by Sue Bradford
I’m a bit late blogging my regular column in the Truth Weekender, as I’ve had other things taking up my time. But here it is:
Employers all over the country are increasingly going on the offensive against workers who organise to bargain for their rights and conditions.
The current state of industrial relations is typical of what happens when a National Government takes power and employers then take it into their head that it’s a good time to push wages down and break the strength of unions.
It is not as if the companies involved are struggling financially. The biggest attacks on workers’ rights seem to come from companies with healthy balance sheets and very highly paid CEOs.
There are a number of situations happening right now which demonstrate the truth of this all too vividly.
Foodstuffs South Island made a profit of $227 million in 2009 and pays its CEO a salary of $920,000 per year.
Yet the company is offering workers on take home pay of between $10.39 and $12.14 an hour a zero increase on wages or conditions.
The Warehouse recently announced an $8 million profit, and increased CEO Ian Morrice’s income by $1.6 million to $3.8 million this year.
This eyewatering amount comes from the profits made for the company by low wage workers who are currently subject to a major restructuring programme which is wreaking havoc on workers’ family lives.
Telecom is making hundreds of line engineers redundant as it hands their jobs over to Visionstream who will take them on only as contractors.
And guess what – Paul Reynolds, the CEO of Telecom, gets around $7 million a year in salary and bonuses – a package 17 x greater than that which the Prime Minister receives.
These are not companies in trouble.
In fact, these are companies doing very well for themselves.
Their approach is in contrast to that of unions involved in a number of situations where businesses have been threatened with closure, and in which workers have offered to help out by moving, for example, to a nine day fortnight.
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare by Sue Bradford on Mon, September 28th, 2009
Tags: Bill English, employer militancy, foodstuffs, john key, Telecom, the Warehouse, Unite!
More posts by Sue Bradford | more about Sue Bradford
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
It has been fascinating watching the economic system undermine itself by degrading the incomes of the very “consumers” it depends on for revenue as customers. The movement of millions of jobs to low-wage countries like China and India and the transition to low-wage service jobs in the developed countries for more and more people, will ultimately see us in a downward spiral – a recession that never ends….
We’re already there. Only continued access to cheap debt backed by ‘air’ money has kept the whole thing afloat so far…and all to be funded by the “taxpayer”. Circle back to the wage earners again.
The examples Sue cites are good ones. Each individual company squeezes its own employees….as every other company does exactly the same….and we’re all supposed to be better off as a result? Can’t see it.
It doesn’t add up now…and it never has. At best, a few will be better off…and the rest will be working long hours for crap money with few protections and little security to pay for it all – directly or through taxation.
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@OutinFront: It’s called the “trickle down effect”.
Back in the ’80s I recall a brilliant cartoon of the trickle down effect, featuring Roger Douglas standing on a hi-rise balcony pissing on the assembled plebs below.
Can’t remember who drew it, and can’t find it on google images. Mike Moreu might be interested in doing a Mk II though.
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Yes, we get showered with gold.
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Naughty, BJ, very naughty!
That comment is almost in greenfly league.
Anyone up for a spanking as well?
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The truth, Sue is that the vast majority of employers are small family enterprises, having stuck their necks on the block and working damned hard WITH their employees. They are as disgusted by the few greedies at the top as anyone else. Often they operate under worse pay and conditions than their staff.
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I’d be interested to hear how many people you employ, Sue. And the sorts of wages you pay them.
Oh, that’s right. You don’t employ anyone.
Here you are getting off on your righteous anger, whilst at the same time being infinitely worse than any of targets of your preening, because you don’t off a job to anyone at any price.
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Well how many people do you employ Wat? Sue wasn’t talking about the small struggling businesses, just the very large,very fat greedy bast@rds who enjoy virtual monopolies yet they skrew the workers down.
Avery valid exposey wouldn’t you say?
Or are these people your heroes?
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Wat, you never let the facts get in the way of the ideology, do you? Sure, Sue Bradford doesn’t currently employ anyone – I doubt many MPs do, as MPs shouldn’t be actively involved in business while being elected representatives (although Richard Worth was, and to his shame used his position as a politician to promote his business).
