The more I hear from this government, the more I believe that they think unions and workers have little role in the success of a business, and what’s good for business is good for everyone, regardless of how people are treated. Paula Bennett said a couple of weeks ago that “any job is a good job“. She means that workers should just be grateful for the generosity of employers who provide work for them, even where it’s a job on minimum wage (or less), has no job security and in some cases avoids workers’ rights by employing them under disguised arrangements such as contracting.
Some of the cuts in the Department of Labour budget are instructive. They may not have made headlines, but they show this government’s priorities.
One major change is the ditching of the Partnership Resource Centre, which has been run out of the Department of Labour in collaboration with independent associates, who have extensive knowledge in industrial relations and organisational development.
The Department of Labour’s Partnership Resource Centre website describes partnership as :
…….a modern approach to managing employment and industrial relations. It’s about creating new employment relationships based on co-operation and mutual gain. Across the world, and in New Zealand, many organisations have seen the benefits of partnership. That’s why we’ve been working to become a centre for partnership excellence. We’ve developed a collection of useful resources for people exploring partnership practices, and we conduct research and organise events to educate New Zealand organisations and unions about partnership.
Some of the successful NZ projects include those in hotels, Aged Care and even in Kiwirail, and have reported improved productivity, a reduction in serious workplace disputes and improved trust, less contentious collective bargaining and even reduced legal bills. It goes further than that. Healthy and safe workplaces also require partnership – where workers are trained and confident in identifying and reporting potential hazards to prevent workplace injuries. Good for the workers, the workplace and the country’s medical costs.
There are two models of employment relationships. One is confrontational, where workers are expected to be subservient and do as they are told. In my experience, this leads to resentment, protracted disputes and workers standing on the outside picketing the premises. Some employers get away with it, because their workers aren’t unionised and they are afraid of losing their jobs. It means high turnover, resentful staff who don’t extend themselves beyond the daily grind and if the workers get a chance, individual litigation through personal grievances.
The other is accepting that workers have a role to play in the business, have skills and ideas that can be harnessed to build productivity, innovation and efficiency. That means accepting that the workers must have a say and role in what happens at work, and be treated and remunerated fairly for their contribution.
I’ve seen both models at work. Partnership doesn’t mean either side subsume their views or ideas, and there won’t be disagreements from time to time. It does mean accepting that both sides have their own independent voice.
There are other cuts in the budget to employment relations education funding which enables unions and employers to provide education on productive employment relationships and rights at work. That’s been significantly cut for the second year in a row – a small amount now reduced to almost nothing.
Productivity increases require the involvement of workers. If the government doesn’t get that, then we are doomed to be a long hours, low wage, low skill economy for the foreseeable.
Mind you, Bill English thinks our low wages are a competitive advantage. These cuts just confirm his views.
The RWNJ model as typified by Nact policies (Fire at Will Bill etc), rhetoric such as the bene bashing meme and that people should be sooo grateful just to have a job that pays as little as the capitalist can get away with.
Cooperatives where people not only get a say in how the workplace is organised but also how much they’re paid. They get to see the books and know how much their job is worth to the company, how much the administration costs and how much those administrators are paid.
I posted recently, a question asking if anyone can name some large companies who historically pay a reasonable percentage of their workforce the minimum wage, who have increased beyond the minimum wage as their profit has increased? Might as well ask again in this thread as no one who suggested a link between company profitability and the voluntary increase in low wages replied.
@Tracey – that’s a good question. I don’t really think that happens unless the workers are organised through unions into asking for it – that’s why collective negotiations are so important. Unless we are talking industries that are not traditional manufacturing businesses – ie high tech, or finance – and even then, the pay increases are not always tied to profits for the lower paid. Sky city Casino is a good case in point. The only way I ever saw workers getting pay increases there was through union organisation. There was never ever voluntary increase from the company.
Darien
Why don’t you ask that fool Matt McCarten when Unite are going to pay their tax bill.
@Cactus – I will pass your message on. I’m sure he will take as much notice of you as he does of the rest of us!
Cactus Kate as always is unable to see the benefit of a union in the workplace. So often management try and improve things, forgetting that those at the coalface actually know how the job is done, often increasing efficiency despite management not because of it. it is however always important to remember that while both boss and worker have an interest in an efficient profitable business there will always be a tension between capital and labour. losses will always be socialized-profits always seem to remain with the boss.
