CTU Women’s Council Biennial Conference, problems with a youth rates proposal and a major health and safety court decision feature in this week’s Unionist.

Building Our Power: Union Women In Action

“Parliament is certainly attempting to move forward on abolishing youth rates but the proposal on the table has problems,” Council of Trade Unions secretary Carol Beaumont said today, following the release of the select committee report on the Minimum Wage (Abolition of Age Discrimination) Amendment Bill late yesterday.

“The record fine awarded against Stresscrete today over the death of a concrete worker in 2005 is the strongest signal yet that ensuring the safety of workers must be taken more seriously,” CTU secretary Carol Beaumont said today.

The CTU is pleased to see growing recognition that flexible work is important for all New Zealand workers, writes the Unionist this week.

"Young people would love the chance to debate a lowering of the voting age to 16," CTU Youth Union Movement Co-Convenor Ingrid Beckers said today.

"Youth Union Movement will be discussing it at our biennial camp later this year and raising it within the wider CTU union movement."

“Workers and their families want safe workplaces and to feel confident that they will return home from work at the end of each day,” CTU secretary Carol Beaumont said today.

“Workplace deaths are in so many cases preventable.  The several fatalities at work this week are tragic and serve as a reminder to intensify our efforts to ensure all workers in New Zealand are safe.”

“It is very encouraging to see a consensus building that flexible work is important for all New Zealand workers, not just parents of children under five years or with disabilities, as the current Bill before Parliament provides for,” CTU secretary Carol Beaumont said today.

The Council of Trade Unions is marking the birthday of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi with a screening in Wellington tonight of the recent documentary Burma’s Secret War.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was democratically elected as Prime Minister of Burma in the early 1990s but remains under house arrest.  Her home detention was recently extended for a further year by the military dictatorship.

“Home affordability is not just about house prices – it is also about incomes, and the Council of Trade Unions submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry into Housing Affordability says that the Select Committee should also look at the problem of low pay,” CTU Economist Peter Conway said this morning.

Speech to 96th ILO Conference, Geneva, June 15 2007
 
Laila Harré
Worker substitute delegate, New Zealand.

I will begin my contribution this morning with a short traditional Maori greeting that acknowledges the diversity and unity of those here.

“Workers have options under KiwiSaver and employers should not be attempting to get workers to agree not to join a KiwiSaver scheme if they had a pay increase,” CTU Economist Peter Conway said in response to comments today from EMA Northern.

“By passing the further WorkChoices amendments to its Workplace Relations Act the Australian Government has seriously compounded its breaches of Convention 98 on the right to organise and collective bargaining,” New Zealand Council of Trade Unions president Ross Wilson told the International Labour Organisation conference in Geneva yesterday.

The Unionist this week reports on the Runanga biennial conference last month and on the work being done to support the safe return to the Philippines of visiting unionist Dennis Maga.

Either read on, or you can download a printable version here (PDF, 125 kb) [24].

“The Council of Trade Unions is seeking the support of the United Nations International Labour Organisation to ensure the safety of trade unionist Dennis Maga when he returns to the Philippines,” CTU secretary Carol Beaumont said today.

Collective bargaining provides the best opportunity and framework for addressing working conditions and low wages in the aged care sector, writes the Unionist this week.  We also report on unions supporting the family of Folole Muliaga, and CTU officer elections.