A meeting on Pacific labour mobility in New Zealand this week has a glaring omission – the voices of organised labour, the NZ Council of Trade Unions said today.
The inaugural Pacific Labour Mobility Annual Meeting gets underway in Christchurch today. It is taking place ahead of a Ministerial meeting of the Pacer Plus trade and investment talks.
New Zealand working women are building momentum in their call for fair pay.
“It is wonderful to see another group of working women, this time midwives, using their collective voice to turn up the volume on the need for their incredibly important work, to be fairly paid by the Government,” said CTU Secretary Sam Huggard.
The future of work needs to be one where working people have good, satisfying jobs with decent incomes, and Labour’s announcements today on boosting skills are welcome, the CTU said today.
Today’s announcement from the Green Party to boost manufacturing in New Zealand is supported by working people.
“Increasing and improving manufacturing in New Zealand is a specific way to create more quality jobs which is crucial,” CTU President, Richard Wagstaff said.
Civil Aviation needs to reconsider aggressive behaviour “Good employers do not prevent those they employee from coming to work. This is exactly what Civil Aviation is intending on doing by “locking out” people who have joined together in union to achieve better terms and conditions at work,” says CTU President Richard Wagstaff.
The Prime Minister needs to reassess his priorities and move urgently to stop working Kiwis losing up to a million dollars a day says CTU Secretary Sam Huggard.
The call follows the CTU’s request that the government urgently pass legislation to stop the clock on the six year limit that is writing off holiday back pay owed to working Kiwis.
The Government must take action urgently to prevent working people losing up to a million dollars a day in unpaid holiday pay while the multi-billion dollar payroll problem is fixed, says CTU Secretary Sam Huggard.
Working people are pleased that research commissioned by the Government is consistent with what working people have being saying – that 90 day fire at will periods are a failed experiment.
“Sustainable increases in our incomes depends on more being produced for every person in New Zealand and from every hour worked, but increases are weak according to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) statistics out today,” says Bill Rosenberg, CTU Economist.
Working people have been demanding that the Government ban the importation of cancer causing asbestos for decades. Yesterday the Government took action and banned most importation of asbestos.
For the seventh year in a row the Government’s health budget is well short of what is needed to cover increasing costs, demographic changes and new policy initiatives.
CTU President Richard Wagstaff addressed the International Labour Organisation (the United Nations agency for work and employment) on Tuesday to focus global attention on the New Zealand government’s failure to protect working people in the face of the massive payroll systems failure that has left as many as three quarters of a million working New Zealanders out of pocket.