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Let it be known everywhere

Posted by Darien Fenton on May 15th, 2012

Last week, a couple of papers fell off the back of a truck which were of particular interest to Kiwi workers. They outlined the government’s changes to labour laws and gave the Department of Labour’s assessment and warnings about the consequences of the government’s changes.

I thought the Minister of Labour would get the hint that Labour knew more than she was telling when I asked her a question in the House last Wednesday. Then in my speech on Tau Henare’s strike ballot bill I outlined the stupidity of her government’s proposals in regard to pay reductions for partial strikes – and she was in the House listening.

So I was gobsmacked that when the papers were revealed in the Dompost, Kate Wilkinson suggested that I had made them up. Later that day, the government was forced to come clean and made the announcements I knew were coming.

The changes will systematically take apart our labour relations framework, part by part and clause by clause. Our employment law will still be called the Employment Relations Act, but the worst provisions of that most draconian of employment laws from the 1990’s, the Employment Contracts Act will replace much of it. They will do nothing to address the most volatile industrial relations environment we’ve seen in NZ in years, and will definitely do nothing to increase wages and provide decent work.

The government is couching their plans in the Crosby Textor language of “choice, balance, flexibility” and are described as “minor” by the PM John Key.

That’s rubbish. We’ve got a wages crisis in New Zealand and that’s because our employment relations system isn’t working to ensure fairness for working people. The government’s changes will make this worse.

Last week, when we were debating Tau Henare’s secret ballots for strikes bill (which has now passed and will soon become law), National Party MPs indulged themselves in an outburst of the “free at last” quote from Martin Luther King.

Well, that great man died in Memphis when he was attending a struggle for the right of public workers to have a union and to collectively bargain.

King declared : “Let it be known everywhere, that along with wages and all of the other securities that you are struggling for, you are also struggling for the right to organise and be recognised.” The key issues for the Memphis strikers were their demands that the City of Memphis grant collective bargaining rights and the collection of union fees.

I’m taking bets on how many National MPs stand up and quote Martin Luther King on collective bargaining and workers rights when these miserable changes come to the Parliament.

And let it be known everywhere : Labour will oppose these changes vigorously and determinedly.

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Filed under: Uncategorized, Work and Wages, workers rights, workforce
16 Comments

Free at last?

Posted by Darien Fenton on May 11th, 2012

This week, National MPs indulged themselves with a bit of union bashing during their support for Tau Henare’s Employment Relations (Secret Relations Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bil.

The worst comments were from Tau Henare and other National MPs, who insisted on quoting Martin Luther King saying “Free at Last, Thank God Almighty we are Free at Last.”

How embarrassing to compare a petty little bill, that has nothing to do with freedom, freedom of choice, or more importantly, freedom of association with that great defender of civil rights and equality, Martin Luther King.

Tau Henare and his other acolytes, including Jami-Lee Ross, made speeches that would have made Bill Birch of the 1990s National Party proud.

The prejudice is awful. The consequences for New Zealand workers are dire when you add everything up.

This week, I found out a whole lot more about the government’s intention to roll back worker rights and collective bargaining. (I’ll have more to say on this).

The Minister of Labour, Kate Wilkinson, is due to make her annual junket to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Geneva in June. So far, she’s been able to bask in some of the glory from the former Labour government and New Zealand’s place as a respected member of the ILO.  We had moved on from the shame in the 1990s when a special Rappateur was sent to New Zealand to investigate NZ’s breaches of core labour standards.  New Zealand were pariahs in the international labour community then, aligned with third world countries who think workers should be grateful to have jobs. We might be joining them again soon.

I am  wondering how the Minister of Labour will justify Tau Henare’s bill, which on its own, is irrelevant in the scale of issues facing New Zealand workers, but in the bigger picture, will require an explanation of how her government’s changes to collective bargaining and strikes will help advance the rights of New Zealand working people and our place in the world.

Think about this : if the influence of unions is removed altogether in NZ, what will happen to wages, to standards, to fairness?

Would we still have a minimum wage?  Would we have ever moved to four weeks annual leave?

Would there even be a discussion about health and safety?

Or are you willing to leave it up to the Tau Henares and Jami-lee Ross’s of the world?

