Written By: - Date published: 11:31 am, April 23rd, 2009 - 12 comments
Keeping with the topics of the day thus far – Air New Zealand and pay packets – a solution to the Zeal320 dispute occurs to me. There are about 240 flight attendants striking for fairer pay (they want pay parity with flight attendants doing the same job but employed directly by AirNZ eventually but at this […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, April 23rd, 2009 - 28 comments
Interesting question over at Big News: In 1998, just 10 years ago,the Prime Minister was paid $185,000. The speaker was paid $126,000. A Chairperson of a Select Committee got $86,500. John Key gets more than all three combined in 2008. That’s not including his allowances. Is your position paid more than double it was 10 […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:29 am, April 21st, 2009 - 4 comments
I suppose the Herald means for us to recoil in horror at the headline “$325,000 bill to save 57 jobs” but I’m fine with it. Look at the alternative – 57 families taking a major hit to their incomes, with all the consequences for health, education, crime, and family stability that we know unemployment brings. Think […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:29 pm, April 20th, 2009 - 8 comments
The Government announced two nine day fortnights today. Interestingly, they’re refusing to tell us who one of them is. From the Government’s press release: Ms Bennett confirmed today that Oamaru-based Summit Wool Spinners and another manufacturing firm, which wishes to remain anonymous, had joined the scheme Now call me old-fashioned, but this strikes me as […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, April 19th, 2009 - 5 comments
Head of the Unite union, Matt McCarten, writes about the Synovate lockout and how foreign-owned businesses try to exploit New Zealand workers: [The] owners offer workers essentially nothing above the minimum wage then expect everyone to roll over and accept it. The normal threat is to close and go offshore. This is supposed to terrify […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, April 15th, 2009 - 18 comments
Indymedia reports that the lockout at research company Synovate has been lifted and a settlement has been reached: Late last night, union and company negotiators reached a settlement at the Department of Labour. Pay rises will be 50c now and 50c in 6 months. People will get paid for stat. holidays over the lock-out. And […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, April 14th, 2009 - 22 comments
Restaurant Association chairman Mike Egan on how to treat your staff during a recession: “if some of our employees cannot adapt fast enough we will drag them out of the cave and leave them to the sabre-tooth tigers and find staff who can and will adapt”. Most of the people he’s talking about are on […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:26 am, April 14th, 2009 - 31 comments
Forwarded to us from Indymedia: Call centre workers at Synovate in South Auckland were today locked out by their employer. The workers had been negotiating for secure hours and a pay rise of a dollar when they received word by text last night that they would not be allowed to come back to work. Upon […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:36 am, April 12th, 2009 - 32 comments
The Herald’s article this morning on how to ‘Future-proof your job in the recession’ tells Kiwi workers to bend over for your boss and take it; cause that’s the only way you’re gonna keep your job. No. Workers are in danger of losing their jobs because of fat greedy corporates in the first place. We […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:14 pm, April 6th, 2009 - 41 comments
I’ve long been of the opinion that the Talley family, owners of the Talleys food empire, are a corrosive force in this country who have a complete contempt for their workforce, the public and our democratic institutions. Sure enough, they’re at it again. NZPA reports: The New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA) plans to call […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:49 pm, March 31st, 2009 - 13 comments
Nick Smith announced National’s changes to the ACC board this afternoon. As expected they’ve kicked Wayne Butson and Ross Wilson off the board, meaning ACC no longer has any worker representation. In their place are a mixed bag of company directors and consultants headed by an affiliate member of the Business Roundtable. This isn’t just […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:53 pm, March 30th, 2009 - 26 comments
It’s time for Bill English, as shareholding minister in Air New Zealand, to tell the AirNZ board that either they fire CEO Robert Fyfe or he will fire them. Yesterday, Fyfe directly attacked two government policies. First, he threatened to cancel flights if air traffic controllers take their meal breaks at the statutorily guaranteed times. […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, March 28th, 2009 - 7 comments
This week Sealord confirmed it would lay off 130 staff to improve its already healthy return on capital. The other 400 have been threatened with the sack if they don’t accept pay cuts. The Service and Food Workers Union has put together a youtube clip about community resistance to corporate greed, focusing on the rally […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:39 am, March 26th, 2009 - 35 comments
The Key/English odd couple continue to give us a sweet and sour mix of messages – one with rosy promises that the recession will be over any day and the other issuing dark threats that we can’t have a stimulus package only public service cuts. In the real world there is a real economic disaster going […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:51 am, March 24th, 2009 - 42 comments
This is just stunning: Mr Key was yesterday questioned about an employment situation where a person was offered a job paying $40,000 a year and told that the fourth week of leave would have to be included in this or the job would go to the “next in line”. He said this would not happen […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:44 pm, March 23rd, 2009 - 39 comments
