Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, September 22nd, 2008 - 16 comments
We’re keen to help you get active this election campaign. That’s why we’ve launched Campaign Hub 2008 and its Facebook group to give you info, access to materials, and tips on campaigning. It’s great to see so many people have downloaded leaflets and posters from the Hub or clicked through to Vote With Both Eyes […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:15 am, September 18th, 2008 - 24 comments
Thanks to the wonders of Scoopit I’ve just come across this old TVNZ footage of John Key’s first day as National’s finance spokesman. It’s interesting to see where his economic priorities lay: The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh? [It’s worth noting that this isn’t some aberration limited to John Key […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:20 am, September 18th, 2008 - 75 comments
Work rights should be a big issue this election. National is proposing to strip workers of their rights to undermine wage increases. The Greens’ work rights policy, on the other hand, rocks. – Lift the minimum wage from $12 an hour to $15 an hour immediately. That will restore the minimum wage relative to the […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, September 16th, 2008 - 17 comments
When the EPMU released its investigation notes on Shawn Tan it was obvious that some right-wing bloggers would seize on the fact that Tan had been employed on a probationary agreement and stupidly claim that, therefore, the union was hypocritical for opposing National’s fire at will policy (which creates a 90 day no-rights period for […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:33 am, September 15th, 2008 - 79 comments
I just have to say, it’s incredibly disappointing that a simple prank, a google bomb, gets three newspaper articles and coverage on TV3 and when talkback radio suggests The Standard was tipped off on the election date that is an issue worth following up with the PM. But when John Key is quoted in a […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:50 pm, September 5th, 2008 - 3 comments
Today, we have National’s Judith Collins attacking the Government because the number of Kiwis on the unemployment benefit rose from 17,710 to 20,465 between June and July. Never mind the fact that 17,710 was a 30 year record-low and even 20,000 is 120,000 fewer Kiwis on the unemployment benefit than the best National could manage. […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:35 pm, September 5th, 2008 - 18 comments
The National Party are once again trying to make political capital over the Trans-Tasman wage gap, even though they created it in the first place and have no policy to fix it. Like I’ve pointed out a dozen times before: 1. Yes, we have a wage gap with Australia and it needs to close. 2. […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:11 am, September 5th, 2008 - 27 comments
An article on Stuff today shows “Social injustice is killing people on a grand scale”. It’s based on research by Dr. Jamie Pearce and indicates that those who live in poor areas are more likely to die early than those in wealthy areas. Dr Pearce said the changing social and political environment disadvantaged poor people […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, September 2nd, 2008 - 36 comments
John Key’s attempt to ride on Obama’s coattails has been rightly ridiculed in the New Zealand press, but the differences go much deeper than their respective speaking abilities or Key’s charisma deficit. As this quote from Obama in a recent piece in The Nation shows, when you look at whose interests they’re serving the contrast […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:43 pm, August 29th, 2008 - 10 comments
Hundreds of Australian journalists walked off the job yesterday in protest at Fairfax’s 550 planned job cuts. Here in NZ journos employed by Fairfax and facing 160 job losses joined their Aussie counterparts in a wild cat strike. Nah. They didn’t. However, they did issue a press release via their union the EPMU. That must […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, August 28th, 2008 - 31 comments
MSD released its Social Report today, an annual publication that collates a wide variety of standard of living measures, and produces this awesome graph. The circle represents the status quo in 1995-97 each spoke represents a different measure (income, crimes per capita etc). If the spoke is longer than the circle than the measure has improved between 1995-97 […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, August 28th, 2008 - 24 comments
6000 workers turned out in Manukau yesterday for the EPMU’s Wages Drive rally. With 25 events nation-wide over this month, which have attracted crowds from several hundred in little old Blenhiem to thousands in each of the cities, this is the largest series of political rallies in New Zealand this parliamentary term. The EPMU reports […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:46 pm, August 23rd, 2008 - 57 comments
There’s a lot of heat but not much light in the debate about the EPMU’s suspension of Shawn Tan. What we know from the media is that Tan was told he had to seek approval from the union’s national executive in line with his collective agreement and the rules of the union and then failed […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:07 pm, August 20th, 2008 - 62 comments
Watching Key on Breakfast this morning I was surprised to see him talking about the need for higher wages (about two thirds of the way through). That’s nice to hear but given National’s policy is to reduce work rights and make it harder for working Kiwis to negotiate a better deal it seems a bit […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, August 7th, 2008 - 42 comments
Professor John Gibson from Waikato University says public servants should be paid less because they get paid more than their private sector equivalents and they enjoy their work. First, I would be highly suspicious the methodology of any study that claims to compare like with like between the public and private sector. How many police […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:20 pm, August 7th, 2008 - 15 comments
Unemployment rose again last quarter but remains under 4%. It has now been under 4% for 16 of the last 17 quarters. Interestingly, the number of employed people also increased last quarter but more people came into the workforce who were previously not looking for work. So, workforce participation grew faster than employment grew, meaning […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:27 pm, August 4th, 2008 - 43 comments
