Written By: - Date published: 1:37 pm, February 4th, 2011 - 98 comments
PM Key says we shouldn’t lose confidence despite rising unemployment. Pledging to go ‘on the pull for jobs’, Key said he will prostitute NZ to any multi-national corporation and Kiwis should be willing to work for free. The PM was last seen smiling at himself in a mirror, muttering ‘Hey baby, wanna come back to my place and clean it for $12.75 an hour?’
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, February 4th, 2011 - 66 comments
The NZIER recently popped up with a study purporting to show that the “90-day trial period” (the fire at will bill) is “working”. The study and its conclusions have since been widely quoted. Unfortunately the conclusions are a load of nonsense. NZIER have committed the amateur hour mistake of seeing the cause that they want to see.
Written By: - Date published: 12:08 pm, February 3rd, 2011 - 23 comments
The December quarter employment statistics are out. And there’s a big jump up to 6.8% unemployment. 11,000 people lost their jobs, 8,000 became “unemployed” and 3,000 others left the workforce altogether. The labour force participation rate (the number of people of working age, working) is down to 67.9%.
Written By: - Date published: 8:43 am, February 2nd, 2011 - 36 comments
December 2007, John Key, speaking to Carolyne Brooks-Quan said: “We would love to see wages drop“. Key tried several conflicting excuses, including that he was talking about Australian wages (which became a mini-meme). But actions speak louder than words. Yesterday, we had more confirmation that wages have dropped under Key, except for union members.
Written By: - Date published: 1:22 pm, January 31st, 2011 - 44 comments
John Key says he needs ‘advice’ on Mondayising ANZAC Day and Waitangi Day. The fact is the move would be right and popular but his business mates are too cheap to pay an extra 4 days every 7 years. Key’s just playing for time.
Written By: - Date published: 10:44 am, January 26th, 2011 - 21 comments
Good news for families of the Pike River miners. The Police have shown them video proving their mens bodies are still intact. It raises questions about the government’s actions. Why was this footage previously withheld? Why were the Nats spinning that there was nothing left to recover? And why was the recovery really abandoned so hastily?
Written By: - Date published: 11:37 pm, January 25th, 2011 - 56 comments
John Key says that he can’t increase the minimum wage by a decent amount. The excuse this time round is that a decent increase will destroy jobs. Well, let’s check that out a little bit. Is it really true that lifting the minimum wages destroys jobs? If it is, do the benefits outweigh the gains? And what about the cost of letting wages fall?
Written By: - Date published: 12:57 pm, January 24th, 2011 - 42 comments
Higher commodity and food prices, we are told are a Good Thing. Our exporters (ie. Fonterra and foreign oil companies) get more money. But we consumers have to pay more to by the same products, so are we better off? And what about the poor saps overseas who are paying more for less, or the really poor saps who are priced out of the market?
Written By: - Date published: 7:23 am, January 21st, 2011 - 151 comments
It’s always so wonderful to load up Granny Herald and see some wealthy late middle-aged grump (I’m picking this one is John Roughan) taking a swipe at the poor in the editorial. Today, Granny says we can’t afford to give mums more paid leave or more Working for Families for young kids. Hmm. But we can still afford those tax cuts for the rich?
Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, January 19th, 2011 - 74 comments
In 1951, New Zealand temporarily became a police state. Civil liberties were curtailed, freedom of speech denied, and the Government used force against its own citizens. This film tells the story of the infamous lockout of waterside workers and the nationwide strike which followed. The film won Best Documentary and John Bates was named Best Director, Documentary, at the 2002 New Zealand Television Awards.
Written By: - Date published: 2:08 pm, January 18th, 2011 - 243 comments
When the government, eventually, gets back from its month-long holiday, it needs to review the minimum wage. To keep up with inflation, the increase needs to be at least 50 cents an hour to $13.25. If we want to catch Australia, we should copy them and lift it to $15.
Written By: - Date published: 6:45 am, January 17th, 2011 - 207 comments
You would think that, to reassure the families and satisfy critics, the government would have released detailed technical analysis showing why re-entering Pike River will never be possible. Instead, we got vague, contradictory statements only after the media pressed Key for answers. Now, a mining expert has confirmed the mine’s atmosphere is stable and can be made breathable cheaply.
Written By: - Date published: 12:09 pm, January 15th, 2011 - 136 comments
The National Secretary of the miners’ union has warned important evidence may be lost if Pike River mine is sealed.
For making that rational observation he’s been smeared by National Party blogger, David Farrar.
It seems the Nats don’t just want to seal the mine, they want to seal the whole issue and they’ll be quick attack anyone who raises any awkward points.
Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, January 15th, 2011 - 115 comments
Like smiling and waving, frowning and looking sombre, is easy. But satisfying the expectations you create can be hard. This is where Key consistently fails. He has failed again over Pike River. The sudden and inadequately explained end to the recovery operation is bad enough. Lying about the promises he made is gravely insulting.
Written By: - Date published: 9:57 am, January 14th, 2011 - 75 comments
Sad news for Coasters. Recovery of bodies at Pike River abandoned. Key promised ‘whatever it takes’ to get them out. He’s breaking his word. He should front up and justify it. Instead, he’s hiding from the media.
