Workers to get a better, fairer deal under Green Party

Green Party co-leader Russell Norman speaking to Unite Union delegates conference 2011

The Green Party today announced a workers’ package that is part of its plan to build a fairer society where all workers have enough to live on.

The key policy points in the Green Party’s plan to make life better for all New Zealand workers are:

1. Lifting low wages by moving the minimum wage to $18 an hour by 2017 and introducing a Living Wage for the core Government sector.

2. A new legislative minimum redundancy package of four weeks’ pay.

3. Bringing top pay back into line requiring companies to report on the gap between top and bottom pay.

4. Measures to boost bargaining power and make workplaces safer and more democratic.

Vote for a Living Wage – what the parties say!

Use this area to offer a short preview of your email’s content. View this email in your browser Inequality is high on the agenda this election and the Living Wage is one way Government could get its house in order, set an example for the private sector, and reduce poverty for thousands of NZ families. Three political parties fronted up to our election events and said YES to a Living Wage for all public service employees and contracted workers delivering services on a regular and on-going basis. The Labour Party, the Green Party, and the Internet/Mana Party. We also got a response from the Maori Party post the events to say they also supported a Living Wage. Vote to change NZ! Vote Living Wage! The Living Wage is rejected by the National Party, ACT, NZ First, United Future, and Conservatives.

Part-Time Schedules, Full-Time Headaches

From The New York Times

A worker at an apparel store at Woodbury Common, an outlet mall north of New York City, said that even though some part-time employees clamored for more hours, the store had hired more part-timers and cut many workers’ hours to 10 a week from 20.

As soon as a nurse in Illinois arrived for her scheduled 3-to-11 p.m. shift one Christmas Day, hospital officials told her to go home because the patient “census” was low. They also ordered her to remain on call for the next four hours — all unpaid.

An employee at a specialty store in California said his 25-hour-a-week job with wildly fluctuating hours wasn’t enough to live on. But when he asked the store to schedule him between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. so he could find a second job, the store cut him to 12 hours a week.

These are among the experiences related by New York Times readers in more than 440 responses to an article published in Wednesday’s paper about a fledgling movement in which some states and cities are seeking to limit the harshest effects of increasingly unpredictable and on-call work schedules. Many readers voiced dismay with the volatility of Americans’ work schedules and the inability of many part-timers to cobble together enough hours to support their families.

Photo

Courtney Moore took a second job at McDonald’s after her hours were cut at Walmart.CreditMaddie McGarvey for The New York Times

In a comment that was the most highly recommended by others — 307 of them — a reader going by “pedigrees” wrote that workers were often reviled for not working hard enough or not being educated enough. “How can they work more jobs or commit to a degree program if they don’t know what their work schedule will be next week, much less next month?” the reader wrote. “It’s long past time for some certainty for workers. They drive the economy.”

Low-Wage Workers of the World, Unite!

The following article is an important look at the struggle of fast food workers around the world from the viewpoint of socialist theory. This involves understanding the growing importance of these types of jobs in capitalist economies and what role these workers may play on getting rid of capitalist exploitation. There are some significant theoretical issues that are raised by the authors but they are worth studying – including by workers in these industries. As a union leader at Unite Union in New Zealand which represents over 3000 fast food workers I know it will help me in understanding my enemy and defeating him.

It is reprinted from the blog A Critique of Crisis Theory. Anyone who is serious about understanding and overcoming capitalism today should follow this blog.

Mike Treen, National Director, Unite Union, NZ.

On May 15, 2014, a worldwide strike of McDonald’s workers involved workers in at least 33 countries, both imperialist and oppressed.

While participation in the strike varied, and most workers who participated were out for only an hour or so, this was a historic event all the same. It points the way forward to a far more internationalist future for the workers’ movement. To understand why this is so, we have to examine long-term underlying economic changes making the low-wage movement both possible and necessary.

A history of Unite Union (Part 1 of 4)

(The following history was prepared as part of the contribution by Unite Union to the international fast food workers meeting in New York in early May. Unions officials and workers were fascinated by the story we were able to tell which in many ways was a prequel to the international campaign today.)

All four parts of this series can be downloaded as a single PDF file from here

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Restaurant Brands delegates join Maritime Union picket, Auckland Wharf

 

By Mike Treen, Unite National Director

April 29, 2014

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, workers in New Zealand suffered a massive setback in their levels of union and social organisation and their living standards. A neo-liberal, Labour Government elected in 1984 began the assault and it was continued and deepened by a National Party government elected in 1990.