Despite the economic slowdown, the labour market is holding up well and wages are up at the record rate. The average hourly wage is now $24, up from $21.90 an hour 2 years ago. That’s a 9.6% increase. Take away 6.1% inflation and the average Kiwi worker is still 3.5% better off than two years […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:04 pm, August 1st, 2008 - 48 comments
The EPMU launched its ‘Work Rights Wage Drive’ today with a rally in Christchurch. Despite the rain, over 1500 Kiwi workers turned out to stand up for their work rights and wages. This is just the first of 25 rallies the EPMU will be undertaking this month, in what will easily be the biggest series […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:12 pm, July 31st, 2008 - 62 comments
Some of our friends on the Right have been putting themselves through strange mental contortions over the recent series of posts we’ve had on the impact of National and the Left on wages. To recap: we’ve shown that National let the minimum wage stagnate while inflation ate its buying power, the Labour-led Governments have increased it, […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:21 am, July 31st, 2008 - 18 comments
The National party may prefer not to have their policy examined in great detail, but in today’s Herald Nigel Haworth, professor of human resource development at Auckland University’s Business School, provides some interesting observations about their 90 no-rights plans. Nigel Haworth suggests that: “National’s intention to introduce, if elected, a 90-day probationary employment period, possibly in the small business […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:21 am, July 30th, 2008 - 39 comments
The Electoral Commission has decided the EPMU can register as a third party under the Electoral Finance Act despite the National Party spending big bucks to try to stop them in the courts. Given the EPMU is a democratic organisation representing 50,000 Kiwi workers and the other unions (dairy workers, meat workers, maritime workers and […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:18 am, July 30th, 2008 - 8 comments
The Electoral Commission has ruled that several unions affiliated to the Labour Party are able to register as third parties under the Electoral Finance Act. Their registration was objected to initally by David Farrar, the National Party frontperson who is the principal behind the registered third party known, ironically, as the Free Speech Coalition. The […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:46 am, July 30th, 2008 - 46 comments
The essential debate in New Zealand politics (and all capitalist economies) is between Right and Left over how big a share of the economy’s production should go to the workers who produce it (ie wages, salaries) and how much should go to the capitalists who invested in the means of production (ie dividends, interest). The […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:22 pm, July 29th, 2008 - 38 comments
I recently caught a story on the radio about the gender wage gap of new graduates – and in the failed search to locate it came across some other related stories. As we head into an election campaign with political parties offering up their solutions for the future I had to ask myself – does anyone […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:48 pm, July 29th, 2008 - 9 comments
Last week the Council of Trade Unions issued a devastating point-by-point critique of National’s ACC policy. Now they’ve followed up with an excellent and surprisingly balanced critique of National’s employment policy. When you compare the amount of detail the CTU has put into its critique with National’s policy bullet-points that barely even fill a page […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:51 am, July 29th, 2008 - 27 comments
Inevitably, reaction from some to the post showing incomes fell 6.1% under National between 1990 and 1997 has not been horror at the fact the incomes of Kiwis went down but ‘so, I bet the Labour-led Governments haven’t done better’. Bet again. The median income in 2007 was 32% higher than the median income was […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:12 am, July 29th, 2008 - 34 comments
For anyone who still doesn’t want to believe that National cut incomes for most Kiwis last time they were in power (and would do so again). Here’s something I came across in an incomes report from 1998: The median income earner was 6% poorer in after-inflation after 7 years of National government. That didn’t happen by […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:25 pm, July 28th, 2008 - 18 comments
A reader noticed a difference between National’s workplace policy as quoted by us and as quoted elsewhere. We and some others have: “Continue to allow union access to workplaces with the employer’s consent.” taken from the PDF of the workplace policy. While others have: “Continue to allow union access to workplaces with an employer’s consent, […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:51 pm, July 25th, 2008 - 10 comments
Seek has released analysis of the pay-rates offered by employers advertising on its site. It’s not a perfect measure and the figures are for the last quarter of 2007 but they still make illuminating reading. The average salary rose from $55,583 to $57,664 in the quarter but low-skilled pay-rates went backwards. Kitchen staff from $29,625 […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:14 am, July 25th, 2008 - 39 comments
Democratic, voluntary organisations of workers: Finsec: “Within the current framework, many workers have been able to achieve real wage increases like the 5% increase from Westpac our members have been offered this week…These pay rises have come as a result of staff being able to bargain collectively through their own independent union. National’s policies undermining […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:05 am, July 25th, 2008 - 22 comments
Some of our rightwing commentators are rejecting the argument that National’s ‘workplace policy’ strips workers of their rights. Problem is, every workers’ rights organisation thinks that it does and John Key does too. Think about it, if you think people will welcome your policy do you slip it out with as little fanfare as possible? […]