For the record, in the 10 years before she entered Parliament Sue founded and chaired the Board of the Auckland Peoples Centre, which provided medical, dental and advocacy services to people on low incomes and beneficiaries, employing up to 40 staff. She also chaired the Board of the Auckland Region Employment Resource Centre which provided training and mentoring for people establishing small business or self-employment. At the same time she was a lecturer in NGO governance and management at Unitec.
She proved over that time that it is possible to successfully build and run an enterprise while treating your employees well. I know this because I was one of those employees.
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who reads the truth – looks like a paper for perverts (men who smack their kids?????)
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Who knows; a very knowledgeable individual that Who.
I just love how “Sue’s Truth” highlights both the total subjectivity of ‘truth’ and how utterly deluded she is.
As to wages; If the unions in these big places cant get greater wages then it indicates one of two things: The unions are useless compared to the company operators, or the workers are in far to greater supply relative to demand.
So re-skill. Its your own f-ing fault.
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npb, whatever the characteristics of the readership of the Truth, they are voters.
If it does contain a disproportianate number of perverts (I presume you mean sexual abusers)and men who beat their kids, they probably need the messages Sue has been trying to convey on child abuse more than most.
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Toad – actually – looking at the front cover of truth – I think I meant to say its designed by perverts or at least people who are demeaning to women.
I don’t think men who lightly smack their kids are perverts (am I????……….:-) )
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No Sapient… there are several truths here and Sue has the right of it in this.
Though you have a point about the unions no longer having the teeth to stop the corporates.
Telling someone who is 45 to “re-skill” indicates that you are a little ignorant about ageism and age discrimination. Also about the availability of work and the difficulty of maintaining the mental flexibility to learn new skills.
I’d LOVE to get trained in a new technology. Nobody will give me any training time anymore. At 50 they did’t think much of my chances to pay back the investment… now I’m 57. Not sure I think much of those chances myself.
The problem however, isn’t that the workers are doing a poor job or need re-skilling. The company in at least one case, simply wants them to go out and set up as independent contractors. So it can pay them piecework and let them take on all the overheads and risks of being in business for themselves… (this is NOT greater efficiency).
Yet the companies are happily paying even more massive amounts of money to their executives?
The excuses go on… and you may have a truth to tell us as well… but Sue is right about the people at the top taking advantage.
BJ
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BJ,
I am aware of the presence of ageism and of the impracticality of of reskilling at an advanced age. The last paragraph/sentence was the result of realising I should have left for my destination five minutes previously and was ment to be semi-hummerous but at the same time poignant; a very quick sumamry of the paragraph I had intended to write.
It is certainly true that as an individual ages it becomes more dificult to retrain in many areas. It is also true that the individual, having not trained in the area at an earlier age, is at fault for that. That is assuming they were not in a coma or drafted at that point in their lives.
While I agree that these corporations are exploiting their workers I do not personally perceive this as unjust. The workers have gambled and in doing so have trained in that area, that they have chosen an area which now has rather low wages reflects on eaither their own lack fo forsight or their own lack of interest. If they want more they should have had the foresight to plan for such ends. If the unions cant prevent this treatment then they have displayed very poor foresight indeed.
Off subject alittle. Ageism is prevalent within society though not somethign that I see as necassarily negative. The lower the expected remainign working life of an indivdiual the lower the potential return on investment on any investment that relies primarily on contribution over time for those returns. A university education gratned to a retiree or even someone seven years your junior will tend to be worth a substantial amount less than if that same education were granted to a younger individual or an individual with a longer expected work life. The same applies for many medical procedures, though not the procedure itself, except for transplants, so much as the money invested. I would assert that government funding should decrease as an individual aged after a certain point to represent the decrease in utility to society which the subsidy is ment to represent. There is absolutly no reason a pensioner should be getting a massivly subsidised education other than to prolong their life, a likely result, which is actually another thing of very debatable contribution to society.
