That’s what Paula Bennett said in reply to my question last week about why Work and Income are advertising illegal jobs on their Find a Job website.
She went on to give the parliament a lecture saying :
“We do not always get to do our dream job. Sometimes we have to work hard, sometimes we have to get a bit stuck in, sometimes we have to prove ourselves to get promoted, and sometimes we have to wash dishes in a rest home for a while, or dig drains. But there are opportunities out there, and that is a great thing.”
Oh yeah?
Yes, the Minister had ”opportunities” and she’s been quite happy to pull the ladder up after herself, but I wonder what she would consider a “good job”.
- Is it a job where the minimum wage isn’t paid, even although it’s unlawful not to do so?
- Is it a job where health and safety is at risk, and raising it might get you the sack under the 90 days no rights Act?
- Is it a job where you get paid by the square metre, and lucky, lucky you get to pay Tax and ACC and have no paid holidays or sick leave?
- Is it a job where because you are called a contractor, your boss gets to avoid employment law rights, even although clearly your job is dependent?
- Is it a job where you should just be grateful that someone’s given you a chance and never mind all that namby pamby workers’ rights stuff?
- Is it a job where the obsession of the ACT party would have a young person under 20 working for $4.20 an hour, like they used to?
Perhaps we should just give up on insisting on decent work, and have everyone working for nothing. Wouldn’t that be a boost to the economy?
You tell me.
Yea. Fair wages and fair rights are part of the makeup of a good job.
Not according to the Minister Covlin – a job that meets minimum requirements by law is a ‘Dream Job’ as far as Bennett is concerned.
The implication from the Minister’s reply is that such a bad job for someone is only temporary; work hard, put up with some crap for a while, prove yourself, and get a better job. But the reality is that many people are in crap jobs, at risk, poorly paid … for year after year after year.
What a waste.
And instead of a vision for better, all we get are lectures about how we should all soldier on, all be happy for the generosity of employers, be grateful that we are being “given” jobs as some act of charity.
There may be opportunities, but not in this country, and not with this government.
Lead story on Stuff has Key telling the country the budget will forecast ’strong growth on wages and jobs’ and a ’solid pathway back to surplus’. Great news for those without a job and those who cannot pay their bills. Stop the presses. Key tells the media, who dutifully take it all down and run it as lead story, that he has it all under control and everything will come up roses, soon, next year, just trust him. But will the 25 percent of young people without jobs take comfort from Key and his media glee club? Nah, because unlike the media, they know how to google what he said last budget, and the one before that.
Unfortunately many of the options that exist out there involve working at contract rates, whilst this is legal, new workers can find themselves earning as little as $100/$200 per week until such time as they can come up to speed with the work, and even then maximum earning can be well bellow minimum wage rate for the time put in
Any job will provide workers with the opportunity to learn the ropes, contract labour doesn’t give this opportunity. New contractors work their butts off learning new processes, all the while under the threat of losing the work because the boss doesnt like the way they work or even the way they talk. Contract labourers do not have job security and often keep their work at the whim of unpredictable supervisors.
These are only two points and I bring them up from personal experience – Yes Paula there are opportunities out there – but not ones that I would want my children to take.
It’s bleepin crooked
!
What about older people who have worked hard and proven themselves & then are made redundant? Won’t they also be some of the people looking for these underpaid permanent or contract jobs?
Good point Carol. The minister is barely covering her portfolio if she is coming up with retorts about “dream jobs”. If there are opportunities “out there” why is it that 6.6% of working age people are out of work with 32% of this number in the 45-64 age group? Surely this is not because of lack of work ethic and character on the part of the 6.6% unemployed people as implied by minister in Parliament last week?
Of course Darien how silly of us to think that we should all be able to hang out for a dream job at the taxpayers expense!
It is a lot easier to influence change in working conditions from in the job rather than bleating from the sidelines. If someone is able to work and there is a job available they should take it and not expect the taxpayer to otherwise fund their expenses.
