Posted on

The Kind Governor

– Don Franks

(wsws.org commentary on the economy: “spokesmen for the ruling elite have been quick to demand workers tighten their belts and lower their wage demands, despite the steep increase in the cost of living. Reserve Bank Governor Bollard first issued the call in early June, bluntly saying that any “over-exuberance” when it came to wage negotiations this year would meet with a response from the central bank, probably in the form of interest rate rises.”)

Prices are going up,
You know the drill
We’re going to be hungry and feel the chill
So
How do our societies experts
Advise those with blue collars on our opshop shirts?

Reserve Bank Governor Bollard says wage claims should not show “over exuberance”
Or they’d invite a swift kick in the pants
A bit of exuberance then, must be alright
A dose first thing each morning
And one more again at night

Myself, I’ve never had an exuberant wage claim
All the ones that I remember were pretty much the same
Small, infrequent and a lot less than I needed
Each time I struck, negotiated, asked or pleaded

Exuberant means “prolific”, “overflowing”, “luxuriant”,
“Abundant.”
The opposite to falling back or being made redundant
Ordinarily exuberant will do me very well, so thanks, I”ll take it
“Over exuberance” would make me sick, without the need to fake it.
So let us raise a cheer for Governor Bollard of the Bank!
And perish all suspicion that he isn’t being frank.

Posted on

WP leaflet on increased road user charges

Below is the text of a leaflet distributed by members of the Workers Party Auckland branch at the protest earlier today by truck drivers against the recently announced increase in road user charges.

Independence from the bosses – A workers’ response required in the campaign against rising cost of living

The boss class is to blame for the recent barrage of rising costs that is hitting working people in New Zealand and internationally. The following leaflet puts forward the Workers Party’s basic position on the increase to road user chargers.

Major companies are required to pay within the market system Should the major companies pay for the costs of maintaining the roads? We think that under a market system the major companies should be forced to pay but this should not be at the expense of their employees’ wages and conditions which such companies have been driving down for decades. If they were not called to pay, then the public would be bearing costs incurred while the companies make profits. However, it should also be understood that, within a market system, the employers’ profits come from the work that their employees do for them. Therefore, even if the companies lose profits, the main issue is that workers are able to increase real incomes.

Continue reading “WP leaflet on increased road user charges”

Posted on

Westfield bans union organiser from mall

Auckland Unite Union organiser and Workers Party member Jared Phillips talks to The Spark.

What’s the background to this trespass?

Unite union has begun a campaign to get a new set of union agreements in the cinema chains, and to continue re-unionising that industry. The offer from Skycity Cinemas, which is a large chain, was appalling. If we agreed with the company offer, the supervisors, projectionists and gold class staff would dramatically lose their wage relativity against the minimum wage. Of equal importance, the cinema attendants, who are the majority of staff, would get no service pay and no improvements to their security of work.

A trespass order was issued against me during the St. Lukes strike, which was the second strike in the campaign. The trespass was issued by Westfield St. Lukes, which is the firm that operates that mall and many malls in which Skycity Cinemas operates complexes.

Continue reading “Westfield bans union organiser from mall”

Posted on

Oil workers’ union leader calls for an end to the US plunder of Iraq

On May 28, 2008, Chevron and ExxonMobil Corporations each conducted their annual shareholder meetings.

Chevron held its meeting at its world headquarters in San Ramon, Ca. ExxonMobil convened in Dallas, Texas. Antiwar, environmental and other social justice organisations conducted protests at each event.

The statement below from the Federation of Oil Unions in Iraq to the shareholders of each corporation was presented at press conferences conducted in conjunction with these protests. The statement was transmitted by Hassan Juma’a Awad, President of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, to US Labor Against the War for presentation at these events.

Original statement posted here

Continue reading “Oil workers’ union leader calls for an end to the US plunder of Iraq”

Posted on

Popcorn Strikes Hit Skycity Cinemas

– article from the upcoming June 2008 issue of Cinema Worker

Photo: Socialist Aoteaora

Strikes will be spread around the country until the employers offer experienced-based pay for cinema attendants, appropriate rates for supervisors, and secure hours of work with a progressive rostering protocol. The Skycity Cinema offer has been for cinema attendants to start on minimum wage and stay on minimum wage, and for supervisors and projectionists to loose their relativity with other staff. This was rejected and staff voted to take action.

On Tuesday 10 June at 6pm 27 Skycity Cinema workers formed a picket line at the Henderson complex on a busy intersection. Nine of these workers were striking, other Henderson complex workers who were not on shift turned out, as well as four workers from the Broadway and Massey complexes. The strike was taken on the cheap-ticket night and lasted for 80 minutes.

