Written By: - Date published: 2:05 pm, February 21st, 2008 - 41 comments
While media, politicians and the Kiwi blogosphere are arguing about the wage gap with Australia, around four hundred NDU members at Bunnings Warehouse are taking matters into their own hands with a two-hour nationwide strike action today. Bunnings workers in New Zealand start on just $12 an hour compared to $19 for their counterparts in […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:14 am, February 21st, 2008 - 17 comments
Looks like John Ansell’s finally got his mojo back. Hat tip: Ant.
Written By: - Date published: 8:59 am, February 21st, 2008 - 43 comments
So without Bill to run interference like he did in the House yesterday, John Key has resorted to the age-old “memory lapse” (aka “Don Brash”) defense regarding his statement to Kerikeri Business Association that “we would love to see wages drop”. Key’s use of the memory lapse defense places him in the illustrious company of […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:18 pm, February 20th, 2008 - 60 comments
Key’s comment that “we would love to see wages drop” to a group of business-people last year has come under increasing scrutiny in the House today. Rather than defend his statement himself, Key sat squirming as English attempted to deflect Cullen’s attack – hardly a good look for the leader of the opposition, getting someone […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:46 am, February 20th, 2008 - 144 comments
“We would love to see wages drop”. You would think that given the simmering debate about our wage gap with Australia at the moment that would be the last thing you’d expect to hear from the leader of the National Party. Especially when he’d gone on record in the national media just a week ago […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:56 am, February 15th, 2008 - 100 comments
Vernon Small reports today that National party blogger David Farrar has taken out a complaint against the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union’s registration as a third party under the Electoral Finance Act. Now aside from the fact that the founder of the Free Speech Coalition is trying to use the very legislation he has so […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:35 pm, February 14th, 2008 - 68 comments
I never really understood how National planned to make wages grow because every time our man John Key is asked about our wage-gap with Australia he starts talking about cutting taxes. Here’s a recent example from Morning Report: Key: Firstly we will raise wages. I mean, after-tax wages will be rising under a National government. […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:46 pm, February 10th, 2008 - 35 comments
At the supermarket earlier this week I was browsing the aisles and noticed the price of cheese. It seems now that for a kilo of this yellow gold (hold on isn’t gold kinda yellow anyway?) you’ll be paying $16. Now that’s a lot of money for what is pretty much a Kiwi staple but it’s […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:48 am, February 8th, 2008 - 61 comments
Larger (but still small) numbers of kiwis are leaving for Australia and higher incomes are part of the attraction. At the same time unemployment here is at a record low, which is good but employers are complaining about a lack of workers. To keep skilled workers in New Zealand higher wages are needed. The government […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:14 pm, February 7th, 2008 - 18 comments
From Stuff: Growing numbers of women in the workforce pushed New Zealand’s unemployment rate down to a new record of 3.4 per cent in the December quarter. The rate dropped 0.1 of a percentage point from the September quarter, which itself had been the lowest unemployment rate recorded since the Household Labour Force Survey started […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, February 5th, 2008 - 64 comments
News that 28,000 New Zealanders left for Australia last year has Business NZ, the Chamber of Commerce and the National Party predictably calling for tax cuts as the solution to New Zealand’s wage gap with Australia. Of course, they know very well that tax cuts are not the answer. Workers in Australia currently earn 30% […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:13 pm, January 17th, 2008 - 7 comments
The Employers and Manufacturers Association has a new employment survey out today that aims to portray personal grievances as “way out of hand” and add momentum to their ongoing campaign with the National Party to remove the right of workers to appeal against unfair dismissal during their first 90 days in a new job. But […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:10 am, January 16th, 2008 - 213 comments
The Herald has an interesting article about shift work posted today pointing out the impact shift work has on workers’ families. The article focuses on bus drivers – who have faced some of the biggest attacks on their conditions over the last 17 years. Auckland Bus driver Jim Kelly puts it thus: I see young […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:01 pm, December 20th, 2007 - 128 comments
National’s comments on the minimum wage show a party that has no answers on how to close the wage gap with Australia. Just a day after the Government announced plans to increase the minimum wage to $12 next year – an increase of more than 70% since 1999 – John Key’s industrial relations spokesperson Kate […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:31 pm, December 18th, 2007 - 43 comments
Reports suggest that the government is set to raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour. Coming toward the start of 2008, this would mark the ninth rise in as many years. When it comes to income, one trick ponies John Key and National would like you to believe that the only thing that counts […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:52 am, December 18th, 2007 - 33 comments