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Filed under: Right to strike, union, value of work, workers rights
21 Comments

Lack of PPL Dragging us Down

Posted by Sue Moroney on May 10th, 2012

Our lack of paid parental leave is holding us back from being the best place in the world to raise children.
This was confirmed by the “State of the World’s Mothers” report released this week by Save the Children.
Even though we were placed fourth in their 13th annual report, its clear that our low rate of PPL was a key reason we slumped to 19th place when rated on their breastfeeding policy scorecard.
The report shows that 88% of NZ babies were breastfed at some stage, but that by 3 months that fell to just 56% and the data wasnt even available for NZ babies aged 6 months.
It is also of concern that NZ rated just 25th/44 countires on Save the Chidren’s scorecard for children living in developed countries.
I want NZ to be the best place in the world to raise children. Extending paid parental leave is one practical way we can achieve this.

Filed under: Uncategorized, children, family, members' bills, women, work life balance, workers rights
9 Comments

Lockout or knockout?

Posted by Darien Fenton on April 5th, 2012

There will be few Easter celebrations in the families of workers employed by Talley’s AFFCO, who have extended their lockout notices to more workers over the Easter period.

There are legal questions about the legality of the Easter lockout, which appears to be another move by Talley’s to punish their workers for daring to stand up to their demands. The Holidays Act requires that workers be given a paid day off should the public holiday fall on a normal working day.  The question that has not, to be my knowledge, been tested is whether a “normal working day” applies if a worker is prevented from coming to work by their employer.

The cynical among us would say that Talleys has implemented this measure to avoid paying statutory holiday pay over Easter. But I think it goes deeper than that and into the oft demonstrated antagonism the Talley’s family towards any workers belonging to a union.

But there’s a bigger question.

Is the lockout, once rarely used by employers, now becoming the industrial weapon of choice?

Dr Kerry Taylor, historian, of Massey University thinks so, saying today that :

Lockouts were once a last resort for employers but are becoming more common, indicating a trend towards more “employer activism”

Talley’s AFFCO meatworks has locked out more than 1000 workers in Moerewa, Horoitu, Whanganui, Wairoa, Rangiuru and Feilding in a dispute over pay and conditions. A further 500 workers will be locked out over Easter so AFFCO can reportedly avoid paying statutory holidays.

Dr Taylor says AFFCO’s escalating action is a startling reminder something serious is going on in New Zealand political and industrial landscape, where in the past lockouts were the last resort, but today, they’re becoming almost commonplace.

He says the lockout is a clear case of “employer activism”, where the lockout is deployed as part of an aggressive strategy to target certain conditions of work and weaken – or break – collective action by workers.

And he points the finger at the government.

Historically employers seldom resorted to locking out

I will watch with interest the legal process around this question, but meanwhile 1500 workers are going without pay this Easter – on top of the last five weeks of lockouts.

You can support the AFFCO workers by donating – phone 0900 LOCKOUT and you’ll donate five dollars to the Meatworker’s lockout fund. Details for an online donation are: Kiwibank: account name: NZCTU DISPUTES FUND account number: 38 9007 0894028 08 Reference: AFFCO

Filed under: Holidays, Work and Wages, workers rights
58 Comments

Non-Answers

Posted by Darien Fenton on April 2nd, 2012

One of the jobs of an opposition MP is to ask questions.  It’s in the public interest to find out what our government is planning, but that’s not how the Minister of Labour sees it.  So I thought you should see just how transparent and accountable our Ministers are with the latest series of non-answers from Kate Wilkinson :

Question: Does the Minister intend to implement the National Party policy allowing employers to opt out of negotiations for a multi-employer collective agreement; if so, when will she introduce legislation to implement that change?

Answer Text: I intend to implement all policies in National’s Employment Relations manifesto in due course.

Question: Does the Minister intend to implement the National Party policy enabling employers to apply partial pay reductions for partial strikes or situations of low-level industrial action; if so, when will she introduce legislation to implement that change?

Answer Text: I intend to implement all policies in National’s Employment Relations manifesto in due course.

Question : Does the Minister intend to implement the National Party policy removing the requirement that non-union members are employed under a collective agreement for their first 30-days; if so, when will she introduce legislation to implement that change?

Answer Text: I intend to implement all policies in National’s Employment Relations manifesto in due course.

Question: Does the Minister intend to implement the National Party policy removing the requirement to conclude collective bargaining; if so, when will she introduce legislation to implement that change?

Answer Text: Guess what ? (To the tune of “Altogether Now) : I intend to implement all policies in National’s Employment Relations manifesto in due course.

