The right wing blitzkrieg to break the Unions by this new hard right racist climate denying beneficiary bashing Government is an ideological forced orgy where only the rich get to orgasm…
Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden has revealed her priorities for her portfolio this term, including making changes to our Holiday Act and reform on health and safety law and regulations.
Van Velden, the ACT Party deputy leader, shared her priorities with the Auckland Business Chamber on Tuesday, saying she was “committed to cutting the red tape and regulations that are stopping both businesses and employees from realising their full potential”.
It comes after the Government’s move to abolish Fair Pay Agreements and expand the availability of 90-day trials.
Van Velden criticised the previous Government for increasing minimum wage faster than inflation, introducing Matariki as a new public holiday and introducing more sick leave for employees.
…my guess is the antivaxx faux Unions that have infiltrated here will quickly become ACTs favourite way to undermine the current Union structure.
ACT are dismantling health and safety and worker rights while directly attacking Union cashflow…
…at some point the wider Political Left are going to have to acknowledge that we are under attack on all front by this hard right racist climate denying beneficiary bashing Government.
TDB told you this would happen if National/ACT/NZ First won and if we don’t start resisting now with an Opposition Summit, then we are doomed.
Labour are too intellectually insecure to host the Opposition Summit and believe they just have to wait the Government out and voters will come back to them.
Labour will continue to sit on their hands meaning the CTU needs to step up alongside Greenpeace, Auckland Action Against Poverty, Child Poverty Action Group to host an Opposition Summit with a far wider focus than Labour would have given it.
If the Māori Party and the Greens agreed to on Opposition Summit, Labour would have no c choice but to attend.
The Political Left have to understand they are in danger from this Government because National/ACT and NZ First intend to fuck us up permanently.
If we don’t start fighting back now, there won’t be anything left to Govern if we do win in 2026!
What more proof do you need to see that this hard right racist climate denying beneficiary bashing Government intends to permanently harm our movement?
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I quit my union after they were front and centre spurring on the violence at Albert park in their branded hi vis and megaphones.
Unlike you, they supported bodily autonomy. Whereas you want employers to be able to sack LGBT’s on the spot.
The unions were broken years ago – by Roger Douglas and Jim Bolger. They’ve managed to claw back a bit of relevance, and I guess ACT will want to get rid of even that. Call me cynical, but I’m not at all hopeful about union resistance to governments these days.
The labour movement has been in a state of total disorganisation ever since. The Clintonite political machine uses a system of patronage to install shills in key union elections, who survive at the mercy of the political mega-donors. Either preach bizarre, defeatist wonkery about the “tripartite social market”, or the factional ‘swamp’ warlords will quickly destroy you.
For some reason, there aren’t any local branches of Momentum, Left Unity, or the National Shop Stewards Network. There is barely any integration with the other international organised-labour institutions that aren’t captured by the Third Way Liberals. The union rank-and-file are all trying to flee the country instead.
The new, conservative Red Union federation has been founded by the veteran union buster and Atlas Network lobbyist Graeme Haycroft. His union busting company hired scabs to break the shearer’s union (the A.W.U.) and the butcher’s union (the A.M.I.E.U.), in tandem with the corporate farm lobby (the N.F.F.). As an executive at the H.R. Nicholls Society, he directs lobbying efforts to smash the Award System and abolish minimum wages in general.
The union leaders of today are indistinguishable from management.
So that presumably means that you’ll have no objection to them.
Cut off the unions’ easy and cheap collect of membership fees, and they will find it harder than ever to fight back.
Bet you would love that.
Unions have done some great work and 10 day sick leave is a great initiative. Nurses get penal rates for afternoon/ nights/weekends, overtime, pay for not taking lunch breaks, cpe funding etc. While general staff on IEAs seen as overhead with minimal pay increases and remain a football with base pay only. Hence all credit unions.
It’s funny isn’t it that all the progressive Northern European countries that we should probably aspire to be like have high rates of union mermbership and yet no one questions why this is. And John Key banged the drum about levelling up with Australia and fair pay agreements are at the foundation of their wage system. Surely it wouldn’t be asking too much for a journalist to question the government on these things. Although after watching Tova interviewing Luxon the other day I’m not sure we have journalists any more.
