Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, November 5th, 2012 - 184 comments
Breaking news: Kate Wilkinson has resigned her portfolio due to the Pike River Mine report. Updates: News reports. Damning official report: cold comfort for the families of the victims. Video of John Key’s press conference today. International news coverage. Video of Shearer’s response (7 mins)
Written By: - Date published: 11:19 am, November 5th, 2012 - 33 comments
John Key won’t be on the West Coast today when the Pike River report will be released. He’ll have a tightly managed press conference at the Beehive, instead. Key promised that he would stand by the Pike River families. He promised that all efforts would be put in to get the bodies out, no matter the cost. It was all hollow talk from a hollow man.
Written By: - Date published: 7:44 am, October 31st, 2012 - 62 comments
National are economic failures. Unemployment is up two thirds under their watch and still rising. Household incomes are falling behind inflation. Manufacturing firms are closing up and making workers redundant. People are fleeing to Aussie in record numbers looking for jobs and decent wages So, what’s Key’s solution? Drive down wages by attacking workers’ right to organise.
Written By: - Date published: 9:10 am, October 28th, 2012 - 18 comments
On Planet Key natural body processes are ignored, and nature has been tamed into a golf course. It’s a place where mothers don’t lactate or have a heightened sensitivity to their babies’ cries; a place disconnected from the chaotic consequences of climate change.
Written By: - Date published: 11:55 am, October 24th, 2012 - 27 comments
The government is vulnerable around Sue Moroney’s Paid Parental Leave Bill. The Nats don’t want it to pass, but they risk losing support from women. A government veto of an entire Bill is on experimental ground, and Bill English has shifted his reasons for not supporting the Bill. Updates: BusinessNZ submission
Written By: - Date published: 9:46 am, October 23rd, 2012 - 8 comments
Union members are the ones who win decent wages and conditions for everyone. And the good news is union membership is increasing, despite rising unemployment.
Written By: - Date published: 9:50 am, October 22nd, 2012 - 74 comments
Slavery was abolished in the 19th century, wasn’t it? From wage-slavery to human-trafficking, modern day forms of slavery have many faces, all in the interests of profits for the few. What are these different faces, and what impact do they have on the lives of ordinary people?
Written By: - Date published: 10:54 am, October 21st, 2012 - 122 comments
While Labour Day commemorates the 40 hour week, 13% of Kiwis are working more than 50 hours per week, and ANZ are predicting unemployment to rise to 7%… couldn’t we distribute that work a bit better?
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, October 20th, 2012 - 50 comments
Labour Day celebrates, what was at the time, a cutting edge victory for working people – the 8 hour working day. But the struggles continue for men and women. Now is not the time to be going backwards on issues that impact on workers, people struggling on low incomes, or beneficiaries. Updated.
Written By: - Date published: 11:55 am, October 19th, 2012 - 109 comments
Revolutions, political movements and protests are fueled by songs. They bring people together in common cause, draw attention to devastating conditions, reassure the oppressed that they are not alone, and inspire people to take political action. What songs have engaged, inspired, or motivated your political conscience and compassion? Update: : The winner is…
Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, October 18th, 2012 - 28 comments
Paid Parental Leave, Charter schools, compulsory early childhood education for beneficiaries: for NAct it’s all about money, and they use ‘shonky’ figures to justify their ‘shonkey’ policies and vetos. This is ostrich and patriarchal behaviour, ignoring the evidence of the wider benefits to communities and society of good quality child care, education and Paid Parental Leave.
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, October 13th, 2012 - 139 comments
Seriously, people, what on Earth can David Smol, CE of MoBIE, possibly do to earn $590k a year?
Written By: - Date published: 10:02 am, October 12th, 2012 - 19 comments
Unions, businesses, and political parties will come together today to form a united front on the need for change to save manufacturing in New Zealand. If National want to stand isolated against the new consensus, that’s their problem.
Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, October 11th, 2012 - 21 comments
Youth rates are an admission of economic failure.
Written By: - Date published: 1:41 pm, October 9th, 2012 - 60 comments
When foreign companies want hand outs, John Key says ‘ how much?’ But there’s no such concern for Kiwi workers.
Young people need work – National gives them a pay cut.
40,0000 manufacturing jobs lost – Key turns a blind eye.
Written By: - Date published: 6:37 am, October 9th, 2012 - 99 comments
National promised us an “unrelenting focus on jobs” and delivered record highs in unemployment and emigration. Now Key is refusing to even attend a Union jobs summit, because on Planet Key everything is just fine. The unwillingness to admit that anything is wrong is just blind arrogance.
