discourse too often work to maintain such inequalities.  How can knowledge and understandings be changed via the media, social media and creative political action?

Waldegrave responds to ‘Living Wage’ critique

Written By: Helen Kelly
Date published: - 47 comments

Charles Waldegrave has slammed Brian Scott’s critique of the method used to calculate the Living Wage in New Zealand. He shows Scott’s critique, and that of the Treasury, lack an informed understanding of the definition of a living wage and confuse market wage rates and welfare transfers. The living wage level was set at $18.40 per hour in February 2013. Scott’s paper has been given prominence on Kiwiblog 3 January 2014

AAAP: grass roots action. Well done!

Written By: karol
Date published: - 12 comments

A video by Auckland Action Against Poverty is a record of their work and achievements.  Narrated by Sue Bradford, it’s must see viewing for anyone interested in actions against poverty, grassroots campaigning, networking and direct action.  Very impressive!

Polity: The truth about the gap between the rich and the rest

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 61 comments

John Key was careful in his speech. He and his government have helped themselves and their affluent mates while screwing everyone else. It is pretty clear who has been getting the benefits – since 2010 just the households with at least a hundred thousand dollars income. The bigger the household income, the more National helps. John Key – a liar with numbers.

Poverty denial

Written By: karol
Date published: - 230 comments

Here & in the UK: food poverty, increases in queues to foodbanks, in diseases of poverty, a crisis in affordable housing, & struggles & insecurites of the working poor. But poverty denialists blame the poor, smear beneficiaries, & talk of (always-around-the-corner) “brighter futures”.

America is becoming a third world nation

Written By: mickysavage
Date published: - 194 comments

It appears that America is becoming rich in name only as more and more of its people in jobs rely on state assistance to make ends meet.  And many of these jobs are in highly profitable industries such as the Banks and Wal Mart where people at the top of those organisations make huge amounts.  And the payments are a drain on the State’s finances and prevent it from funding important things such as asset renewal and education.

A Tale of Two Cities

Written By: Mike Smith
Date published: - 91 comments

It was the best of times in Wellington today. Council workers will get a living wage, and parking wardens will become council employees so they will get decent pay also. It was the worst of times in Auckland as the right-wing Scrooges having failed to remove Mayor Len Brown took it out on their workers by overturning his call for a living wage for Council staff.

Census 2013: increase in inequality

Written By: karol
Date published: - 26 comments

NZ Census 2013 shows a widening income gap: rises for the haves; more struggle for the have nots.  Gains for women in education and some in the highest income brackets; more struggle for those on low incomes, especially beneficiaries impacted by Bennett’s punitive welfare reforms. Welcome to Key’s “Brighter Future”.

‘Locked Up Warriors’: 101 East

Written By: karol
Date published: - 95 comments

On 101 East on Al Jazeera. Too many people in NZ prisons, especially Maori: too many in poverty; too much money spent on prisons; not enough for low income communities; some very good community initiatives. Is this a fair representation?

English says higher wages mean better results

Written By: James Henderson
Date published: - 52 comments

National’s been working hard to keep wages down for the 5 years. They’ve weakened union laws, introduced fire at will, opposed $15 minimum wage and the living wage. And it’s worked: 46% of workers got no raise last year, another 18% got less than a 2% raise. 5 years ago, 59% got a raise above 2%. Strangely, though, English says high wages are good for the economy.

Is society collapse and inequality linked?

Written By: mickysavage
Date published: - 61 comments

US mathematician Peter Turchin believes that mathematics can predict events such as the recent constitutional crisis in America and has constructed a model based on social and economic data that he believes predicts periods of instability and disaster for nations.  This work shows the negative side of inequality and neatly compliments the work of Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in the Spirit Level that showed the benefits of increased equality.

Cunliffe stands strong for fair pay and your work rights

Written By: Eddie
Date published: - 139 comments

David Cunliffe showed that he wasn’t just pandering for votes in the leadership race by reaffirming and strengthening his commitment to work rights at the CTU conference yesterday. When David is PM the minimum wage will rise to $15 an hour, the public service will set an example by paying the living wage, and the Nats’ attacks on rights will be reversed – no more Fire at Will, no more youth rates.

The cleaner & the ugly face of National

Written By: Zetetic
Date published: - 164 comments

Imagine that your job was to clean 130 toilets every day. Imagine the grinding unpleasantness of it. Imagine the horrors some disgusting person would regularly leave for you to deal with. Imagine you do that for just above the minimum wage, barely enough to support your family, far from enough to live a real life. And imagine seeing one of the people whose shit you clean sneer at you.

“Predistribution”: From Miliband to Cunliffe

Written By: karol
Date published: - 41 comments

Ed Miliband got the idea of pre-distribution from Jacob Hacker. Cunliffe has followed.  Can “pre-distribution” underpin a new direction for the left in NZ: one relevant to the challenges of the 21st century, especially in countering the too wide inequality gap & re-instating social democracy?

Enough for us all, but they want it all for themselves

Written By: Michael Valley
Date published: - 180 comments

The howls of outrage from the Right elite were predictable. Robertson and Cunliffe promising a living wage for all government workers, are they crazy? Decent pay for cleaners? That’s not what their granddaddies fought for. It was predictable but it still makes you angry. These are the same people who cheered when the elite got billions in tax cuts. These are the people we have to throw out of power.

‘Mind the Gap” – the way forward

Written By: karol
Date published: - 77 comments

TV3’s Mind the Gap documentary (Bryan Bruce) is very important because it put before the general population the damaging impact of income inequality in a clear and and straightforward manner.  The solutions?  Ideas from academics, journalists, campaigners & opposition politicians/parties.

War on the poor: flexible super

Written By: karol
Date published: - 94 comments

Dunne’s proposal for flexible superannuation is a U-Turn for Key, while he hides behind it being a Dunne and flexible initiative & good for low income people.  Sue Bradford argues against Dunne’s initiative, saying it will benefit those on higher incomes.  She prefers better and universal benefits.

Statistic of the Day

Written By: Bunji
Date published: - 19 comments

Percent of New Zealanders with not enough money to make ends meet: 15

Percent unemployed: 6.4

Still waiting for that recovery…

Written By: Bunji
Date published: - 80 comments

So the economic data is out and unemployment is up and wages are flat – the lowest rate of wage increase since 2010. 45% of employees didn’t get a pay rise.
The reason the stats overall aren’t worse is the big increase in employment in Canterbury, as the government relies on an earthquake-led recovery. The number of unemployed is still up 46% since National took office. That’s 48,000 Kiwis who would rather be working.
Still waiting for that Brighter FutureTM.

A conservative view on low wages.

Written By: KJT
Date published: - 37 comments

It is a national evil that any class of Her Majesty’s subjects should receive less than a living wage in return for their utmost exertions… where you have what we call sweated trades, you have no organisation, no parity of bargaining, the good employer is undercut by the bad and the bad by the worst; …