Lots of companies making mega-buck out of ‘cone storage’. They are going to be cross if ACT and Co. decide cones and many other safety measures are now not necessary.
Oh dear, I bet they voted for ACT too.
p.s. Cone storage is another way of describing the proliferation of cones all over the countryside, sometimes long after the roadworks have finished. Someone’s paying for all those orphaned cone littering the place.
I read mention of ” The Unions” here as if in some way they’re some kind of unnecessary subtext to one’s day to day runnings. You do realise that unions are us? And by us and for us, right? OUR unions, or what’s Left of them are the counterweight on the flywheel of unbridled greed, you do understand that don’t you?
So then is it any wonder, in a *bizarre economy such as ours, that there’s fierce resistance to unions because unions will force the sunlight to shine on the dodgy cunts who’ve been exploiting us for generations and all promoted as an individualism fetish by neo-liberals, the most determined little fascists of the lot of them. Short arsed, uni-ball hitler would agree as would the littler hitler, roger douglas. ( Did I mention? ‘The Gentlemen’ is a must -watch. Series. Fantastic. You, will love it. Created by Guy Ritchie. )
Capitalism without unions is fascism. You do understand that, right? Go the other way and one has a democracy dominated by unionism and you might see communism which, ironically, is it’s own form of fascism in and of itself. Balance is the vital key to the functionality of a political system where peace and prosperity must surely be that most valued of all options of existence. Balanced social democracies are derived by all-inclusion which is why we must mandate voting. Everybody’s either in, or we’re fucked. Just look out your window if you don’t believe me.
* How is our economy bizarre? Well, to begin with there are only 52 thousand farmers, according to the Dept of Stats, and farming is our primary industry which is an export industry because there are only 5.2 million of us, so if we all bought then ate what we needed to keep AO/NZ up there with the few elite we’d eat and spend into a vortex which would mean, in no time at all, we’d all disappear up our own arseholes which is happening actually. We borrow money so’s we can export at a loss so’s 14 multi-billionaires, 3118 multi-millionaires and four foreign owned banks can feast on our **gullibilities.
**Gullibility is a failure of social intelligence in which a person is easily tricked or manipulated into an ill-advised course of action. It is closely related to credulity, which is the tendency to believe unlikely propositions that are unsupported by evidence.
Just sayin’.
Unions lost the PR war for public support in the ’70s.
Not in small part due to our right wing dominated printed news services, constantly highlighting and inflaming industrial disputes. To be fair, some unions asked for such treatment by striking over petty matters such as the quality of cafeteria food (as occurred at Kawerau timber mills) and regularly inconveniencing the public (e.g. Cooks and Stewards staging ferry service strikes every school holiday including Xmas) and holding major public construction projects up for years (e.g. Mangere bridge).
Without a decent PR campaign in a healthy environment for public discourse (no longer extant) I see it as being a hard road to re-establish the union movement. I wish it were not so.
Too true RC, they shat in their own nest alienating even those of us who support unionisation and consequently played into the hands of pricks like Douglas, Caygill etc
The current labour laws in relation to holiday pay is so hard even government agencies have got it badly wrong and billions are owed to workers .zThe health industry has been badly hit .
Hey Anker, if you are out there. This is what you voted for, you fucking class traitor.
You are a nasty woman who voted to take away HSE regs, holiday pay, and union membership for workers.
Fuck you, you can rot in hell.
H&S has got pretty dysfunctional. But I’m sure any change the coalition makes will contrive to be even more dysfunctional.
Truth,shame.
copy the us and uk cos they’re doing sooooooo well
Hey Anker, get back here and try and justify this you fucking coward traitor. I would love you to try and justify the changes to disability changes too.
You are nothing but a mean, nasty, horrible racist turncoat scab who doesnt give a fuck about the poor. Fuck you, I hope you fucking drop dead. I fucking really hope you do.