Well, I guess we know that the Minister intends to implement all policies in National’s Employment Relations manifesto in due course. I’m sure the 1000 plus locked out workers at Talleys AFFCO will be comforted by these answers, along with the Oceania workers who are still taking action to get something resembling a cost of living increase. I know Kate Wilkinson’s under threat by the takeover of her department by the “business facing” ambitions of Steven Joyce, so I thought she might be asserting herself at the moment.

So please. Can I have a little more?

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Filed under: Ministers, workers rights
24 Comments

Secret ballots and lockouts

Posted by Darien Fenton on March 22nd, 2012

Auckland needs its Port to be working at full capacity again and yesterday I thought we might be getting there.

After Employment Court Judge Barrie Travis issued his minute late yesterday, it seemed like the damaging dispute could be settled, through a return to good faith bargaining and mediation processes under our employment law. 

Today we have the strange situation where the Ports workers want to go back to work, but apparently PoAL won’t let them. 

PoAL has issued notices of indefinite lockout which came less than 24 hours after they agreed with the Employment Court to resume good faith negotiations. 

But that notice doesn’t take effect until 14 days after the notice was issued. The workers are lawfully able to return to work in the meantime and I understand this was their intention.  If the Ports management prevent them, it will be an unlawful lockout.

Perhaps it was coincidence, but last night we debated the final committee stages of Tau Henare’s Secret Ballot for Strikes bill.  The Bill would require unions to conduct secret ballots wherever strike action was being considered. Most unions already do this, but there are real problems with this bill, which I won’t go into too much here.

Tau’s argument was that this was democratic. OK. But why should only one party to the employment relationship have to be democratic?  I proposed an amendment that would have provided more balance to the bill, which would have required shareholders to conduct a secret ballot before a lockout. 

So, in the case of the Ports of Auckland Ltd, the shareholders would have had to hold a ballot before the lockout notices were issued.  That would have been interesting indeed.

But of course the National Party and its cronies voted the amendment down, along with others that would have made the bill more workable.

Like so many things in the employment relationship, National believes that things should only go one way – and that’s definitely not in favour of workers.

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Filed under: Right to strike, union, workers rights
51 Comments

Moerewa

Posted by Darien Fenton on March 15th, 2012

I visited Moerewa on Tuesday to support the Talleys AFFCO workers. I went to a big meeting of locked out Talleys workers, their families and the community, and then spent some time on the picket outside the Works.

This is where the rubber hits the road, not in John Key’s announcement today of a Super Ministry which is “business facing” and will gulp up the Department of Labour and presumably with it, the Minister of Labour, Kate Wilkinson.

Talley’s locked out these workers two weeks ago.  There are generations of workers involved here : fathers, sons, mothers, daughters. Some I talked to have worked at the Works for more than 40 years. Most are long serving workers. Skilled workers at that. You try wielding a boning knife.

The community is backing the workers.  A nice moment was when one of the local nurses came out with her Nurses Organisation banner to stand with the Talleys workers. She, of all people will know the impact this is having on the local community – not just on those who are locked out, but those affected by the downstream economic effect on a small community like Moerewa.

The workers told me they love their jobs and just want to work.  One young woman has just bought a house, another is due to have a child in the next couple of months.  The lockout is hurting.

The Tally family have a reputation for being anti-union.  The meat workers are the only unionised workforce they have to deal with among the 8000 or so employees in their food production businesses. Now it seems they’re hell bent on expunging the union from their meat works as well.

If what the workers told me is true, Talley’s breaks the law with impunity.  Sure, there’s a mountain of  Employment Authority and Employment Court decisions, but the law is meaningless if someone has enough dough to pay the fine, then do it again, or alternatively, tie the union up in endless litigation.

One story doing the rounds is that an AFFCO manager boasted that “no one ever went to jail breaking employment laws.”

That’s true. Sounds like an invitation to have a closer look at the penalties for serial offenders.

Moerewa is a brave community.  No-one was feeling sorry for themselves. Their concern was for each other, their whanau, their jobs and their community.

The Talley family might find these bonds harder to break than they think.

And John Key’s Super Ministry?

Irrelevant and meaningless for 1000 locked out workers in one of our key export industries.

Filed under: Employers, Northland, community, family, protest, workers rights
10 Comments

Now it’s aged care workers

Posted by Darien Fenton on February 29th, 2012

Tomorrow morning 1500 nurses, health care assistants and support staff employed by the 20 facilities in the Oceania chain of Aged Care Facilities are striking.  Some of the residents they care for will join them in the protest.

Caregivers do magnificent work caring for members of our families as they get older and less able to look out for themselves. But they are underpaid and undervalued.  I know.  I was privileged to be a Rest Homes organiser and advocate before I became an MP and I have nothing but admiration for the work that aged care workers do and the commitment they make.