Written By: - Date published: 11:10 am, October 8th, 2012 - 76 comments
In another slippery John Key u-turn, after his mission to Hollywood ‘sweeteners’ are now on the table. Key is bending over to let US-based conglomerates extend their dominance in NZ, in support of their own interests and values.
Written By: - Date published: 4:32 pm, October 6th, 2012 - 4 comments
CTU President Helen Kelly talks about the Government’s Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety and the need for as many workers as possible to make a submissions and give the Government a real, on-the-ground picture of health and safety in the workplace.
Written By: - Date published: 8:17 am, October 4th, 2012 - 66 comments
As Key heads off to the US to promote the NZ film industry, I look back at the Hobbit union-busting case and the issues it raised. Will Key’s latest mission to Hollywood, boost the economy, increase jobs and provide benefits to the NZ film industry? Or will it actually undermine the NZ’s economy and democracy, further Americanising NZ’s culture along with it?
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, September 26th, 2012 - 102 comments
Bennett’s reforms aim to cut the costs of government spending on welfare. But what this means is that more of the necessary caring and service work in NZ will be unpaid, or underpaid. It doesn’t mean people will necessarily work harder or longer, and that they aren’t making a significant contribution to society and the economy.
Written By: - Date published: 12:08 pm, September 24th, 2012 - 54 comments
Welcome to National’s economy: Kiwirail has just announced 158 infrastructure and engineering job losses, and this afternoon Solid Energy will probably announce the loss of 300 jobs at Spring Creek, and 200-250 elsewhere. This on top of the swathe of job losses in Huntly and Christchurch Solid Energy announced a month ago.
Written By: - Date published: 9:49 am, September 20th, 2012 - 51 comments
David Clark’s private member’s Bill to increase the minimum wage was voted down 61 to 59 last night. Shame on John Banks and Peter Dunne.
Written By: - Date published: 6:52 am, September 6th, 2012 - 232 comments
I see Paula Benefit is up to her old tricks again. As the government desperately wants to be doing something other than not attending huis over water rights, it’s up to Paula to pull a benefit bash. But she’s obviously run out of ideas so now we’re re-announcing the old bene-bashes.
Written By: - Date published: 8:55 am, September 5th, 2012 - 18 comments
David Clark’s opinion piece in The Herald – “The PM’s cleaner deserves more pay” – makes for welcome reading…
Written By: - Date published: 4:55 pm, September 3rd, 2012 - 12 comments
The government is pushing on with their Environmental Relations Act Amendment Bill, reducing workers’ rights to rest breaks.
Written By: - Date published: 12:21 pm, September 3rd, 2012 - 33 comments
Spring Creek miners and their families will lead a community March for Work in Greymouth tomorrow calling on Solid Energy and the Government to secure the future of the town and ensure the mine stays open.
Written By: - Date published: 8:48 am, August 27th, 2012 - 28 comments
Remember the Ports of Auckland lock-out? The bosses tried to starve out 300 worker to push through contracting out, and ‘save’ $6m a year. The workers won. Now, PoAL has reported a $12m loss caused by the $33m cost of the lockout. So, the bosses spent $33m trying to get a $6m a year ‘saving’. Time the councils sacks the managers who wasted that money.
Written By: - Date published: 11:05 am, August 24th, 2012 - 60 comments
David Shearer is right. The rise in inequality under National, shown by the latest Household Incomes report from MSD, is a bloody disgrace. Good on Shearer for his robust and instinctive response. Now we look forward to seeing it reflected in the outcomes from the policy work that is going on behind the scenes.
Written By: - Date published: 6:43 am, August 21st, 2012 - 128 comments
Compare the latest figures on CEO pay to the median income of New Zealanders and to the minimum wage. The average CEO gets 10 times the pay of a full-time minimum wage worker or the income of the typical Kiwi. The gap is growing. The CEO pay increase was 26 times the median income increase, 56 times what a full-time minimum wage earner got. Does anyone think this is a recipe for a happy and successful New Zealand?
Written By: - Date published: 12:19 pm, August 20th, 2012 - 59 comments
There are just short of 630,000 people aged 20-29. A net 33,000 of them have left for Australia under National – 13,000 in the last year. That’s twice the rate of emigration under Labour. There’s also twice as many unemployed in this age group – 46,000. That’s 1 in 8 of our youngest generation of workers either leaving for Aussie or unemployed under National.
Written By: - Date published: 9:58 am, August 20th, 2012 - 9 comments
Structural discrimination is alive and well in NZ. It makes nonsense of all the right-wing “one law for all” and beneficiary bashing rhetoric.
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