That’s John Key speaking about Labour’s new fourth week of leave legislation back when the Nats thought they were going to win in 2005. His plan was to take your fourth week off you before it started happening in 2007 because that way you wouldn’t miss it. Now they’re trying plan “b” – put your […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, March 19th, 2009 - 5 comments
The Service and Food Workers Union is organising a rally and march in Nelson on Saturday (21 March) in support of Sealord workers and other workers in the community who are losing their jobs through restructuring. Sealord recently announced it planned to axe 180 jobs and has threatened the other 400 with up to $70 […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:09 pm, March 18th, 2009 - 93 comments
Key’s speech to the CTU today showed an interesting inight into how he thinks you lift wages. NZPA reports: He said it was not good enough for New Zealand to be in the bottom third of the OECD for per-capita incomes, but was cautious about tackling the issue by lifting minimum wage rates. “In reality, […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, March 15th, 2009 - 5 comments
National’s 9-day fortnight will save only 2-3% of the jobs that are expected to be lost in the recession. It’s a trifling investment of only $20 million. It makes no effort to get workers into training. But the deep, dark secret is it is geared to the gain of business, not working people. Here’s the […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:48 pm, March 13th, 2009 - 33 comments
Gordon Campbell’s pretty scathing of Key’s nine day fortnight scheme in his latest article at Scoop, describing the announcement as a sign workers will have to bear the brunt of the recession. Plainly, workers are going to be the first people over the side of the lifeboat during this recession. The main policy idea to […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:25 pm, March 13th, 2009 - 7 comments
Over the last week or so the Government, and Nick Smith in particular, have run a dishonest PR campaign to undermine ACC and soften up the public for cuts and eventual privatisation. In response, the Council of Trade Unions has put together a helpful fact sheet to set the record straight and bust some of […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:54 pm, March 12th, 2009 - 3 comments
Good to see Emerson’s back in form.
Written By: - Date published: 3:34 pm, March 12th, 2009 - 10 comments
The Service and Food Workers Union has launched an online email campaign to urge Sealord Chairman Robin Hapi to reconsider axing 180 workers in Nelson. The other 400 have have been threatened with pay cuts or else they’ll face the sack as well. And this is after Sealord had the gall to attend the Prime […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:22 am, March 12th, 2009 - 15 comments
Morning Report asked Paula Bennett why the public sector had been cut out of the 9 day fortnight scheme this morning and her answer was that it was for businesses that have been hit by the effects of the recession and the public service doesn’t fall into that category. That’s not true. Crown owned company […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:04 pm, March 11th, 2009 - 53 comments
The 9 day fortnight scheme has finally been announced but I’ve got a few questions: Why do the taxpayer and the worker have to pay but the employer not? What about free training? Surely that would fit with the productivity argument National’s been making? Does anyone realise that those on the average wage would take […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:38 pm, March 11th, 2009 - 56 comments
I’m always amazed at the intellectual hoops the neoliberal right will jump through to try and deny low income workers minimum wage increases. David Farrar has a piece up today highlighting the case of Honduras, where they’ve apparently raised the minimum wage by 60% in one go, causing higher unemployment. This, he says, highlights the […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:21 am, March 8th, 2009 - 23 comments
Following my post yesterday about the EPMU’s film on the recession, Socialist Aotearoa has alerted me to the fact The Take is now available on Google Video. In suburban Buenos Aires, thirty unemployed auto-parts workers walk into their idle factory, roll out sleeping mats, and refuse to leave. All they want is to re-start the […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:06 pm, March 6th, 2009 - 41 comments
The EPMU have released a short film on youtube explaining the recession and their response to it. It features Brian Easton, Gareth Morgan, Pete Conway and EPMU Secretary Andrew Little. It’s sobering viewing.
Written By: - Date published: 1:52 pm, March 6th, 2009 - 10 comments
Quick reminder – today’s Pay Equity Faxathon Day, your chance to have a go at State Services Minister Tony Ryall for his decision to cancel two enquiries into pay equity for women. According to Ryall, getting rid of gender discrmination would “generate an additional form of remuneration pressure that is unaffordable in the current economic […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, March 6th, 2009 - 28 comments
If you believe the Government’s spin, protecting jobs in this recession is their number one priority. They even held a big fancy Jobs Summit to convince us they had it under control. But while that’s all very nice, I’m more interested in concrete actions that keep people in jobs. And right now I’m not seeing […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:42 pm, March 4th, 2009 - 32 comments
The Herald reports the fire at will law is already claiming victims, after Sue Bradford revealed a beneficiary has been denied help for his job relocation costs because Work and Income considered his 90 day ‘trial’ period to mean he was a temporary rather than a permanent worker. Work and Income said it had concerns […]