This isn’t an easy job. Looking after older people in aged care facilities requires skill and intensive responsibility for people with enormous support needs.

There’s been a change from “mum and dad” owned rest homes or Religious and Welfare homes, where older people could have a sedate and dignified retirement, to “ageing in place”  where older people stay in their homes with support from Home Support Services.  I support this approach, but it means our aged care facilities have been taken by corporate interests, looking to cash in our growing population.  Oceania is a private equity firm, whose parent company is Macquarie Global Infrastructure.

While much of New Zealand’s aged care support comes from our health budget - funded by you and me, corporates are shipping off the profits to their overseas shareholders.

I also know how much former Labour Ministers did to try to address the problem of low pay in this burgeoning industry, and how much it was resisted by the industry.  They seem to be more interested in discussing their return on investment rather than the terrible state of the workforce and the crises that keep occurring through low-paid workers caring for very vulnerable old people.

Some Oceania workers are paid as little as $13.61 an hour.  They shouldn’t have to strike.

But that’s all they can do.

Filed under: Right to strike, Work and Wages, aged care, workers rights
19 Comments

The mayor, the port, and the wharfies

Posted by Phil Twyford on February 29th, 2012

Len Brown was elected the people’s mayor on a wave of support across west and south Auckland. People opted decisively for his plan for public transport, and a modern inclusive vision for the city that embraced the young, the brown and working people.

Which makes it puzzling that he is choosing to stand by and watch while his port subsidiary tries to contract out 300 jobs.

Len Brown is one of the few people with a lever to pull in this situation. He is the shareholder. He and the Council bear a large part of the responsibility for the dispute because their demand for a 12% return on capital from the ports handed the Ports board the justification to embark on this drive to casualise its workforce. The 12% demand is ridiculous. No other port in Australasia achieves this. Few if any companies in the transport and logistics sector achieve it. The current return is 6% and the ports of Tauranga, poster child for port productivity, only gets 6.3%.

It is all the more puzzling given the Mayor’s commitment to reducing social inequality, reflected in the excellent Auckland Plan. It is hard to see how we are going to build a more prosperous and inclusive city by stripping the city’s employees of their work rights and job security.

With the port company intent on contracting out, the wharfies now have nothing to lose. The current strike is due to continue for two more weeks. Disruption will likely go on for months. The financial cost to the ports, and the economic disruption to Auckland’s economy will be significant.

It is time for Len Brown and his Council to rethink their demand for a 12% return, and replace it with something reasonable and not excessive. He should tell the port company casualisation is not an acceptable approach to employment relations in a port owned by the people of Auckland.

The union has already agreed to almost all the company’s demands for greater labour flexibility designed to increase the labour utilisation rate and improve productivity. The company and union should get back to the table and settle so everyone can get back to work.

Len Brown is a good man. His Auckland Plan and advocacy for the City Rail Link is the kind of leadership the city has been crying out for. But if the port company’s crude union busting succeeds in casualising its workforce on his watch it will be a stain on his legacy.

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Filed under: Auckland, Casualisation, workers rights
61 Comments

Youth NEETs change since 2008

Posted by Sua William Sio on February 26th, 2012
Youth NEETs

Youth NEETs

Despite the foodhardy belief by some that all is well with New Zealand employment under National, if they would just pull their heads out of John Key’s armpits for a second and took seriously that our unemployment rate from Dec 2008 to Dec 2011 has doubled, and these are NOT just numbers but REAL people with families to support, then perhaps they might get a sense of the looming employment crisis that I’m talking about. Take note of the job losses so far announced with MFAT, Air NZ, and a host of other companies that have laid off workers in the last few months.

What should also compoud our collective concern is the increasing numbers of Youth Not in Employment, Education or Training. As of December 2011 they numbered 83,000 as highlighted in the graph above.

Some might be providing homecare to family members but I suspect the vast majority are drifting doing nothing. These are our future leaders – now mostly at risk. Without work, without skills and without the hope for a better future, what will be the chances of them slipping into drugs, alchoholism, crime and benefit dependency? If these trends continue to worsen, what is there to stop it from becoming a ticking time bomb making New Zealand susceptible to the kinds of riots we’ve witnessed on TV occuring in Europe and the likes.