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Sapient wrote: “or the workers are in far to greater supply relative to demand. So re-skill. Its your own f-ing fault”
And if they re-skill they won’t be in greater supply relative to demand?
Maybe the number of workers who have the capabilities they have are in greater supply than demand, whether they re-skill or not.
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Upskilling is not free. It is an investment. Not making it is more than just a matter of stupid. It is also matter of not having 2-3 thousand dollars or time for several weeks of training, to get certification in a new specialty when the kids need to be fed and clothed, and WHICH technology is the flavor of the month? It changes on a monthly basis.
Moreover, most people are NOT as capable of learning new and starting over as you or I.
Which doesn’t really take away from your point. It IS logical.
Educating me in something new now would be a waste compared to the same investment in someone who has more working life ahead of him.
The question is, what is the implication for the society, if working hard doesn’t give you any security either. Insecurity was the usual rule in the past. Far more usual than what we aspire to in our lives. Is that sort of darwinian death match going to return? Is it preventable?
With the skillset for really decent gainful employment escalating every year, what happens to the “norms” who don’t have 3 and 4 sigma IQ advantages?
Overall, it is clear that society is overreaching when it attempts to protect us from aging and death. Those happen, and the really expensive procedures aren’t a good idea for those of us who are within a few years of EOL.
respectfully
BJ
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Kahikatea,
Substitution.
If they re-skill they can do both the job they presently do and the job that they train to do. While the over-all supply for the present job remains the same the readily obtainable supply drops of quickly.
If I work for a job I hate at 10.50 and hour and I obtain the skills to work in a job, for which there is employment availible, which pays double that and I love then I will tend to move to the higher paying and more satisfying job. When this happens to even a minority of workers in an industry the effective supply of workers to that industry decreases unless they are willing to pay the people leaving even more than they would aquire in the job they love. Because they are unlikely to do so the supply decreases and the wages increase accordingly. Should the supply become so small that the wages exceed the level of the job for which individuals trained for then they will tend to shift back to the former job. This is why jobs such as sweeping and stacking shelves tend to be so low paid; the only traits needed are a functional body and a, very limited, degree of trustworthyness.
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BJ,
Yes, up-skilling is not free. But as you say my point remains logical; even if not ethical or otherwise desirable.
It is all about choice. If an individual is able to change their circumstance and they do not they then become entirely culpable for that circumstance regardless of how much suffering they must go through to make that change.
It is beneficial to society that resources are distributed where they are best used, this includes humans. By making re-skilling more readily achieved we facilitate the movement of the human resource to a superior location. This movement will tend to result in lower wages for unskilled labour and higher wages for skilled labour, the more fluid the movement the less profound this wage gap will become. It is because of the benefits to society and the effect on inequality that I support measures which will make the state of the labour market more fluid. In our society today some such measures include the benefits, student allowences, heavily subsidized education, and most crucially the student loan. There can be more done but with these in effect and the flexible options provided by the vast majority of education providers, even in the trades, there is next to no excuse.
The escalation and the employment of the lower echelons is a matter of concern. I believe we have touched on this a number of times previously, particuarly in relation to the increasing ability of each individual to produce as a result of growing technology levels.
As capitalism change form as a result of technological shift we will be left with a unproductive under class, this posses problems en mass. It is my opinion that the intelligence of individuals can be increased realtitivly easily simply by teaching them to think. If we can increase the flow of capital through research and tertiary institutions then we should be able to redistribute a lot of the population into academic related roles and move the unproductive into the lower caste roles. This combined with altered social norms and the benefit contraception proposal i have previously discussed would result in a not-so-gradual shift within society toward higher genetic IQ and as a result higher actual IQ and a lower number of people in the lower clade.
You don’t need to be that intelligent to work as a researcher or a lecturer. I doubt many of my lecturers are even a sigma point above the norm. The question really is if such a academic heavy society could survive.