The NZ Herald reports the Service and Food Workers Union, the National Distribution Union and Unite have agreed in principle to merge into a new super-union. The new union will represent some of the lowest paid workers in the country such as cleaners, checkout operators, fast food workers and factory process workers, and encompasses three […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:24 pm, December 13th, 2007 - 74 comments
I see National’s complaining about the wage gap between New Zealand and Australia again. As usual they have no answers on what to do about it other than to blindly hope that tax cuts for the rich will lead to economic growth and somehow it’ll all trickle down into the ordinary worker’s pay packet. Ever […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:21 pm, December 10th, 2007 - 81 comments
Reuters reports that the death toll from China’s Xinyao mine tragedy has now surpassed the 100 mark after 50 rescue workers were sent in without training and never resurfaced. According to Chinese media the cause of the tragedy was the mine management’s failure to install a gas detection system and its storage of explosives in […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:52 pm, November 15th, 2007 - 26 comments
How’s this for small-minded prejudice from National Party backbencher Kate Wilkinson in a press release today complaining about the $84,000 dollars for a Labour Dept to help provide health and safety training for Chinese coal miners: Ms Wilkinson says Kiwi taxpayers will clearly be surprised to learn that the New Zealand Government is effectively subsidising […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:49 pm, November 12th, 2007 - Comments Off on Laila on unions
Laila Harre’s Bruce Jesson Memorial Lecture is now available in full over at Scoop. It’s titled Union Relevance in Aotearoa in the 21st Century, and while it’s nothing new to those of us in the movement it provides a good overview of the challenges unions face in rebuilding from the devastation wrought in the 1990s […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:32 am, November 12th, 2007 - 41 comments
Last week Stats NZ announced unemployment had dropped to a record low of just 3.5%, after reaching double-digit figures under National in the 90s. That reminded me of an old press release from Bill English just before the 1999 election where he called unemployment in the range of 3% “a hoax” and suggested 6% might […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:47 pm, November 2nd, 2007 - 41 comments
An interesting piece in yesterday’s Molesworth and Featherston (off line): Labour will pick a fight over workplace law reform. Trevor Mallard is in there to promote a message of ‘higher wages through better industrial law’ along with a scare campaign that says National will cut pay and conditions. Now we’ve been saying work rights are […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:19 pm, November 2nd, 2007 - 8 comments
NZCTU economist Peter Conway makes a good point about National’s spin in his latest Economic Bulletin. After highlighting the shonky statistics behind the party’s attempts to inoculate the 1990s with its “Joanna Average” story, he goes on to point out how disingenuous the party is being in its pitch: The disturbing part of all this […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:33 pm, October 30th, 2007 - 30 comments
Coming into an election when work rights is going to be a major issue, we’ve heard Ruth Dyson will be relinquishing her labour portfolio tomorrow. The big question is who’s going to pick it up? Across the ditch work rights has become the defining issue of the upcoming election and given National’s desperate attempts to […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:49 pm, October 25th, 2007 - 6 comments
(Hat tip: Robert Owen – via comments)
Written By: - Date published: 1:46 pm, October 19th, 2007 - 58 comments
The National Party are clearly worried. They’ve done pretty well so far with the populist rallying cry of tax cuts, but they always knew their record on wages would come up at some point. Because as National themselves are fully aware, while tax cuts might on the face of it put more money into workers’ […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:08 pm, October 17th, 2007 - 2 comments
Congratulations to Helen Kelly, the first woman to lead the Council of Trade Unions. Helen replaces Ross Wilson, who’s been CTU President since 1999 (and who must now go on to head the ACC surely?), and together with Secretary Carol Beaumont and Maori Vice Pres Sharon Claire present a formidable trio at the apex of […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, October 17th, 2007 - 47 comments
A new report (PDF) by the University of Sydney shows Aussie workers are doing markedly worse under a Howard government. His desperate bid to buy them back this week with the offer of tax cuts doesn’t address the deep unfairness they’re being subjected to by his doublespeak-ish “Work Choices” legislation. The Australia@Work study, published this […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:14 pm, October 10th, 2007 - 7 comments
History tells us the Nats will use any excuse they can to undermine people’s work rights, but this is low even for them. Desperate for an angle to oppose the extension of minimum wage rights to disabled workers, National hit on an idea: argue that paying disabled workers the legal minimum is actually bad for […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, October 3rd, 2007 - 2 comments
In case anyone hasn’t noticed, the Ports of Auckland have been ground to a halt by strike action from 250 members of the Maritime Union. These guys are on as little as $13 an hour and have had their pay negotiations stalled by the company for nearly a year, so you can hardly blame them […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:23 pm, September 26th, 2007 - 9 comments
I was wondering when this was going to break. From Molesworth and Featherston this morning (offline, subscription only): Two private-sector unions are poised to join forces, potentially creating a major new force in industrial relations. Sources say that the Service and Food Workers’ Union and the National Distribution Union reached a heads-of-agreement last week over […]