The NZ Institute who released proposals last year of reducing youth disadvantage estimated that the cost of youth unemployment, youth incarceration, youth on the sole parent benefit and taxes forgone, is around $900 million per year. Youth Not in Employment, Education or Training is not only a tragic waste of talent and potential, but we also all carry the cost.

We should also be worried that Maori & Pasefika youth make up a large number of NEETS. While the 6.3% unemployment rate in NZ is worrying, its not at the crisis levels of the PIGS. But the 6.3% unemployment rate hides the fact that for some parts of New Zealand unemployment truly is at crisis levels. I’ve shown int the graph below the figures by HLFS showing 43.3% of Pasifika 15-19 year olds are unemployed. That’s a shocking figure, right up there with the worst youth unemployment rates of Europe.

Pasifika & Maori Youth Unemployment

Pasifika & Maori Youth Unemployment

Filed under: M?ori, Pacific issues, Unemployment, community, economy, employment, inequality, jobs, poverty, redundancy, social development, workers rights, workforce, youth
8 Comments

NZ unemployment increases vs OECD increases

Posted by Sua William Sio on February 24th, 2012
NZ % increase in unemployment rate since Dec 2008 vs OECD increase

NZ % increase in unemployment rate since Dec 2008 vs OECD increase

The graph above compares the change in NZ’s unemployment rate since December 2008 to that of other developed countries. It shows that NZ’s unemployment rate has increased at about twice the rate of Europe.

JohnKey claimed that NZ’s unemployment rate is out of his control. He claimed that it’s the economic performance of Europe, Asia and the US that determines job growth in NZ. While there’s no arguing we live in a closely interconnected world and NZ is not immune to global down turns, Mr Key is somewhat passing the buck here.

The Govt can and does have massive influence on our economy and employment rates. For example the PSA reported more than 3500 public service jobs lost in last 3 years, as a result of Govt policy including the so called “capping” of the public sector policy, and with more public service job losses to come – recent announcement of 305 MFAT jobs to go.

The European debt crisis is not the only factor in our high unemployment rate and JohnKey’s govt as the most influential player domestically must take some responsibility.

New Zealand’s actual unemployment rate is still lower than the OECD average but this is because we started in 2009 at a lower rate, not because we haven’t suffered through the recession.

Filed under: Uncategorized, Unemployment, economy, employment, workers rights
21 Comments

Total Employment Change from 2008 Reveals Imminent Crisis

Posted by Sua William Sio on February 21st, 2012

Increase in unemployment under National

Increase in unemployment under National

The Household Labour Force Survey Survey report of the December 2011 Quarter released last week revealed that our unemployment rate slipped slightly to 6.3% from 6.6%. While a rate of 6.3% in itself doesn’t necessarily mean we have reached crisis levels, the focus on the overall unemployment rate does conceal detail about our employment situation that if brought to the surface will shine light on what I believe is an immiment crisis looming in our economic horizon.

Since JohnKey’s National took office in November 2008, 53,000 New Zealanders have joined the unemployment ranks. That’s a 54% increase in the number of people unemployed to a total of 150,000. For these people, National’s promise of a ‘brighter future’ has utterly failed to materialise, especially if you have a mortgage and teenage children you are supporting through school.

While the impact of the recession cannot be ignored, the number of people unemployed has actually increased since the recession officially ended in mid-2009. The official unemployment figures only tell part of the story. Many more people are without work but are not counted as being unemployed. Many are described by the Salvation Army as being “discouraged unemployed”. They would like to work and would accept a job offer if given, but they would not be deemed as actively seeking work because for instance looking for work through a newspaper does not meet the threshold of “actively seeking work”. The number of Kiwis jobless has increased by almost 100,000 under National’s watch to now 261,300 people as of December 2011. In the meantime 59,964 people are receiving the Unemployment Benefit as at December 2011 a fall of 7% from 67,084 as of the December 2010.
So is this it? Is this the brighter future promised to all New Zealanders?

Number of people jobless

Filed under: CTU, Cost of Living, Employers, M?ori, Pacific issues, Red Alert, Skills, Unemployment, Work and Wages, Workers, economic, economy, employment, graph of the day, human rights, inequality, informal economy, jobs, labour, low pay, monetary policy, policy, politics, poverty, productivity, social development, unpaid work, value of work, women, work life balance, workers rights, workforce, youth
18 Comments

Techno slavery

Posted by Darien Fenton on January 31st, 2012

I missed this on Stuff, but heard it on RadioNZ today.

Workers who find themselves answering work emails on their smartphones after the end of their shifts in Brazil can now qualify for overtime under a new law.

