Category: Unions

Posted on

Heartless government

A few stories of recent weeks which show exactly what kind of government we have.

Last August, Emma-Lita Bourne died of pneumonia because the state house her family lived in was cold and damp. Soesa Tovo died after being admitted to hospital with heart and lung problems and pnuemonia. His house was so cold and damp they had to wipe down the ceiling every morning.

The response from Minister of Housing Nick Smith?

“People dying in winter of pneumonia and other illnesses is not new.”

Because people who expect state houses to not be so cold they kill people are clearly confused about the concept of mortality.

Marnia Heke and her children are living in their car because they can’t find stable accommodation. She doesn’t want to go to a motel for a night because it’ll get the kids’ hopes up.

The response from WINZ?

“We have told her that the Ministry would help her to cover the financial cost of temporary accommodation. We wouldn’t be paying for all of the accommodation as it would be reasonable to expect her to contribute.”

Because when a woman and her three kids are sleeping in their car what’s really important is making sure we spend the absolute minimum amount required to put a roof over their heads.

Peter Talley is given a knighthood for “services to business”. His business involves locking out workers, paying women less because they’re women, and trying to force workers to sign individual employment agreements which deny them the right to hold workplace meetings, criticise Peter Talley and his mates publicly, or deny their boss access to their entire medical history.

The response from the Deputy Prime Minister?

“It’s a big complicated business and I’m sure there’s been things go wrong over time, but I think the contribution he has made over the years has been beneficial.”

Because systematically, repeatedly exploiting your workers is just a boo-boo.

This is heartless government. A government that literally does not care about people. Not about providing warm safe housing (it might cost too much). Not about making sure they can come home every day after work (it might cost too much). Not about protecting workers’ right to freedom of speech and forming unions (it would definitely cost too much).

New Zealand is surely a better country than this.

Posted on

Protect Your Signature!

There’s always something comical about American corporations’ union-busting videos. They wouldn’t be out of place in between news clips on Starship Troopers. And if you’re looking for a conspiracy theory, there’s something eerily similar about all of them – with cries to “Protect your signature!” and dire warnings about the death of “our friendly open-door policy.”

The latest to come out is this offering from Walmart, your friendly, local, mom-and-pop US$200 billion business.

 

It would truly be terrible if vile union activism hurt Walmart. They’re the kind of community-minded business which closes stores with little or no notice citing “plumbing problems” – including stores which just happen to have high levels of union activity – and then forces its workers to re-apply for their old jobs rather than reinstating them.

Still, the video raises some good points. Why would unions target stores like Walmart, with its broad history of exploiting workers, aggressively responding to workers trying to form unions, and destroying local business? It just doesn’t make sense. Must be because unions are a big business that wants to steal all your money. Unlike Walmart.

The real question is, who falls for this rubbish? Who honestly goes “yep, the manager who slashed my hours after I took a sick day sure has my best interests at heart, unlike those terrible union organisers who want to help me secure better pay and conditions!”

But I don’t think that’s the point. The videos are just too friendly. Friendly the way a guy coming into your home and saying, “Nice place. Would be a pity if something should happen to it” is friendly.

Posted on

Send a message against zero-hour contracts

Great news for some workers in the fast-food industry this week:

Unite has now successfully negotiated for all workers at Restaurant Brands (KFC, Pizza Hutt, Starbucks and Carls Jr.) to have guaranteed hours from July this year.

But there’s always more to do, and now we can send a message to the other big players – McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s – that they need to show their workers some basic respect and give them guaranteed hours of work.

Unite have set up an online form so you can send your own (polite but firm) email to senior management at those companies. They have to listen to their customers – so make your voices heard!

We need to remember too that zero-hour contracts aren’t limited to fast food. There are workers in many other industries who are obliged to be ready to work every day – with no guarantee of actually getting paid.

The right to guaranteed hours of work – or the genuine freedom of a real casual employment arrangement – needs to be enshrined in law. It’s a simple matter of fairness. Your boss shouldn’t be able to demand you be available at all hours but get nothing in return.

We shouldn’t have to generate massive public outcry on a case-by-case basis to get progress, especially when the workers who are forced onto zero-hour contracts (or 90-day fire-at-will trials, or youth rates) are the ones with the least power to challenge the boss.

But it does work. So sign the letter, show your support for companies who don’t use zero-hour contracts, and sign Labour’s petition to pressure the government into making fair employment laws.

Collective action gets things done.

Posted on

QOTD: Supreme hubris from POAL CEO Tony Gibson

On Q&A yesterday, Ports of Auckland CEO Tony Gibson said regarding their planned – and thoroughly rebuffed by the community – wharf extensions:

“I don’t think we’re arrogant as a company. That’s not part of our values. I think we’ve really engaged with the public”

The first two sentences are outright falsehoods, and the third only makes sense in a world where “engaged with” means “leaked confidential information to” and “the public” means “Cameron Slater.”

And yes, Tony Gibson was the CEO of Ports of Auckland during the 2012 lockout of its workers, in a hamfisted attempt to force its workers to become contractors, degrade their pay and conditions, run out the clock on their collective agreement, and possibly even open the Port up for privatisation.

And if you want to talk about arrogance – how about the arrogance of a company which spent $33 million to lock out its workers and attempt to break the union, an unnecessary waste of money which put POAL’s books in the red?

If none of that meets Tony Gibson’s personal definition of “arrogance”, I’d hate to see what did.

Posted on

Tea breaks are creeping communism

A classic National Party campaign poster did the rounds on Twitter following Farrar’s latest round of “Labour is now the extreme left” scaremongering.

1951 national poster communism

What’s funny is how little the right’s tactics have changed in 60 years. Even today, you get employers telling their workers that they’re very concerned that the unions they belong to are greedy leviathans run from shadowy smoke-filled rooms by men with Stalinist moustaches. The rhetoric is still about scary unions forcing innocent businesses to close their doors as the hardworking General Manager Corporate Affairs weeps into his tie.

The fairly simple logic – that it doesn’t really benefit unions if their members go out of work – is usually lost on people like Farrar. Many unions have in fact been key parts of helping businesses to lift productivity and innovate and create even more jobs.

Of course workers, and the unions who represent them, get a little stroppy when employers do things like try to take away guaranteed tea breaks and leak workers’ personal information to hate-bloggers like Cameron Slater, but that’s hardly socialism gone mad. That’s recognising basic concepts like fairness, safety, and integrity.

And those things are pretty scary, if you think the only important thing in the world is short-term profit.