The “free trade”policies adopted by both Labour and the National Party led to massive factory closures. The entire car industry was eliminated and textile industries were closed. Other industries with traditionally strong union organisation such as the meat industry were restructured and thousands lost their jobs. Official unemployment reached 11.2% in the early 1990s. It was higher in real terms. Official unemployment for Maoris (who make up 14% of the population) was 30%, again higher in real terms. Working class communities were devastated.

The National Party government presided over a deep and long recession from 1990-1995 that was in part induced by its savage cuts to welfare spending and benefits. They also introduced a vicious anti-union law. When the Employment Contracts Act was made law on May Day 1990, every single worker covered by a collective agreement was put onto an individual employment agreement identical to the terms of their previous collective. In order for the union to continue to negotiate on your behalf, you had to sign an individual authorisation. It was very difficult for some unions to manage that. Many were eliminated overnight. Voluntary unionism was introduced and closed shops were outlawed. All of the legal wage protections which stipulated breaks, overtime rates, Sunday rates and so on, went. Minimum legal conditions were now very limited – three weeks holiday and five days sick leave was about the lot. Everything else had to be negotiated again. It was a stunning assault on working people. Union bargaining, where it continued, was mostly concessionary bargaining for the next decade.

Unite Union solidarity visit to Philadelphia!

Unite National Director Mike Treen and McDonald’s delegate Taylor Mcloon visit Philadelphia as part of a week of action in the USA in support of fast food workers. The Philadelphia rally was in support of an increase in the minimun  wage.

The politics behind the minimum wage rise

By Mike Treen
National Director, Unite Union

(Reprinted from The Daily Blog)

The government decision to increase the minimum wage by 50 cents was an interesting decision on a number of levels.

$14.25 is clearly not enough to live on – especially given that minimum wage workers often also work in industries that have no guaranteed hours week to week.

An immediate increase to $15 an hour and then a staged increase over the next few years to the CTU target of 66% of the average wage would have been more reasonable and done something to put a dent into the gross inequality and low wage culture that operates in this country.

69% of Kiwis back $15 or more minimum wage – poll

(From One News TVNZ)

The adult minimum wage is going up to $14.25 – but a poll shows nearly half of Kiwis want it raised to $15.

The current rate of $13.75 an hour will be increased 50 cents from April 1, meaning a rise for around 100,000 New Zealanders who earn the minimum wage.

The training start out wage rate for young newcomers to the workforce also increases from $11 to $11.40 an hour.

The first ONE News Colmar Brunton poll this year asked New Zealanders whether they support increasing the minimum wage to $15 per hour. Forty-six percent said “yes”, 23% supported more than $15 an hour and 16% support a rise of less than $15.

Prime Minister John Key argues increasing the minimum rate higher than $14.50 would mean job losses.

“The bottom line message is we’re trying to balance the capacity for businesses to pay a bit more and for people to earn enough to live,” Mr Key says.

Labour renews $15 promise

The Government’s increase puts it within striking distance of Labour’s $15 election promise.

“In our first hundred days we will lift it to $15 and we will move it again within our first year,” said Labour leader David Cunliffe.

Business leaders are comfortable with the minimum wage increase, which is above the rate of inflation.

Employers and Manufacturers Association CEO Kim Campbell says the increase is a lot less than “the silly numbers we’ve heard bandied about” for a living wage which would mean a $5-an-hour rise.

“It is coming in small increments, so industry will probably be able to cope with it,” he says.

But living wage campaigners, who argue for $18.80 an hour, disagree, Annie Newman of the campaign saying the increase is very disappointing.

She says the Government “should have taken a much bigger step than that” at a time when the economy is growing and we’re being told that workers are going to reap some of the benefits of this.

‘Certainly some relief’

ONE News political editor Corin Dann says the increase is certainly some relief for those on the lower income.

“As for timing, well it is election year,” Dann says, pointing out that this year’s annual increase is a little more than the rate of inflation.

“And remember the economy is doing well. So that does raise questions about whether they have raised it enough.”

Real wages – the brutal truth

By Mike Treen

(Reprinted from The Daily Blog)

The National Party has been caught getting their numbers wrong over the decline of real wages on their watch by the Green Party.

Last week, Green Party leader Dr Russell Norman pointed out that wages and salaries have risen by less than inflation during the term of the National government according to Statistics NZ’s Labour Cost Index.

Russell Norman speaking to the launch of Unite Union’s Living Wage petition

Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce accused Dr Norman of “making stuff up” and claimed that an alternative measure called the Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) is a better measure.