Written By: - Date published: 11:11 am, January 13th, 2011 - 35 comments
The CTU have launched the latest of their quirky and cute campaigns. Job Survivor Island illustrates the effects on real people of the boss being able to sack you without cause while you are denied legal redress. 1 in 5 workers are sacked under fire at will. Don’t become one of them, resist fire at […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:26 pm, January 12th, 2011 - 45 comments
This year, as last year, we miss out on both Anzac and Waitangi days as holidays. And the Government refuses to do anything about it. Phil Goff and the EPMU back all workers getting their rightful public holidays like any other year – but John Key apparently doesn’t think it’s do-able, that it needs “research”.
Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, January 8th, 2011 - 65 comments
Youth unemployment is 19.8%, but is there much coverage of a shockingly high number? That’s 1 in 5 young people Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEETs to the initiated); higher than the OECD average.
Written By: - Date published: 9:22 pm, January 6th, 2011 - 44 comments
I never, ever thought I would say this but there’s a very good article in Investigate this week. It’s about the Pike River disaster. With methane sensors in place, alarms should have gone off well before the gas reached combustible level. Investigate reveals the sensors may have been disabled by workers who would lose pay if they had to stop work.
Written By: - Date published: 8:33 pm, January 3rd, 2011 - 103 comments
The two significant things from the Herald interview: #1 The signalling by John Key of his willingness to step down. #2 The view of John Key that “essentially there is no money”. “There won’t be money for us and there won’t be money for Labour,” John Key. The significant thing about the first statement is, […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:37 am, December 29th, 2010 - 14 comments
From the ‘I told you so’ file comes IrishBill’s first post on the Hobbit dispute after Jackson suddenly announced that a settled dispute with a small union was forcing Warner Bros to abandon a $100m investment and move overseas. We now know Jackson was lying to extort more money and a law change but Irish called it at the time, resulting in 516 comments – a record.
Written By: - Date published: 10:07 am, December 25th, 2010 - 37 comments
Kiwis frequently like leading the world in the many ways that outmatch our ‘weight’. I wish we weren’t leading the world in this one.
We have one of the worst youth unemployment rates in the world as The Economist shows.
Written By: - Date published: 8:23 am, December 23rd, 2010 - 80 comments
Peter Jackson yesterday did what the government has refused to do and commented on the revelation that he told Gerry Brownlee the Actors’ Equity blacklist was no threat to the Hobbit movies being filmed here. Unfortunately, Jackson has just further sullied his reputation by revealing the true motives for the Hobbit Enabling Act.
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, December 17th, 2010 - 42 comments
Three government investment decisions in the last couple of weeks have shown the deficiencies in the neoliberal way of doing things. SOE Solid Energy’s lignite-to-liquids obsession, Kiwirail buying trains in China rather than making them itself and Steven Joyce decision to re-create Telecom’s monopoly by giving it 70-84% of the broadband contracts.
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, December 7th, 2010 - 25 comments
In a surprise to no-one, John Key has appointed 3 time election loser Hekia Parata to replace the latest of his corrupt ministers to walk the plank – Pansy Wong. I’m hoping Parata will be less of a disgrace than Wong. It wouldn’t be hard, she would just have to actually try to answer questions in the House and actually do something about the wage gaps.
Written By: - Date published: 12:31 pm, December 6th, 2010 - 41 comments
The modern urge to label leaders who perform adequately during an emergency as ‘heroes’ astounds me. Particularly in the case of Pike River. Peter Whitall is a boss who just had 29 workers die on his work-site. While reserving judgment on his blame for that, I’m not going to call him a hero for doing a decent job for the cameras.
Written By: - Date published: 10:24 am, December 6th, 2010 - 17 comments
This collection of articles from recent days illustrate the class war going on within this country. In a time of economic, environmental, and social crisis, either the established elite can be reined in or it will use its power to cement its position and take a greater share of the wealth. Because we’re letting them, the elite are winning the class war.
Written By: - Date published: 10:27 am, December 4th, 2010 - 75 comments
Pike River Coal has been pushing for access to investigation interviews.
This kind of interference needs to be stopped before the investigation is compromised.
Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, November 24th, 2010 - 33 comments
As of April 1 next year, I’m going to be a whole lot less confident moving to a new job. If I do, I’ll probably find the new contract gives the boss the right to fire me without giving me the right to justice if the firing is unfair. Reducing workers’ confidence to change jobs is just one of the stupid consequences of universal Fire at Will.
Written By: - Date published: 8:52 am, November 19th, 2010 - 33 comments
Labour picked up on the statistics I revealed yesterday that show the median income of Maori has fallen 11.5% under National and the Pacific Island median income is down an astounding 19%. Kris Fa’afoi and Annette King put out press releases. Then King took the battle to Bill English in the House, who it seems is also a reader.
Written By: - Date published: 1:37 pm, November 18th, 2010 - 31 comments
Democracy is quietly dying in NZ but you’d never know it by the media’s response. The government is rushing through a slew* of legislation under urgency and it doesn’t even rate a mention in either the Herald or the DomPost (the DP devotes half a page to Harry and Kate’s engagement for god’s sake). National Radio […]
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