BREAKING NEWS: PoA sack all workers, is it time for the left to vote Len Brown out?
The PoA dispute has been driven by a right wing agenda that seeded lies on the right wing blogs which were regurgitated by underfunded news rooms.
When you look at the truth of waterfront flexibility, we see 53% of the permanent full time workers are entitled to 40 hours per week, 27% of the permanent full time workers are only guaranteed 24 hours per week and the remaining 20% are casual workers who have no hours guaranteed hours at all!
The PoA CEO defines 'flexibility' as 'breaking the union in two'. This is ideology, not economy that is dictating this workplace dispute, and as the Mayor in charge of the Auckland Super City these CEO's ultimately answer to, the left must now reconsider if Len Brown deserves their vote for allowing this mass sacking from a manufactured crises going ahead.
What the Ports of Auckland attempt to crush unionized workers actually represents is the low wage economy National have managed to degrade NZ down to, PoA CEO Tony Gibson takes home over $750 000 yet wants to chop 320 workers pay by $20 000 to save $6 million?
As the ever brilliant Rod Oram reading deeper into the Productivity Report points out, the real reason our exports are being hurt via our ports is the much higher freight costs the shipping lines themselves charge.
A shipping container from Auckland to Singapore costs $1553 while it cost only $486 from Sydney, as Oram concludes, "shipping costs dwarf whatever productivity gains the ports can achieve so the government must investigate them. If it refuses to do so, yet it heaps pressure on council-owned port companies and their unions to eke out efficiency gains, the government, quite simply would be acting uneconomically and, worse, immorally."
This dispute and blaming the unions has been a smokescreen from the beginning and any official enabling Tony Gibson to get away with this is a legitimate target. Len Brown better start leading on this issue soon or else the left must consider voting him out.
Labour are still missing in action as David Shearer gears up his Pagani inspired redneck dog whistle, leaving a political leadership gap being filled by MANA's Hone Harawira and the Greens Denise Roche.
Dear David Shearer - the PoA have just sacked 300 workers. I'm no longer interested in what you did in Iraq, I care what you are doing here.
Citizen A will have a PoA special 7pm Thursday Triangle TV and streamed live online at scoop.co.nz.
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posted by Bomber @ 12:09 pm
5 comments
5 Comments:
It will be interesting to see what this precedent does for future unionist employment cases. What has effectively been said is "We won't hire unionists" however intentionally or not.
I worry that, with the steady erosion of workers rights in New Zealand, combined with the pressure on NZ employers to raise wages in a tough economic climate, we will lose most of our manufacturing and export capabilities to other more cost effective countries. This can not possibly help to stem the tide of unemployment and the "Brain Drain" from this land of the long black cloud.
I blame the Mayor of Auckland. Saying that his hands are tied is just plain silly. If he thinks something is wrong he should say so and then set about fixing the problem. Where the hell are Leaders with any sort of conscience and and the willingness to act when they see injustice
"Where the hell are Leaders with any sort of conscience and and the willingness to act when they see injustice"
Oh that's simple. They don't run for office. The best description for the vast majority of our elected leaders is "psychopath". If you lead tens of thousands (let alone millions) of people, you can't possible care one iota for individuals. Democracy was always designed, right from the beginning, as means of controlling the population without revolutions that literally ended in beheadings of the leaders. But make no mistake, the baubles of office and power still attract the same ilk as before (i.e. psychopaths).
Shearer does nothing because he's a professional charity worker. By definition, his role is to make the workers accept their fate after they've been stiffed, in exchange for a couple of dry weetbix.
Ovicula is right, all charity workers achieve is they normalise and justify suffering. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g
Labour exist for the same reason, they normalise and justify National's policies. Helen Clarke was the master at this, it was her ERA 2000 that officially ended any chance of real collective bargaining in NZ. People will blame the ECA 1991 because that killed the unions, but it was Helen Clarke and the ERA 2000 that buried the unions...she should have revived them
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