Fair Pay Agreements
The Working Group on Wage Bargaining reform has reported back. Good news for the working poor, bad news for the filthy rich.
workers’ rights
Remembering Chris Morley
On Friday 27 July 2018, Wellington Tramways Union Vice President Chris Morley passed away after a short battle with Cancer, aged 62. Chris had been […]
Arses and Elbows
Deserving workers and undeserving workers in the public service.
updated
Labour’s new employment relations package
Labour: “After nine years of National, working people’s share of the economy is falling. Less than 40 per cent of economic growth under National has gone into working people’s wages. If working people’s slice of the economy hadn’t shrunk under National, workers’ pay packets would have been $23 billion larger.”
Jobs and wages
Boring stuff about boring old jobs and wages.
AFFCO workers win
A win for workers at the Wairoa freezing works with a lockout ruled illegal.
Unions good for society and economy
Great post on the UK based NEF Blog: Don’t be fooled, dismantling the rights of workers is not good for you, or for the economy.
Bunnings strike
Bunnings staff are striking today after rejecting unfair contracts.
Why did this take a private prosecution?
The CTU win in a private prosecution over a forestry worker’s death. Where was WorkSafe?
Helen Kelly Q+A on health and safety
My Little Ponytail
A really strange story has appeared on The Daily Blog. It claims to be a first person account of PM John Key regularly physically harrassing a staff member in his local cafe over the summer. While it may be much ado about nothing, the Prime Minister really should tell NZ his side of the story. Or resign if it’s true.
Update: It’s true. Key’s office has confirmed the harassment.
Kiwis Stand Up To Corporate Bully
Cotton On’s act of provocation is matched in its cynicism only by the company’s contempt for the negotiation process. While attempting to feign an understanding of how the new law actually works, Cotton On simultaneously may also have breached the newly amended sections 4 and 32 of the ERA
Dim-Post on *that* $168k cake story
Danyl at the Dim-Post has looked more closely at the decision to award a worker $168k over a cake and a Facebook post – and what it tells us about National’s employment law reforms.
The lie about productivity and wages
The Productivity Commission has a new report out which looks at changes in the labour income share, or LIS, from 1978 to 2010. […]
Tip of the iceberg
Looks like exploiting petrol station workers by docking their pay for circumstances beyond their control was just the tip of the iceberg of this kind of behaviour.
Emmerson – The bloodsucker’s treat
Save our tea breaks
Labour hopes to collect signatures for this petition over Labour Weekend…
Save our tea breaks
Three more years
This election result is not the end of the world for me – because I am very, very lucky.
The only way National know to grow the economy
On Firstline this morning, John Key tried to compare National’s and Labour’s policies by saying “You can’t grow the economy when you restrict labour laws.” It’s nonsense, and it’s scary.
Happy International (Working) Women’s Day!
The official theme of International Women’s Day this year is “Inspiring Change”. It’s a little vague, a little aspirational, not too confrontational – […]
Wellington workers
Let’s hope that workers’ rights and safety are protected in the wake of the Wellington quakes.
Working for a Living
The thing I like about the Living Wage campaign is the branding represents strongly both the problem and the solution. The Prime Minister fell into its trap when he said that the Living Wage was not a priority for his Government. The statement says it all really. The Government don’t want you to work for a living, they just want you to work.
Shifting ground: PPL
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
Adventures in the slave trade
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?
Backwards to the future?
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.
Children of Men: money or our lives
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.
Hollywood Rules
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.
National Day of action against Bennett’s welfare reforms
Today there have been protests around NZ, against Paula Bennett’s punitive welfare reforms.
Updates: Include ODT article link and extract, photos of Henderson protest, and links to several news articles.
Of Hollywood, Hobbits & NZ-US politics: Episode II
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?
Port protest gone international
The labour dispute is turning into a fiasco for Ports of Auckland. Thousands marched today through Auckland in protest, and cargo loaded by non-union labour is being blacklisted internationally. How long will Ports of Auckland stay on their self-destructive course?
The real story of the ports dispute
MUNZ workers and their families explain in their own words how changes being promoted by management of the Auckland City owned Ports of […]
Ports of Auckland and casualisation
CTU President Helen Kelly talks about the Ports of Auckland and the effects of casualisation on workers and workplace health and safety.
Sleepover Bill in House tonight
Bloody Klowns
Ever been in a job where you thought you were underpayed and overworked? Ever voiced those feelings to your workmates? Either on the job, or during ‘smoko’, over the telephone or through some other electronic medium?
A Burger King employee in Dunedin has. And now, astonishingly, faces the possibility of being fired for serious misconduct.
A Case of IHG?
Seems these days that when people get in to financial strife, the Government is all too happy to offer a helping hand loaded down with wadges of cash. Sometimes…
And then sometimes something altogether more short and sharp is offered. Depending…