As to security, I believe one working hard with some actual foresight would have very little problem with this even in a minimum wage job. The problem is the masses whom have no foresight. For this reason we will need to retain a pension even with such a grey-heavy society as is forming, the best we can do being to ensure the benefit is means tested and potentially relative to the number of years spent working in NZ and on the benefit in NZ such that those on the benefit a lot or outside of NZ most of their lives will eaither have to receive the majority of their income from elsewhere or continue to work. It may not be nice but it is better than everything collapsing both for the old and the young.
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I don’t think you are going to succeed in teaching people to be intelligent. You can teach them to use what they have better, but “q” is not going to yield to anything but genetic and environmental improvements, and for the most part we seem to encourage genetic diminution and environmental degradation.
I only can hope to live a lot more productively and longer than the actuarial charts suppose I will. I don’t have much faith in my Social Security checks coming through.
respectfully
BJ
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BJ,
Teaching people to use what they have better will often increase the I.Q. as well. Teaching people how to use what they have alters the way they think, their cognitive style; IQ is more or less captured by cognitive style and memory span. Cognitive style is imbued through out life and can change through out life. The older you are the harder it is to change but it is still possible. The best place to tackle this is in the first years, i.e. by teaching parents how to interact with their children so as to not retard them, or, failing that, in school. One of my greatest peeves in school was that they teach you what to think not how to think, I was lucky to have a teacher equally frustrated at the same.
Who knows, maybe my research will slowly drift toward the development of cognitive style (not unlikely by any means given it appears rather important in my present area) and we will have the “Sapient teaching methods for inducing sapience in children” implimented in all our schools and kindergartens.
. We will have a race of super-children with which to revolutionize society using their massive cognitive abilities and psychic powers.
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How many of those were commercial enterprises, as opposed to charities or organisations which exist on taxpayers handouts?
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- “Sue wasn’t talking about the small struggling businesses, just the very large,very fat greedy bast@rds who enjoy virtual monopolies yet they skrew the workers down.”
How do they come to enjoy virtual monopolies?
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A National government which cares little for the worker and a recession reducing the workers bargaining position in the marketplace will certainly result in the “bosses” trying it on.
And it’s not as if the party in government is not being a “boss” and trying it on with the working conditions in the public service either.
However let’s at least note that the minimum conditions now include $12.50 an hour and 4 weeks annual leave and National has accepted the need to increase the minimum pay by the CPI each year.
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There is little hope of any redress for the small business person or the low paid worker when every dollar they earn must pay tax to an indifferent Government & interest to an overseas lender.
We are now the servants in our own home & soon we will be the beggars at the gate.
Others own us body & soul thanks to the profligacy of our own.
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Oh and the ultimate irony is that what will happen in the next few years, as wages are frozen and more and more workers are paid at the minimum wage level (if that continues to be increased by the CPI under National), they will via the minimum wage increases receive a pay rise during their wage freeze.
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Gosh, I do hope Sapient did not get the benefit of free education. I wonder if he is actually gainfully employed (not by a rightwing thinktank/PR firm, that is).
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Buzz,
It would be illogical for me to go for anything but the best, when it came time to choose a high school I chose the best one in the region; just happened to be a public school with rather massive ‘donation’ requests and a lot of student fund-raising and commercial sponsorship. Im not sure if this is the thread on which you ment to make that comment, but I am on the record as being strongly in favour of a free and universal provision of pre-tertiary education; that I dont perceive it as a ‘right’ does not mean I do not perceive it as desirable.
As to my employment, I have been in official employment since the age of 15 in varied areas from IT to packing your bags at the supermarket to tutoring, until just over a year ago when I decided that it was time to stop working and dedicate all of my time to my studies. Now, not being eligable for a student allowence, the future me pays the present me via the interest-free student loan. I will be starting my masters next year, and publishing before hand, and have a number of scholorships lined up.
While I may come over as right wing my motivations are very much left wing, though, me being a pragmatic person, my methods of acheiving those ends will often differ from those of the blind ideolouges.
buzz buzz
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More or less… with a heritable component over 50% according to every study ever made IIRC.
Something can be had out of it… but the folks with the advantage will benefit as well… and the market remains a competitive one.
respectfully
BJ
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