Employers acting illegally can be dealt with under existing law, which is very clear. This is a separate issue. With the advent of the 90 day bill there is suitable protection in place for the employer against poor quality employees which were not in place previously.
DarrenW – are you for real!!
It is a lot easier to influence change in working conditions from in the job rather than bleating from the sidelines.
Yes, that’s why workers fought for and got unions, shame NACT want things like collective bargaining to be history. Indeed, you firstly have to get a job. No worries there, everyone can get a job building the cycle way, because that’s all the job creation they have done.
The only other jobs that have came about are those vacated by the larger numbers of people ever jumping the ditch – and National slated Labour for this but have exacerbated the problem.
Cough cough, “With the advent of the 90 day bill there is suitable protection in place for the employer against poor quality employees which were not in place previously.” There already was bleepin protection for employers against bad employees – now they don’t even need a legitimate reason to fire them!
!
@Ian yep I am for real! It does sound a lot like you are admitting the failure of the union movement to do anything for their members though – which is something i agree with you on completely. i have always been better off with individual contracts.
The gap with Aussie came about after 9 years of Labour and is being extended by the fact that they have a mining driven economic boom where we are coming out of the back of a king hit from the global financial crisis extenuated by maintaining costly Labour policies and a downturn form a major natural disaster. Thankfully on Thursday we will hopefully see a plan to address the issue and move us forward on a path to growth and opportunity for all of us. However it won’t be an easy road and we will have tough times for a while yet.
Perhaps her point is that if you get in and have a go at any job, you are giving something a go, and it might lead to somewhere you never expected, making you feel better about yourself and could be the first step onto a better career and life, or at least a life that is more self-supported.
Right now though, any job is quite hard to find.
@Spud – a long winded disciplinary process for new employees was not suitable protection! the 90 day law encourages employers to take a punt on people and no employer in their right mind dismisses someone who is delivering the goods, wasting the training investment. Do the job, do it well and you will be fine.
@darrenw – “…no employer in their right mind dismisses someone who is delivering the goods, wasting the training investment. Do the job, do it well and you will be fine.”
That’s just utter rubbish. Look at how many employers used to abuse subsidised work schemes that required there to be a real job after the funding ended? If employers did that then, they’d certainly be taking full advantage of the 90 day law.
Darien, you’ve mentioned Paula Bennett has had “opportunities” but then has managed to pull the ladder up after herself. I think her behaviour in this department deserves a proper going over. Why doesn’t someone from Labour expose this somehow? This is the sort of thing people really need to know about, how she had a free tertiary education under the Training Incentive Allowance (in times when for most it’s user pays) because she was receiving the DPB, becomes minister then doesn’t just take to it promptly with a chainsaw, but argues ferociously that what she’s doing is right. You guys really need to get stuck in to her over this.
@Darren – they could give them a trial run anyway by making it that way, the law didn’t need to be changed.
Job security encourages one to spend money which helps the economy, but if i dont think ive got continuous work then i save every dollar like its the last which doesnt help me to be a better employee.
darrenw says:
May 16, 2011 at 8:18 pm
You forgot to cry Hallelujah and Heil Key.
You also forgot half the history of why New Zealand is well behind Australia and that it always involved the inequitable and greedy policies of National/Act.
Anton says:
May 16, 2011 at 9:56 pm
First you have to find media that John Key doesn’t control.
So any Job is a good Job, even if it’s illegal. So National are going to decriminalize marijuana. Maybe legal jobs then, take Prostitution, you can always have your dream job. Is Winz becoming pimps, with the whole ‘get out an turn a trick or i’ll cut you’. No carrot only the stick.
Darien, you’ve mentioned Paula Bennett has had “opportunities” but then has managed to pull the ladder up after herself. I think her behaviour in this department deserves a proper going over. Why doesn’t someone from Labour expose this somehow?
They did, it’s just that the media didn’t pick up that story.