Continue reading “Popcorn Strikes Hit Skycity Cinemas”

Posted on

Upbeat strike at Auckland Airport

foodcourt workers on strikeTwo dozen workers at Auckland Airport’s foodcourt staged a lightening strike on Saturday 7 June, in protest at medieval working conditions. The strikers marched through the foodcourt calling for their rights and were applauded by the public.

Employers and security tried unsuccessfully to silence the upbeat strikers.

The company is a joint venture between HMSC, a mega-corporation with businesses around the world, and Auckland International Airport.

Mike Treen of Unite Union said the workers had the worst employment contract the union had come across.

The workers have a start time but no finish time. They may work for one hour or for 10 hours at the whim of the company. Unite has succeeded in getting breaks established for staff, who earlier were working up to 7 hours with no breaks. Most are on the minimum wage or slightly above and have no security of hours. Some have worked 38 to 40 hours a week for several years but are denied permanent positions. The strikers are calling for a pay increase, security of hours for long serving staff and improved breaks.

Posted on

CTU president sides with scabs in junior doctors’ strike

– Tim Bowron

Council of Trade Unions President Helen Kelly has condemned recent strike action by junior doctors employed by district health boards, claiming that it risks giving unions “a bad name”.

In an article published in the Sunday Star Times on April 27, Kelly criticised the Resident Doctors’ Association (RDA) for not supporting the “modern” partnership model of unionism promoted by the CTU as well as unions such as the Public Service Association. According to Kelly’s prescription, instead of taking industrial action the RDA should be joining in the “tripartite forum” already established by CTU unions along with the Ministry of Health and the DHBs to talk through the issues. Moreover, she said, “the RDA focused on industrial matters and lacked wider professional advisers, such as policy analysts, economists, lawyers and advocates.”

Continue reading “CTU president sides with scabs in junior doctors’ strike”

Posted on

Breadline wages contributed to Muliaga tragedy

– Daphna Whitmore

The Muliaga inquiry doesn’t seem to be factoring in the role of the terrible pay that the family were trying to survive on. Below is the press release that Unite issued shortly after Mrs Muliaga’s death (her husband worked at a hotel that Unite organises). The Herald accused me of trying to use the tragedy to further a cause, implying that I was being callous. But Mrs Muliaga’s nephew turned up at the picket and was very supportive of the strike.

Continue reading “Breadline wages contributed to Muliaga tragedy”

Posted on

Lies and truth about food prices

– John Edmundson

Nobody trying to pay their bills recently could have failed to notice the way basic foods have increased in price. In New Zealand, we’ve suffered massive increases in the price of staple items like bread, milk and other dairy products. Turn on the news and it is immediately obvious that this is a global problem. Food riots and protests from countries as far removed as Haiti and Egypt make it clear that the world is faced with a major food crisis.

Globally, food prices have risen by a staggering eighty three percent in the last three years. Grain costs in particular have skyrocketed. Rice has doubled in price in the past twelve months. Corn has risen in price by seventy percent while wheat and soybeans have similarly hit record prices. These costs have then flowed on to other foods as well. With a large proportion of the world’s cattle being grain fed, dairy and meat prices have also been affected. Globally, the cost of cooking oil has gone up. In New Zealand, with inflation pushing at the Reserve Bank’s upper limit, our rulers’ response has been to tell New Zealand workers not to push for “inflationary” wage increases. In other words, New Zealand workers and the poor should bear the burden of rising food prices.

Continue reading “Lies and truth about food prices”

Posted on

Who got the new minimum wage rise?

– Jared Phillips

The Council of Trade Unions and various individual unions have put out statements regarding the April 1 2008 minimum wage rise to $12 and the abolition of youth rates for most young workers.

CTU secretary Carol Beaumont said:

Twelve dollars an hour is a commitment that this Labour-led government made with the Greens and New Zealand First, and it has now fully delivered on it. And with the abolition of youth rates from April 1 also, 16- and 17-year-olds will see their minimum wage rise from $9 to $12 after 200 hours or 3 months, whichever is sooner.

Unite union led the campaign for these changes. It was demanding $12 in 2005. This demand was also coupled with the sentiment ‘2008 is far too late’.

However, the recent increase to $12 is attributable to the large SupersizeMyPay campaign led by Unite, which picked up on wage discontent amongst low-paid workers and young workers.

The abolition of youth rates was even more clearly driven by Unite plus groups of young workers, adult workers, revolutionaries, leftists, and social democrats to the left of Labour. Unite hit the youth employers, Unite and students organised by radical youth hit the public, and then, with the NDU, Unite hit and manipulated the government. That is the history of the struggle against youth rates, which have yet to be finally eradicated.

This mass organising movement was the real force behind the most dramatic pack of successive minimum wage increases in decades. Unite is now successfully organising to get workers off minimum wage, and has just signed up more than 1000 new members in KFC, Pizza Hut and Starbucks stores.