I think the aim of the game is to improve your own prospects. If you stick to a job that is ‘traditionally’ a minimum wage position, and lack the desire and the drive to find something better, then you reap what you (don’t) sow.
A job cleaning toilets is definitely something I wouldn’t want to do and I have respect for those who carry out this necessary task, but I understand it’s a start, it’s definitely not a long term career.
What is the bet that Rare Debt is a white male?
What is the bet Simon M can’t manage anything better than a weak ad hominem?
(I’d take that bet if I were you, I definitely fit that demographic, along with a significant portion, possibly a majority of NZ political blog commenters)
Anyway, what’s your point?
Don’t think he has one.
Just has the psychological need to be prejudiced against some group, and has decided to pick on the only demographic you can slag off in NZ without the trendy harpies flying in and screeching that you’re a bigot…
The point is pretty obvious-nothing like privilege to find a job that pays better than minimum. A little bit harder when you are a new immigrant. further, any employer by buying your time, a precious commodity has an obligation to pay a fair sum in return. This is something as a nation we have forgotten. Labour is not a commodity. It is a precious gift from the worker-their time. In exchange they deserve fair treatment and a living wage.
@Simon m “What is the bet that Rare Debt is a white male?”
Are you inferring that Rare Debts post is a little ignorant and ignores the different barriers that minorities in this country face.
if so I guess Your ad hominem isnt as weak as some would like
to think
Very brave post indeed !
Simon M – Darien has smashed up Matt McCarten on Facebook notes. She can provide the context by reposting her work here.
Unions can’t expect everyone else (rich pricks) to pay more tax when they don’t pay their share.
I don’t think anyone is saying unions should not pay their tax-indeed I think you would find that 99% do. Just because one may not does not preclude all others making comment on issues surrounding workers. This is not about Matt McCarten, it is about decent employment conditions.
“nothing like privilege to find a job that pays better than minimum”
A ‘privilege’ enjoyed by the majority of the working population is a pretty funny sounding privilege. Especially coming from someone who asserts that working for $xx.xx an hour is a god given right.
I’m sorry but way was it ever the role of govt to be running this kind of unit?
If the results are so great, surely unions and employers would have a real interest in doing it off their own bat. There are plenty of management consultants and trainers around too who would have a strong interest in pushing it.
“Bill English thinks our low wages are a competitive advantage.” You are on to it, Darien. What better way to drive down wages than dump a hundred thousand poor and sick people onto the already struggling job market? These boys think that the higher the unemployment, the more competitive we are. Sad, really. Key and his cronies are genuine, living economic dinosaurs. Has anyone told them Reagan is dead?
Rare Debt-I don’t actually believe in God given rights-I do believe in the dignity of people and that employing workers on $12.50 an hour is not a fair return. People are worth more than that. My point about privilege has been supported by your response.
cactus, last time I looked UNITE was one union. Do you accept that if one Director commits fraud, then all are fraudsters?
“f you stick to a job that is ‘traditionally’ a minimum wage position, and lack the desire and the drive to find something better, then you reap what you (don’t) sow. ”
Yes, lack of desire and drive is all that stands between every minimum wage worker and a million dollar job. Even our esteemed leader required state help to get there, as did Joyce
The percentage of low wage jobs is growing not decreasing, the reverse is true of high paying jobs, so all the drive in the world won’t magically create these opportunitties you pretend exist. Of course some workers are lazy, that includes some high earning ones as well.
You really believe that this holds in all cases? Even for the most ill mannered, customer unfriendly, surley, uneducated, unreliable, untrustworthy person?
Please quit your fantasy world where no one is the architect of their own misfortune. There are loads of people who fit that description in NZ.
“Even for the most ill mannered, customer unfriendly, surley, uneducated, unreliable, untrustworthy person”
Crikey, this could just as easily describe Messrs Hotchin and Bryers
If you pay peanuts you get monkeys
You miss the point entirely Simon.
The raising of the minimum wage is probably not going to be a major issue this election because the majority of workers make more than the minimum wage.
The people who make it an issue won’t be those on the minimum wage, but the stirrers and attention seekers sitting plum in the organisations that claim to represent these worker’s interests.