Statistics NZ however disagrees. They say “if you are interested in changes in earnings across time, the Labour Cost Index (LCI) is a better measure than the QES”. The QES measures the average wage paid. But averages can be pulled up by a few getting a big pay rise or by low paid workers becoming unemployed. It was true that in the late 1990s well-paid professions continued to do reasonably well while some (lawyers, accountants, doctors) did very well. So the average may have risen while the vast majority earned below the average.

Two-thirds of wage and salary earners actually earn below the NZ average wage of about $28.03 an hour.

Over the long term real wages fell by about a quarter in the late 1980s and early 1990s and have never recovered since.

The official statistics confirm that over the last three decades wages have failed to keep up with inflation – at least for the big majority of workers. Rather than wage increases pushing up prices, wages have unsuccessfully lagged behind price increases.

I did the following graph which showed a steady rise in real wages from 1957 to 1981. During nearly that whole period unemployment was only 1-3%. But the bosses organised a fight back that has pushed real wages back down to levels previously reached in the early 1970s.

Even if we use the QES figures favoured by Steven Joyce then the recovery in average real wages has been less than the previous decline.

The following graph covers the same period as mine but is from a couple of quite right wing economists who use the same data sources as mine for the period 1957-1992 but (naturally) prefer the QES rather than the LCI for the period since then.

This real wage index is based on a measure March Quarter 1978 = 1000

What do we want from a labour-led government

By Mike Treen

(Reprinted from The Daily Blog)

I have avoided doing a blog on the Labour Party leadership race because I’m not a member of the Labour Party and I don’t have much confidence that they would deliver on the promises made.

In my view unionists and socialists should focus on building a social movement that can organise and mobilise working people in the hundreds of thousands. Relying on parliamentary representatives to do the job for us is a fundamental flaw.

Even if Labour’s new leader David Cunliffe was a committed socialist he would be powerless to stand up against the pressure big business would bring to bear unless there was a massive movement below to give strength to those in government who wanted to push forward real reforms in the interests of working people.

Big business launched a massive “winter of discontent” shortly after the election of the Helen Clark led Labour Alliance government in 1999. Following that display of strength the government reform programme came to a virtual halt. Similarly “closing the gaps” for Maori was shut down at the first hint of opposition and anything that smelt of affirmative action abandoned.

I don’t believe David Cunliffe is a socialist. He is someone from the right of the party who has genuinely come to question the mantras of free-market capitalism and the inequality it produces. But that is not unusual today – even World Bank and IMF economists are claiming a new found belief in the importance of reducing inequality. Their solutions to the problem however remain firmly within the bounds of those acceptable to the maintenance of the system.

And that is the nub of the problem. Big Business will only ever accept a programme of social reform that may benefit working people when they feel their system is under threat. That was true in the 1930 and 1940s. Millions of working people were mobilising internationally and usually under a socialist banner of some sort. The ruling classes got frightened and tolerated some reforms for a period. The great depression and war that followed also gave big business a profit boost that meant they could afford to pay a little more to keep the system safe.

That is not true today. Even the relatively modest policies that David Cunliffe is talking about – a living wage, small tax increases for the rich and a capital gains tax – are likely to generate significant business opposition.

The usual response from social democratic governments in those circumstances is capitulation. I expect no difference from a Cunliffe-led government. But I am also happy to be proved wrong.

Unionists and socialists inside and outside the Labour Party actually have a common interest here. This includes people like myself who is a Mana supporter and many Green Party activists as well.

The only way there would be a hope for David Cunliffe and co to stand up against big business in government would be if we had had a massively organised and mobilised working class movement that had an interest in the promised reforms happening.

This is where I think we need to look at what the priorities are that we want such a government to focus on. At the moment is seems to me that the CTU leaders are focussed on measures that can benefit workers generally outside of any organised framework. This is true for example of the living wage proposal or the idea of industry-wide national minimum standards being imposed by the government.

I have no problems with the proposals as such – any increase in income or protections for workers is of course something to celebrate. However what we need above all is the ability to organise as a class and impose our own solutions to the problems that face us.

Much more thought needs to go into what legal changes could be made that would give unions a greater ability to organise the 92% of the private sector workforce outside of unions. This includes access to the workplace and forcing employers to bargain for multi-employer collectives. We also need a significant extension of the right to strike to include those for political demands and for the enforcement of the existing contracts – rights eliminated by a previous Labour government.

(Unite National Director Mike Treen has a blog hosted on the TheDailyBlog website. The site is sponsored by several unions and hosts some of New Zealand’s leading progressive commentators. Mike’s blog will be covering union news and general political comment but the views expressed are his own and not necessarily those of Unite Union.)