The new legislation was approved by President Dilma Rousseff last month.

It says company emails to workers are equivalent to orders given directly to the employee.

Labour attorneys told the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper the new law makes it possible for workers answering emails after hours to ask for overtime pay.

Judging by the vox pop comments of Brazilian workers on the RadioNZ piece, this isn’t necessarily a popular move. I can understand that. Turning off the emails after hours is a hard thing to do.  It has become such a way of life for many working people, but even more so for those who believe their job depends on it.

This issue has started to emerge in several corners of the world. In May 2011, Chicago policeman Jeffrey Allen filed a class action suit against the city, asking for unpaid overtime compensation.

In December 2011, German carmaker Volkswagen agreed to deactivate e-mails on German staff Blackberry devices out of office hours to give them a break.

German telco Deutsche Telekom and consumer goods maker Henkel have also introduced measures to curb after-hours emails to reduce the pressure on workers to be always on call.

Remember the “work life balance” stuff we used to talk about?

Am I just old-fashioned in thinking that working lives are important, but so are our families as well?

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Filed under: family, jobs, technology, work life balance, workers rights
8 Comments

Lockouts, layoffs and livelihoods

Posted by Darien Fenton on November 23rd, 2011

The lockout of more than 100 workers at ANZCO CMP Meatworks in Marton is now in its second month over the employer’s demand for 20% paycuts and increased workloads. Efforts by the workers’ union to reach a compromise so far have been rejected. The local community, food-banks and workers from around the country, many of whom are already struggling from the impact of cost of living increases,are digging deep to help these workers feed their families. That can’t carry on. Families are hurting, the local economy is suffering and New Zealand’s international reputation is being affected.

Predictably, there’s been silence from the Minister of Labour and John Key in this very serious situation, and they’ve left their hapless and inexperienced Rangitikei candidate to deal with it.

Then there’s the almost daily announcements of lay-offs. Today it’s Milton Woollen Mills. Yesterday, it was Sleepyhead.

The National Party Industrial Relations policy for this election will encourage more of the hard-line tactics being used by ANZCO CMP. They want to give employers the right to veto multi-employer collective agreements, refuse to conclude collective bargaining, and put workers on individual agreements when they start work.

National’s priorities for early legislation, announced today, include cutting pay for young workers and privatising the ACC work account. How sad is that?

The last time a National government tried these race to the bottom ideas, the wage gap with Australia grew enormously, workers lost long-held conditions, low pay became endemic in many important industries and we lost a generation of skilled workers.

John Key insists that he will build a brighter future (actually, I thought he promised that last election).

There’s no brighter future for laid off or locked out workers, or those who only got a 25 cents increase in the minimum wage this year.

Clear choice Saturday.

Filed under: Unemployment, Workers, jobs, redundancy, workers rights
24 Comments

Meanwhile, in Rangitikei…

Posted by Darien Fenton on November 15th, 2011

While John Key spins to prevent us knowing what he and John Banks really said at the tea party, 111 workers are into their third week of being locked out at the CMP Meatworks in Rangitikei.

The union and the company have been negotiating to renew the collective agreement at the plant since April 2011 but have not been able to reach an agreement as the company is seeking significant cuts in pay and allowances.  Their stated goal is to remove 15% of the costs from the time a lamb enters the plant to it leaving, which means significant cuts of more than 20% in overall pay for the workers.

On 3 October the company issued a lock-out notices to 300 members of the meat workers union. The notice said that to return to work the workers had to agree to the employers claim for a new collective agreement incorporating the new rates of pay and proposed changes to shift organisation.

Before the lockout , the company put all the workers on annual leave for a week. During this week they contacted many workers one at a time and offered them individual agreements with the pay cuts and told them that if they signed the lock out notice would not apply to them. They were also required to resign from the union.

Over 100 workers signed without union advice and returned to work. Many were migrants who would have been afraid for their jobs.  These workers now on individual agreements, and because the season is not yet in full swing the company is able to continue to operate and leave the remaining 111 workers locked out (since 19 October).

The annual income of these workers varies but on average they range from $43,000 to $46,000 with the bottom earnings as low as $23,000 and a top income of $53,800 which includes additional shifts. The workers have offered to take a 10% pay cut which is extremely significant on these low wages – but this has been rejected by the company.

Not a good situation for the workers or the community to be in .  John Key should pay attention, or is this a precursor of the “balance and fairness” we could all be up for under National’s  Employment Relations policy?

If you want to help these workers and their families go here.