Raising the minimum wage to $15.00 is not going to simply increase the cost of hiring those on the current minimum wage, but those between the current rate, and $15.00, as well as those currently earning just above $15.00. That definitely won’t do much to ease the ‘cost of living’ because there will be more funds demanding the same amount (or possibly less due to increased producer costs) of goods.
RareDebt
Dropping the top tax rate increased the cost of living for us because the government had to borrow even more than it said it would need to to cover it. Can you name me some companies, who on the back of the minimum wage increased their profit, and then raised it above the minimum wage by way of acknowledgement?
“In 1990, for instance, a survey of members of the American Economic Association showed that 60 percent agreed that minimum wages increase unemployment among young and unskilled workers…”
“By 2000, only 46 percent of members of the American Economic Association agreed that minimum wages increase unemployment among young and unskilled workers. Another study published in 2006 showed that slightly less than half of all economists surveyed thought the minimum wage should be eliminated, while more than a third favored increasing it.”
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/01/along-the-minimum-wage-battle-front/
@tracey
“Yes, lack of desire and drive is all that stands between every minimum wage worker and a million dollar job. Even our esteemed leader required state help to get there, as did Joyce”
You left out Paula bennet Funny how they all received state help to get where they are today only to turn around and pull the rug out from others I wonder if JK and his mum would have enjoyed all the beny bashing that Nact is responsible for? would he even have made PM under his own policies?
To my knowledge Paula Bennett is not a millionaire?
I don’t like how that article dimisses “slightly less than half” but trumpets “more than a third” It doesn’t make it sound very impartial.
No, I cannot name any specific employers who have increased profits and then decided to increase wages as a thank you. I also cannot name any employees who have had a legislated payrise, and then decided to work longer hours for no cost as a thank you, I’m sure both scenarios have happened sometime, somewhere.
Did you read the entire article which references the research? You might be reading too much into the words used?
“No, I cannot name any specific employers who have increased profits and then decided to increase wages as a thank you.”
And yet Bill English, Phil O’Reilly, Roger Kerr, Don Brash, Roger Douglas, Ruth Richardson all say/said this is exactly what would happen, and why we all had to bide our time, tighten our belts because when the companies made profit our wages would all rise.
And while wages might not fall in bad times, the number of people employed by an enterprise does.
mmm. A company isn’t going to start paying higher wages simply because it’s profits have increased, much the same as you are not going to decide to pay more for a lettuce because your income has increased.
The company is going to start paying higher wages to attract and retain staff when labour is in short supply / high demand. The same applies to your lettuce.
An employer would pay 5c an hour if it could employ and retain a quality staff member, you would pay 5c for a lettuce if it was in a good condition and being offered for sale at that price.
It’s foolish to legislate higher wages now when demand for the products and services of NZ employers is low. It will be driven by other factors.
@Rare Debt : “the majority of workers make more than minimum wage” – yep, true, but hundreds of thousands don’t make $15 an hour. Sorry, don’t buy your market arguments. You are surely not comparing human beings to a lettuce?
@insider : we’re talking about a relatively tiny amount of money here, and the goodwill and contribution of some smart people in business to help other businesses. Sure, the private sector could (and do) do this work, but the truth is most companies aren’t willing to pay for it, and unions don’t have the money. The government likes to bang on about improving productivity, but it doesn’t just happen on its own. It’s a bit like research and development and skills training – unless the government supports and advocates for it, it simply doesn’t happen.
Maybe minimum wage jobs are mainly for students working to finance studies, trips or entry level workers in fast food joints or warehouse, computer goods and games shops.
We seem to be moving towards a situation like Argentina or Greece in the late 20C were nearly half the jobs are of doubtful productivity or contribution to the economy and which generate a great deal of environmental waste to provide the resorces to sustain these jobs. In essence I’m suggesting society would have more consumer choice and wealth if almost half the present jobs didn’t exist.
If more wealth, jobs and money flowing around the economy is to develop-I would suggest you need a 24/7 society with 24 hour licensing and entertainment and bar staff more like Courtenay Place and Wells St than K Road and Ponsonby Rd.
