Welfare group occupies Manpower office to protest illegal contracts – AAAP
Auckland Action Against Poverty have occupied the offices of Manpower Services, 51 Shortland Street, Auckland CBD at 12pm today to demand the end of exploitative and illegal contracts used by the Company.
“Manpower is one of many recruitment agencies used by Work and Income to force beneficiaries into precarious work,” says Auckland Action Against Poverty spokesperson Vanessa Cole.
“Some people from AAAP are inside the offices now, while others are protesting outside.
“The contracts used by Manpower do not comply with the Employment Relations Act (ERA), as they have no guaranteed hours, wages or location of work.
“The contract’s privacy statement enables the company to ask invasive questions about a person’s religion, ethnicity, politics and sexual practices.
“Asking intimate details enables an employer more power to discriminate who gets work and who does not.
“Work and Income are supposed to support people into secure employment, instead they are forcing people into a poverty trap.
“If people refuse to sign these illegal and exploitative contracts they will face sanctions from Work and Income.
“If people do sign the contract and leave the job because of bad work conditions, they face a 13 week stand down from their benefit.
“We asked the Ministry of Social Development to stop forcing beneficiaries into these contracts and they have refused to comment.
“We asked Manpower to end these contracts and they sent us a revised contract stating they were using the wrong contract.
“The old contract is still being used, while this new contract is just as exploitative, and prevents people accessing employment from Manpower’s clients without their permission.
“This goes against Work and Income’s policy around temp work providing people with opportunities to move into fulltime employment.
“These are not employment agreements, they are exploitation agreements.
“We demand that beneficiaries stop being forced into exploitative and precarious work, and that Manpower stops profiting from poverty.”
AAAP deserve respect for taking this kind of action.
Sadly the silent majority in our society is daily choosing to turn away, to walk past, to ignore what is happening to those less fortunate and desperate to find decent employment.
I regret having to see again and again, how too many now only really care about their own self and their interests, and show too little solidarity and empathy with others.
With the way things are now, and with this likely to get worse, it is time for many to sit down, to take some time and do some honest and deep thinking about their own position.
We are heading to an even more dysfunctional society, where KPI seems all that counts for business and government, hence the “investment approach” to social security, and the contracting out of endless services to profit seeking providers.
People cannot be humans anymore, when they are expected to function like robots, to put up with all kinds of unacceptable working conditions, and have to be ready to jump and rush to any kind of short, casual, temporary, precarious kind of job that may need to be done.
A decent society offers its members and its workers a basic level of security and good working conditions, not such rotten contracts as Manpower does. And it is disgusting to ask people such questions as their privacy statements ask.
WINZ especially, and MSD that is, should feel ashamed of using such operators to get their clients off the benefits. Where is your “social conscience”, or have you none at all?
But we know, the top leaders at MSD are now mere bean counters and actuaries, who are told by government, cut your costs, no matter how, cut costs, get people off benefits, even the sick and disabled, and that includes those with serious enough mental health conditions, who are very vulnerable.
They have a hatchet kind of doctor in charge, a Dr Bratt, Google his name and you will find out more about the man, that Principal Health Advisor, who likes benefit dependence to drug dependence.
What society and world do we live in???