Not saying you are wrong Anton, far from it. But until the media pick up on the issues Labour MPs are raising, the MPs will need to continue airing them here at Red Alert.
Paula Bennett, John Key, Aaron Gilmore all had state help getting where they are today but they use it for political gain and then seem to forget that BUT FOR that support they may well NOT be where they are today.
EVERYONE cannot “live the dream”, but I wonder, if a person works illegally and gets caught, will Paul Bennett’s advice above be a defence???
“their right mind dismisses someone who is delivering the goods, wasting the training investment.”
Unless there’s a recession, or the business is sold to a new owner, or someone the owner lives with wants the job (I know of 2 workplaces in the last 6 months where this has happened)
DarrenW – I for one will be heading to Aussie if key gets back in, because his governments policies have made my family (mum dad and three kids, with own home and an income way above the national average) worse off, receiving poorer services, our main asset (our home) depreciating and little sign of any improvement on the horizon; both my wife and I can earn double in Aussie, the kids will still get as good an education and petrol is $1.40 a litre!
She is a disgrace – in what NZ world is it ok to exploit fellow kiwis and say – ‘any job is better than no job’ – just makes a mockery of our laws and tells me a lot about Nats values. I would ask those that vote for these people – is that really what you want? Are you proud of that rhetoric, and would you allow you child/cousin/aunt/etc to be exploited and to take a job illegally.
Yes, the media do need to pick up on it, but I think more could be done to make this happen. The media are largely a lazy bunch who’re usually pleased to get a story without the need for any effort on their part. The BRT, for example, are very good at generating “news” stories; right-wing economists and property developers are forever telling us about how things are “looking up”. I’m not saying it’s just as easy to show the alternative view because it’s not when you see who owns and edits most of our media, not to mention the difference in resources, but it isn’t as bad as “it’s impossible so why should we try?” Some of the methods the likes of the BRT use to get their message across we could learn from. Interesting though, wasn’t it the Fabian Society who were masters at communication and who the Right copied many of its strategies from? If the Left can’t even expose the facade John Key lives under, surely this must mean it’s time we looked for a new and more effective approach?
re : now and again, we get the tiniest of responses from the media. I don’t know the media are lazy – I think it is more that they have to write stories that their editors and multinational fatcats think will sell. Apart from Darrenw, it’s pleasing to see how many of you get how disgraceful this comment is from a Minister of Employment.
Apart from Darrenw, it’s pleasing to see how many of you get how disgraceful this comment is from a Minister of Employment.
Thanks Darien, but I think most of us will admit it doesn’t take a genius to see the hole in her argument. Apparently, it just needs a bit more wit than that possessed by the average National Cabinet Minister…
Seriously – a job that meets the legal basics in employment law is a ‘Dream Job’. Where were the Press gallery when that one came out?
I don’t disagree, Darien, but when I say the media are generally lazy I mean that if you package up stories in ways that minimise the amount of work they have to do this increases the chances of the public getting to see them. This is what the Right do all the time, largely because they have the resources to do it. This doesn’t directly address other barriers the Right do not face, as have already been mentioned, but there are things the Left is not currently doing but can do that can help to get the truth out there. It’s a bit of cop-out to say that trying new ways of doing things is a waste of time because of “who controls the media”.
Is that why Labour campaigns on “better jobs”?
So what is a “better” job?
Hey everyone; can you see my comment above? All I am seeing is a pink box.
I can see 7:33.
Is it legal for a govt mp to masquerade as a real person? I’m referring to darrens rather englishesque line of apologism.
As anyone with an iq over room temperature would note, Paula Bennetts performance as a minister has been a disgrace.. Whichever side of the divide one sits, there can be no real doubt as to her lack of grasp. Only dissent over whether her appointment was part of a plan, or that there just isn’t the talent to go around in the national caucus.
bbfloyd – “Only dissent over whether her appointment was part of a plan, or that there just isn’t the talent to go around in the national caucus.”
Her appointment became part of the plan when they realised they didn’t have the talent to go around.