There’s no mystery about Labour’s values when it comes to working people. Our  founding values are about decent Kiwi jobs, the right to a fair day‘s pay for a fair day’s work, the right to join unions and bargain collectively, the right to have a voice at work and the right to be protected from unfair or unsafe treatment at work. We believe that there must be a balance between work demands and family/community responsibilities.

This doesn’t mean business is harder to do – in fact decent wages and effective employment relations should enable New Zealand business to lift productivity, to perform well and to grow.

Labour supports decent work (which is also supported by the National government at the ILO) and fair incomes for all New Zealand working people  - whether in low or middle income jobs, dependent contractors or self employed.  I know that constructive workplace relationships are important and good management is crucial. I don’t believe all employers are “bad” and all employees “good”.  You may be surprised how much sympathy I have with sole operators and small business who can barely make ends meet.

Some of the workers who get the rawest deal are those who are not in formal employment relationships, or in unions, such as self-employed and dependent contractors. Labour has been active in trying to make improvements for these Kiwis, but there’s nothing on the government’s agenda that makes any difference to them and a whole  lot that will impact on all working Kiwis.

Consider these comments from backbench National Party MP Jami-Lee Ross :

Unions still occupy a privileged position in New Zealand’s employment law; a relic of the last Labour administration which has not seen significant overhaul for some years. Few non-government organisations can boast clauses in legislation specifically designed for their benefit. Despite only 18 percent of the nation’s workforce being unionised, trade unions can look to whole sections of the Employment Relations Act written exclusively to aid union survival through legislative advantage.

My question to Jami-Lee is whether the Minister of Labour, Kate Wilkinson, who likes to present her government’s approach to employment relations as “pragmatic” and “what works” agrees with Jami-Lee’s views.  I want to know if she thinks unions are “privileged” and “relics”.  If she does, she better tell Kiwi workers soon, and fess up to the ILO at her annual sojourn in Geneva this year that she doesn’t believe that unions are social partners anymore, leaving only employers and government – and that our government is opposed to international labour conventions and human rights conventions. That will be interesting.

National’s manifesto already boasts “reforms”, such as :

1. Minimum wage : consultation on the annual review has been completed and we can expect an announcement in February.  $15 an hour?  Don’t think so.

2. The government’s plan for a “starting out” rate for 16 and 17 year old workers and also for 18 and 19 year olds who have been on a benefit may be one of the early pieces of legislation in front of parliament.

3. National’s policy commitments to weaken collective bargaining – no requirement to conclude, no requirement for workers to be on the terms and conditions of a collective agreement for 30 days where one exists, and the effective abolishing of multi employer agreements, along with allowing pay reductions for “partial” strikes – such as go-slows, work to rule etc and a review of constructive dismissal.

Then there’s all of the rest :

Bills carried forward from the last parliament : Meals and rest breaks legislation (Kate Wilkinson said this was urgent a couple of years ago, but it’s been bumped) and Tau Henare’s Secret Ballot for Strikes members’ bill, which is neither needed nor wanted. The hardy annual of Easter Sunday Shop Trading will also be up again, via a National members’ bill.

The inquiry into the treatment of workers in Foreign Crewed Vessels in NZ waters and the Pike River Mine Commission of Inquiry will report back this year  - both shameful NZ scandals that arose because of deregulation and declining standards for workers.

The ACC portfolio and the “opening up to competition” will be a big issue; Labour MP Andrew Little will take that on for Labour.

And I’m becoming more suspicious about another agenda – not spelled out in the National Party’s manifesto.  The recent productivity commission report, for example, made some recommendations that, if taken up by this government, would have a huge impact on New Zealand working people.

Bottom line : none of this will help the wages of Kiwi workers catch up with Australia. None of it will stop the weekly exodus across the ditch.

I’m sorry, but unless we see some something other than the old hoary chestnuts of cutting workers’ rights and pay from National soon, you should get ready to say goodbye to more of your whanau.

Five union/community election forums will be MC’d around New Zealand by some of New Zealand’s favourite funny people, including Michele A’Court, Jeremy Elwood, Darren Ludlow and Ian Harcourt. The forums have been organised by a group of unions and community organisations joining together to bring you a fun, fast and furious evening of political debate.

There’s a serious side to this as well. Candidates will be asked the hard questions on welfare, public services, inequality and more.

Please come along by going to the Facebook event and inviting your friends in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Invercargill to join in too.

The issues: Welfare, inequality and a living wage | public services, health and early childhood education | disabled people’s issues | caring work | ACC

The format: Party spokespeople will have 2 minutes each to answer questions on these topics.

The venues:

West Auckland – Tues 8 November, 7pm. Kelston Community Centre, cnr Great North & Awaroa Rds. MC’d by Jeremy Elwood. Labour candidate – Carmel Sepuloni

Wellington – Wed 9 November, 5.30pm. St John’s on Willis St. MC’d by Ian Harcourt. Labour candidate – Grant Robertson

Invercargill – Wed 9 November, 7pm. Lindisfarne Community Centre. MC’d by Darren Ludlow. Labour candidate – Lesley Soper

Auckland Central – Tues 15 November, 7pm. Trades Hall, 147 Great North Rd, Grey Lynn. MC’d by Michele A’Court. Labour candidate – Jacinda Ardern

Hamilton – Wed 16 November, 5pm. YWCA, 28 Pembroke St. MC’d by Jeremy Elwood. Labour Candidate – Sue Moroney

There was never a crisis in ACC. It was hit by the global financial downturn and revaluation of existing claims liabilities, leading to deficits. But the problem was not a structural one, and ACC would have returned to surplus even without the levy hike. ACC was already back to a $2.5 billion surplus in 2009/10 before Smith’s levy hike had taken effect.