Filed under: Workers, workers rights
7 Comments

Blue, Harry, Trotter – then and now

Posted by Darien Fenton on September 26th, 2011

Chris Trotter has strong opinions, when I get the time to follow him – which isn’t often. But this short story, about Blue and Harry, stalwarts of the good old days of unionism, has turned up on my media monitoring, repeated in every little down-home country paper throughout the country. Blue says :

“I heard that Darien Fenton woman talking on the radio the other day – Labour’s industrial relations spokesperson. You know what she says?”

“What did she say?”

“She says: ‘Nobody on the Left is calling for the reintroduction of compulsory unionism and national awards.’”

“Never asked us”, said Harry.

“No, she bloody didn’t”, muttered Blue. “But I know what I’d like to ask Darien Fenton. I’d like to ask her how much longer Labour’s going to let this wretched experiment in voluntary union membership go on before declaring it a failure?

“Ninety-one out of a hundred, Harry. Ninety-bloody-one! That how many private sector workers lack union protection. Hundreds-of-thousands of ordinary Kiwis stripped of the ability to negotiate with their employers on equal terms. To look the boss in the eye and say ‘no deal’, without being sent down the road.”

Yep, well Blue and Harry (and Trotter) have got that right. There’s only 9% of private sector workers covered by unions and collective bargaining in NZ.  It’s not a NZ only situation –  and there’s plenty of international evidence mounting now, including from the IMF and the OECD, that the decline in unionism and collective bargaining has contributed to rising inequality and even the GFC.

I honour the commitment of the Blues and Harry’s and of those who followed them. I’ve worked in workplaces where there’s been strikes for weeks on end. I have my share of war stories, just like many Labour MPs (and they’re not all glorious). We worry about leaving the next generation much worse off than the one we inherited from their struggle. But the world has sadly changed. In Blue and Harry’s day, a casual worker would have been unheard of. Working the weekend for ordinary rates would be a strikeable offence. But women getting equal pay, paid parental leave, domestic leave and four weeks holiday were also just as unthinkable, so it’s not all about what happened yesterday.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t injustices, low pay and exploitation. There is plenty to go around.

But Blue and Harry would find today’s workplace unrecognisable and while we learn from our history, yesterday’s solutions aren’t the only solutions for today’s problems. Try, for instance, telling a young IT worker they should be compulsorily bound to a union.

So, Blue and Harry (and Chris Trotter) be patient. Talk with me if you want – anytime. Labour’s policy will be announced soon. We will be standing up for workers, and as we have always done, standing up for the poor and the lowest paid, and taking into account the fragmentation of the labour market, the huge inequalities that have developed, and the need to create a fairer society for everyone.

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Filed under: policy, wages, workers rights
30 Comments

Bring down the curtain

Posted by Darien Fenton on September 23rd, 2011

There appears to be an on-going vendetta against workers in New Zealand’s entertainment industry.

Sure, the NActs are happy to line up beside local artists at events like the Rugby World Cup, but their actions are spelling doom for many of our most talented.

First, there was the decree from on high that all NZ entertainment workers are “contractors” and have no right to challenge their status under New Zealand law. There was the shameful spectacle of our government depriving New Zealand workers of rights in order to bow to Warners and Co., along with the ugly denunciation of anyone who dared speak out against this move as “hobbit-haters”.

Now, Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman has announced that New Zealand has cleared the way for overseas actors and musicians to come here whenever they feel like it, even if it’s at the expense of New Zealand entertainment workers. His policy changes mean that those representing actors, musicians and other entertainment workers no longer have to be consulted when overseas acts want to come here. Understandably, the Screen Directors Guild of NZ is expressing concern about the implications of the moves to alter the process for the entry of temporary entertainment industry workers into New Zealand. They say it is potentially damaging to the local screen and entertainment industries.

My old union, the Musicians’ Union did its best to promote New Zealand music, but they never stood in the way of overseas performances unless it meant New Zealand musos would be disadvantaged. It was their job to stand up for New Zealand talent and they did it responsibly.

Labour’s spokesperson for Immigration, Ruth Dyson, and Arts and Culture spokesperson Steve Chadwick say the change could mean that roles in local productions could be filled with overseas performers and that these pressures, along with strife in Public Broadcasting and local playhouses, such as Downstage, put at risk many New Zealand careers.

John Key’s justification for changing the laws around the Hobbit was to protect New Zealand jobs, yet his Minister of Immigration has opened the door for all and sundry.

