There’s been a lot of flak about Alasdair Thompson’s comments last week (and rightly so). He’s shown the worst side of the business codgerati. Business organisations and right-wing acolytes like Jenny Shipley have been distancing themselves big time. The organisation he heads, the Employers and Manufacturing Association (Northern) is having a Board meeting tomorrow to decide his future.
The Sunday Star Times editorial says today that “it’s reminded us silly we used to be” and how this kind of standard sexism was once standard in New Zealand politics and business…….“it’s so 1950’s.”
The SST goes on to say :
“But we should not be too complacent about this. If bosses have become more enlightened and workplaces more friendly to women and minorities, in some ways they are more worker-unfriendly than they used to be…… in some ways workers have less power to push for change than they had in the 1950’s. Some employers think this is fine; they regard unions as obstacles to commercial progress. That is about as crass a stereotype as the one about the skiving menstruators.”
That is so true and well done to the SST for nailing this. While every business organisation now spouts their policies on equal employment opportunity, flexible working hours, work life balance and their opposition to discrimination their prejudices are still there for all to see among many of them.
Every time there’s talk about giving workers more bargaining power or strengthening their rights, the codgerati are out there, saying “it’s a return to the past” or “it’s going to ruin us”.
Witness the reaction to the $15 minimum wage and ACT’s backward looking ideas that youth rates are going to solve youth unemployment.
Still a long way to go.
I think we should give workers more bargaining power by getting rid of the union monopoly on it.
@Olive I – well that worked really well in the 1990′s didn’t it?
“Codgerati” aka “old boys school’ Those still living in the past as when they were little chaps at their mothers knee.
I think employers who think and are ‘enlightened’ about women and minorities in the workforce and their value thereof, were so ‘enlightened’ they blew the bulb.
Rubbish … women are still grossly undervalued in the workforce as are many men and women on sub standard wages.
You cannot, and will never be able to build a life for yourself, get married, have children and buy a home when you are paid substandard wages. The majority of young people already know this and are leaving in droves for overseas.
Is this proof enough for the Codgerati that we need major changes…. I doubt it…. they just don’t get it.
@ Oliver 1: My union membership is the only thing improving my working, and therefore, living conditions at present. The Government is making things much harder than they need to be. Fortunately, my employer has quite a good relationship with my union. We are seeing some encouraging results, but still have a way to go. National are already trying to restrict union access in workplaces, and that would see the start of poverty for many.
Thompson just thought he was auditioning for Two and Half Men !
Is it true that Key is considering giving Thompson a knighthood on the grounds that the revelation of the real NACTional Party policies on the role of women has hastened him having to honour his pledge to resign after November 26th and return to Hawaii where he can watch the celebrities parade past his beach front home??
Oliver I, at my last job I had no rights as an employee and was on minimum wage, because they was no union collective contract.
LOL