But don’t get too excited about the levies falling just yet. If National are re-elected, all Kiwis will end up paying more to get less from ACC. Smith has effectively announced the wholesale privatisation of ACC if National gets half a chance. That means money that should go into providing cover for injury victims will go into the profit lines of Aussie insurance companies.

Smith has confirmed that if a National-led government is re-elected, their ACC privatisation agenda will be expanded from only covering workplace injuries to also include injuries sustained in car accidents, around the home, or even on the sports field.

National’s privatisation plans will effectively bring an end to what has been our world-leading system of universal, no-fault, 24/7 cover for accidental injury. Under National, if someone sustains an injury, they can look forward to spending weeks or even months arguing with different insurance providers about who should cover it.

It’s still not clear what problem National are trying to fix here. Independent studies have clearly shown that ACC is among the cheapest providers of accidental injury cover in the world. New Zealand employers already pay on average half of what Australian employers pay, yet National wants to replicate the Australian model.

The choice for New Zealanders is now crystal clear. If they want to keep our system of universal, no-fault, 24/7 cover for accidental injury, then they will need to vote for a change of government.

Regarding Government spending, Dr Brash said the current National Government had spent much more than the previous Labour Government.

Dr Brash went on to say that both the previous National and Labour governments had managed government debt well, meaning the current John Key-led Government started from a good point. However under Prime Minister John Key and Finance Minister Bill English’s watch, government debt has gone from bad to worse.

This reminded me of our debate with National MPs in 2009. National claimed that ACC was leaking millions of dollars under Labour, we argued that the figures do not back up the National Governments unjust cutting of services and upping of ACC levies and that National’s claims were nothing more than scaremongering.

But it has now proved that the ACC debacle of 2009 was just a pre-cursor that led to the National Government hiking ACC levies before they privatise the organisation should they get another term in office.

The world will be a much nicer place if politicians would say what the issues really are (as they are).

Bill English’s repeated lines such as “in the last long nine years” and “economic mismanagement by Labour” may give him an instant boost in his blame game, but the facts will be spelt out sooner or later – just as Dr Brash did this morning.

Now it’s been revealled that this year’s Budget, the one in which Nick Smith heralded ACC’s dramatic turnaround, over-stated the savings ACC is supposed to be making. Documents obtained by Radio NZ under the OIA show that the Government ignored warnings from the Labour Department before the Budget that Treasury figures on proposed savings from ACC were too optimistic. The Labour Department predicted savings of $400 million over the next three years, but Treasury said $580 million would be saved.

Nick Smith has been all over the place on ACC figures. One minute it’s having a financial crisis the next he is ignoring Labour Department advice in order to make the Government’s financial position look better than it otherwise might. Nick Smith and National simply cannot be believed when it comes to ACC. There was never a crisis. ACC is an excellent scheme and National should stop trying to sabotage it so that they can make bigger profits for the Aussie insurance industry.

At yesterday’s Transport and Industrial Relations Select Committee meeting National members voted en-bloc to report back the petition of Louse Carroll and 5857 others to the House without hearing a single piece of evidence. That’s undemocratic and a slap in the face to all those who sought to have their concerns heard by their House of Representatives.

Having actively discriminated against those with hearing loss, the National government is now turning a deaf ear to their concerns. They aren’t even willing to allow them to come to Parliament and have their say. That’s frankly disgraceful. If almost 6,000 people were willing to take the time to sign a petition to Parliament, the least their elected representatives can do is allow them the courtesy of a hearing.

Smith and the National government used the financial crisis to make a number of changes to ACC that undermine some of the central principles behind the scheme. The changes that they made to compensation for victims of work-related hearing loss illustrate it well.

Under National, the guidelines ACC works to when considering hearing loss claims have been changed and ACC now discounts a person’s hearing loss as they get older, regardless of whether or not that loss is age-related. They’ve also set up an arbitrary 6% hearing loss threshold before compensation is considered, regardless of where on the hearing spectrum the loss happened. It’s quite possible to have less than 6% hearing loss and still not be able to hear the person standing next to you in a crowded room.

One of the core principles of the ACC system is that it’s comprehensive, no-fault coverage. Hearing loss is now the only injury/accident where the victim has to meet an injury severity threshold before they’re covered. I’m pleased the Human Rights Commission has agreed to hear the case. The only fair way to deal with hearing loss cases is to deal with each one individually, based on its own merits. That’s how ACC should work.

Courtesy of the Nelson Mail.

And then there’s the other famiies, those struggling to make ends meet, doing their best to find work.  I met a couple yesterday.  The wife was made redundant in 2010 with no redundancy pay.  She’s looked and looked but has been unable to find another job.  Then her husband lost his job too. He finally found work at the other end of Auckland stacking used tyres.  He is paid $14 an hour, and getting to work costs him $100 a week in petrol costs. Awful job and inevitably he was injured.  ACC paid him 80% of $14 an hour, which meant a real struggle to pay the mortgage.  So he’s gone back to work – before he should.  ACC told him to do “light duties” – well there are none at this workplace. The wife told me that “some days we eat, some days we don’t.”

This is John Key and the National Government’s New Zealand.

Wake up.