Gerry and National want to keep you sick during a pandemic

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This is how Dystopian Novels start

This is madness…

NZ election 2020: Giving workers more sick leave ‘bit of a stretch’ – National’s Gerry Brownlee

National deputy leader Gerry Brownlee on Sunday told Magic Talk’s Road to the Election they won’t be giving people more time off. 

“You want employment conditions progressively getting better for people – and that has been the history, you know, the 40 hour week – but you know, at the moment that shouldn’t be on the table.” 

He said with unemployment set to rise over the next few months, now’s not the time to be adding potential costs on for employers. 

“An employer taking someone on is going to have to provide for more sick days. No one’s lacking compassion, but I think at the moment that’s a bit of a stretch.” 

…look, we barely look after our workers as it is, our sick day entitlements are a joke internationally and the pandemic has highlighted how dangerous a sick workforce can be, it’s as if Gerry hasn’t been informed about this virus thing currently plaguing the planet.

Australia allows 10 days, the UK allows for up to 28 weeks and Canada allows for up to 17 weeks!

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We either start getting serious about looking after people’s health in the workplace or we risk compounding more problems.

This isn’t going to sink businesses, it’s going to protect workers, which in turn benefits businesses.

National’s focus on the well being of the boss at the expense of the worker during a pandemic is grossly misplaced.

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13 COMMENTS

  1. Another dud leader ‘hits the dirt’ – so goodbye Judith Collins we enjoyed the laughs -(not)

    Take up knitting for the refugees from Lebanon “for goodness sake”

  2. I sometimes wonder if you really understand the concept of business.
    Have you ever employed real working class people. Not just one or two, but say 20?

    Staying in business is the #1 priority.

    As the man said. Now is not the time to add costs.
    Staying afloat and providing jobs is the current name of the game.

    and yes jemima. More available sick days will mean more days off from, shall we say, the more manipulative?
    Then of course the other unintended consequence. Sick people get replaced.
    Hard to understand for some fairy thinkers. Refer to rule #1. Stay in business, keep employees with a wage, feeling of worth as opposed to going on the dole..

    You Quote UK up to 28 weeks sick pay. You forgot to mention that the sick pay is less than 100 pounds a week. Yep cant live on that alone.

    and of coures you didnt mention all the countries that dont have “”big”” sick leave entitlements(by law).

    But hey. I keep reading your blog. For the occassional bit of rational insight.

    • I wonder if you right-whingers understand the concept of being human, in the loosest sense of the word?

      Right-wing, Tory:
      It’s better to “treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen”.
      If you have more unemployed, then supply and demand dictates “low wage economy, better profits”
      “Low wage good, migrants better!”, a la George Orwell.
      “No-Covid good, Covid infection better!”, a la Friedman economics.
      Lower taxes mean the rich will benefit and trickle down their bounty on the poor.

      To you, you amoral, self-righteous right-wing heartless prick, a definition for you that will keep your party at 26.2% is:

      “The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”

      So fuck off back to ACT, New Conservative, Hannah Tamaki websites, where you will get far more purchase for your heartless bastard politics dollar.

      May you take yourself and your billions of dollars through the eye of a camel’s arse, into the kingdom of heaven…..

      • People like Roy are so full of themselves. His pseudonym says it all – a self appointed expert here to tell us that there is only one way….his way.
        But you have to feel sorry for people like that. So ideologically blinkered and unable to see out of the economic prison constructed for sheeple.
        Pre-Covid business as usual is fine if you want more of the same – inequality and economic collapse (requiring massive pilfering of public money to keep the system afloat), disastrous climate change, and inability to adequately respond to catastrophes like droughts, floods, pandemics etc because the insane profit motive resists reasonable and appropriate measures to save lives.
        I feel genuine sympathy for the Roy’s of this world.

        • Thanks Jase. You have made me re-consider my attitude towards him. Sympathy….I should take my own advice and “not feed the trolls”

  3. Roys the name Truths the game,

    “Staying in business is the #1 priority”

    You lose any and all credibility with that statement alone.

    I run a modest business employing 14 including myself. Staying in business is “a” priority but absolutely NOT the # 1 priority.

    If truth is really the game, then you should know that the # 1 priority at this time is to STAY ALIVE and doing your part to help others STAY ALIVE. This is more relevant now than ever.

    We are dead for a very long time.

    Don’t make the monumental blunder of assuming NZ has seen the end of Covid-19 and it is safe to return to the luxury of a pre Covid lifestyle.

    • Yes Jacindafan. Michael Woodhouse’s attitude during the “two Covid Karens” leaving isolation debacle, shows what the Trump-Tory modus operandi was, and still is?

  4. 5 sick days a year is exploitation and a fucking joke, any way you look at it. Also, you have to work for 6 months at a new job before that even begins.

  5. Interesting take on sick in the UK. Technically you are correct from a med certificate perspective but you’ll probably come back to no job. I’ve worked for the NHS and a DHB, taking sick is far more frowned upon in the UK than NZ. In my former NHS Trust, if you had 3 separate sick incidents (this could be 3x one day) or 10 days off in a twelve month period you had to have an interview with HR. Bear in mind this was over a rolling 12 month period. If you have 5 of these interviews over your time there, you would be sacked. In contrast in NZ I’ve encountered little stigma attached to taking allocated sick days. Also the associated guilt, stigma and bullying of staff by managers who considered certain colleagues as having “too much time off” was commonplace. I realise this is more of a reflection on work place culture rather than sick days, but it meant staff often wouldn’t take time off when they should have. This in affect negated the sick pay legislation.

  6. Remember Animal Farm and old Boxer.

    Shit kicking businesses already struggling isn’t a great strategy for long-term wage growth.

  7. I did have to agree with Gerry recently questioning Bloomfield’s doomsday prediction of second wave. We haven’t even had a first wave yet and are unlikely to. And has Bloomfield got a crystal ball telling him this, interpreting his dreams? Has he had a reading? And is Bloomfield now the hyper-caring guy, the cool rugby blokey bloke, who cares about protecting us from the flu but not any other disease, illness or injury, future or past? And has he now successfully embedded himself into the government and public life so thoroughly that he can now sell us his premonitions and lobbyist visions for the medical industrial complex? Be prepared for his spin. Unite against scaremongering.

    Jingle music: dah-dahdah-dah

    • Do some research and see why the need to.be prepared for a second wave. This virus can turn a healthy person into someone that has lifelong lasting effects. Recently a doctor who was very fit ended with scaring down his heart, resulting of covid and an epileptic fit. Never had epilepsy until covid. So while you play your jingle music of which you can due to critical governance of covid, remember who is the medical expert, not some Neville nobody like Brownlee or yourself. Now ,what’s it like to be covid free again?

      • G’day Berty me ol’ matey,

        Don’t tell me you fall for these ‘scare’ articles in the MSM? Like the kids getting that rare disease from Covid-19 – that story died a short death. Kidding aside as a health professional indicated last weekend we will gain a reasonable understanding of the long-term prognosis post Covid-19 infection at around Christmas. I would assume that all forms of influenza have some form of long term adverse effect on some infected peoples. The key is % and risk. We don’t know this yet.

        The MSM want to make this virus the second coming of the Black Death. I note with interest covid mortality in Sweden is now below influenza rates in most of the developed world. Not that our media or their international feeders (NYT, WAPO, BBC, CNN and NineMSM) would want to report this.

        Heavens forbid if Sweden gets herd immunity in the next 12 months and no vaccine is found during this time……

Comments are closed.