Bill English has essentially continued the Clark,Cullen of determined job creation for ordinary people in health, police support and the new proposals for jobs to support the mentally ill and disabled getting back to work. The general approach seems to be to extend the process of using the rehabilitated mentally ill, ie those who accept the system and the label of being a ‘mentally ill patient’ will supervise the more recalcitrant mentally ill to develop better attitudes and graduate to supervising other so called ‘mentally ill’ people. This is surely the ultimate exercise in job creation, churn and ghetoization.
Just possibly the new drugs introduced in the l990s would have allowed two thirds or three quarters of the mentally ill to go back to work at any level appropriate to their qualifications and intelligence from professional to service jobs. The problem is that the specialists who don’t actually take the drugs just regarded the new medicines as cleaned up versions of Hariperidol and insisted on using them in high and medium doses like the old drugs for sedation and control in expensive cocktails combined with old drugs.
Possibly for people to return to confidence and work they have to have control of their own lives and medication and burdening them with more supervisors and counsellors who will probably themselves be unintelligent and unqualified will just impede and stop their return to productivity and happiness.
And to ‘Gennifer’ those who have suffered mental illness have every right to compete for your jobs on effort,qualification,looks and pure merit.
If we remove the minimum wage altogether will there be more jobs for all the unemployed?
Employers will only employ the staff they need, not more.
If they want to expand, they will have already made descisions there is a market for this and the last consideration will be wages, as they will have a variety of other costs to consider first.
Did wages skyrocket under Labour when we had a very low unemployment? Mine didnt, and the people i know didnt see there wages go up by leaps and bounds during the good times.
Like I said before if you pay peanuts you get monkeys it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out that working a 40 hr min wage job (after tax, transportation costs ,child care costs, work-related costs ect) is little more and in some cases less than what some beneficieries would receive.
the only difference is that thanks the to Nacts fire at will bill
A benifit is more secure than a job whos fault is that.
Nact policies make monkeys of us all
About half the jobs in the USA are minimum wage and most minimum wage are in factories and retail.
rare debt – I acknowledge your agreement that Ronald reagen, Margaret Thatcher, Bill English, Phil O’Reilly, Roger Kerr, Don Brash, Roger Douglas, Ruth Richardson were all lying that increased profitability in companies would raise the lowest wages. Turns out you agree that increased productivity doesn’t trickle down to higher wages, just maybe more lower wage spots up for grabs
Actually paying peanuts doesnt just get monkeys, that’s a myth which is constantly perpetrated. There are simply not enough middle/upper paying jobs for all the lower waged people if they became unlazy and driven overnight, they would still by far be in low wage jobs. It’s the same myth as the american dream.
Tracey, I can’t actually think of a response to that, that isn’t either a reiteration of what I said earlier, or a splurge of frustrated name-calling.
Arguing on the internet eh?
Good on you for showing restraint, any chance you can hook up with George?
Although most of the responses to your post have focussed on the minimum wage issue Darien, I think that the major point you make about the attitudes of this Government are what is being missed.
Paula Bennett’s attitude runs deep amongst right-wing politicians and their supporters. The poor could succeed if they chose to do so. They don’t deserve help because they drink, smoke, shirk and often turn to violence. They should put in some effort and should certainly not be indulged as this would just reward their bad behaviour that got them where they are now.
They should be grateful that we have employers that will give them a job and take whatever they are given.
As Will Hutton noted in his book “Them and Us” the modern economy needs far more than the old oppressive attitudes towards workers that are embodied in the above comments.
“We need to educate the mass of our people to a new level, teach them to use their brains in ways that their 20th century predecessors never thought possible.”
This is going to need not just a change of attitude but a change of workplace structures that give all workers a say in what they are doing at work similar to the say they get on deciding what parties are going to occupy the seats in our parliament.
@ tracey “Actually paying peanuts doesnt just get monkeys, that’s a myth which is constantly perpetrated.”
Wow nice
OK so whats the point of incentives and bonuses ?
why even bother with looking after people by increasing the minimum wage
Im sure workers that feel ripped off by their employer
because of meagre wages are much more honest and efficient than those satisfied with there income NOT
In the end of the day the people is the to decide what kind of system they like. My suggestion is to have more migrants with the help of migrants service firms such as woburn international the system migh recover.Whatever happens never give low pays to the workers because they are the lifeblood of each and every city.