Our proud record of cultivating NZ identity through the Arts, fostered under the leadership of Helen Clark, is faltering.

Who hates who now?

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Filed under: Arts and Culture, Hobbit, music, workers rights
26 Comments

Has Kate been shafted again?

Posted by Darien Fenton on September 21st, 2011

Yesterday, the Government announced a review of rules and regulations for the use of agricultural vehicles, including working-time regulations, requirements for safety inspections of farm vehicles and the relaxing the restrictions on the use and standards of farm vehicles. They told us they have been listening to the industry.

But wait, hasn’t the Minister of Labour identified the agriculture sector as one of her “priority sectors” for action and resources in her Health and Safety Action Agenda? And rightly so, because farm vehicle accidents account for 23% of work related deaths and injuries in New Zealand.

Now the lowly-ranked Associate Minister of Transport (outside Cabinet) describes safety rules for agricultural and farm vehicles as “red tape”. Yep, he mentions the safety of the public, but not the workers. That, to me, says a lot about the Government’s attitude to workers’ health and safety. Sure, the farmers want to get their crops in on time. But I’m just as sure that the workers would like to work reasonable hours for fair pay and not have to put their life and those of others on the line.

We’re not talking unreasonable rules here. 13 hour days – just one break after 5.5 hours – no rights to breaks, and most employed as contractors, which means few rights in law.

The  families whose loved ones have been affected by accidents in this industry because of short cuts, long working hours, a lack of rights and cutting corners will not see these regulations as “red tape” or too “inflexible” as the contractors have described them.

The question is:  has the Minister of Labour been shafted again?  Was she consulted about this review?

Just another example where the health and safety of workers has become a “nice to have” for this Government.

Filed under: Health and Safety, agriculture, workers rights
11 Comments

Something else happened this week

Posted by Darien Fenton on September 9th, 2011

With all the excitement around the Rugby World Cup it may have slipped your notice that the long battle by Disability Support workers to be paid minimum wage for “sleepover” shifts looks like it might come to an end by Christmas – if the government gets its act together.

The government, IHC and the unions have reached a compromise deal, which will see the full minimum hourly rate paid for sleepovers by December 2012.

50% of the backpay owed will be paid eight weeks after the government legislates, which will need to happen to enable a variation of the Court’s decision and the very reasonable position taken by the unions of enabling the minimum wage to increase over a period of time.

I’m pleased that after a drawn-out process lasting five years and workers jumping through the hoops and appeals in three Courts, Tony Ryall has finally decided to get the matter settled. I’m also intensely relieved that the government has shelved any idea of amending the Minimum Wage Act to avoid these payments. This would have had an impact on tens of thousands of workers.

The only note of concern is that Minister Ryall is saying legislation won’t be passed before the election.  If that happens, there is no trigger for the backpay to be paid and workers will have to wait a lot longer. There’s no reason settlement legislation can’t happen in the next three sitting weeks.

After all, the government managed to ram through significant changes under urgency that removed rights for a whole category of workers so they could please Warner Bros. They can please the nearly 4,000 workers who have made a claim by getting the legislation through the House asap.  Labour will co-operate with the government so these workers can be paid.

Well done to Service & Food Workers Union and PSA for hanging in there.  You’ve done your members proud.

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Filed under: Workers, community, minimum wage, workers rights
14 Comments

Ships of Shame

Posted by Darien Fenton on August 23rd, 2011

I welcome the government’s announcement today on the Terms of Reference for the Ministerial Inquiry into the use of Foreign Crewed Vessels (FCVs) in New Zealand waters. So, credit where it’s due, but there’s been a huge push behind this from the media and in particular, Michael Field of Fairfax, communities and church groups looking after abused foreign crew and unions who have repeatedly called for change.

IMG_0254So well done to all of them and thank goodness for their help.

Meanwhile, the crew of the Oyang 75 and Shin Ji face uncertain futures.  They’ve been forced to appeal deportation liability notices on humanitarian grounds. The community and church backers have had to find the $550 fee for them to do so.  Their testimony to the inquiry is vital and if they want to stay in New Zealand, they should be able to until they are paid what they are due and their stories have been heard by the Inquiry.

The Ship of Shame, Shin Ji, whose crew ran away from physical and sexual assaults, is moored at Auckland waterfront’s new Wynyard Quarter just opposite the flash new Events Centre.  Go down and have a look for yourselves and imagine how any human being could be expected to live in such degrading and appalling conditions.

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Filed under: Foreign Affairs, workers rights
14 Comments

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