Last week Statistics NZ released the National Accounts for the year to March 2017, which revealed that working people are receiving only 48.7% of the national pie compared to a peak of 58.7% in 1981.
The right of workers to an alternative holiday when working on a public holiday has been strongly affirmed in an Employment Relations Authority decision against Wendco (NZ) Limited, the company that operates the Wendy’s stores in New Zealand.
Bosses and their paid servants in the so-called economics “profession” are already screaming about the proposed minimum wage hike in New Zealand to $20 an hour by April 2021. Most of their objections amount to the repetition of dogma which they want us to believe is some sort of science. Usually, very few facts are ever advanced to support their views.
The capitalist economic system is also based on endless growth. On average, the system has grown about three percent a year for 200 years. But today, that perpetual growth machine is suffocating the planet and as it does so it will destroy humanity’s ability to coexist with the planet for their own survival.
It is a mistake to underestimate the importance of the decision to lift the minimum wage to $20 an hour by April 2021. This will involve a significant real increase in wages for hundreds of thousands of workers in this country.
It was one of the mad failures of the nine-years of the last Labour-led government that union membership density as a percentage of the working class was lower at the end than the beginning. The changes to industrial and other laws were too inconsequential to allow unions to grow easily – especially in the private sector which covers fewer than 10% of the private sector workforce. The goal should be to double or treble that percentage.
Burn of fast food worker Kiwi workers are being killed at the rate of one a week and on average…
The problem for every potential government is that they have very limited spending options given they are all committed to not increasing taxes on anyone (including the very wealthy). But if Winston wants to claim any policy “wins” that he can be allowed to identify himself and his party with it seems much more likely that Labour and the Greens could deliver them.
Given the momentum shift in the last few weeks it seems inevitable there will be a change in government.
The middle-class leaders of the Labour Party do not feel the deep resentment working people have to being taxed to death and then having charges imposed on us for things that should be free – like health and education.