Council of Trade Unions

Matthew Hooton demolishes Helen Kelly in at NBR over her outrageous claims concerning Simon Bridges meek industrial relations changes:

Helen Kelly is president of the Council of Trade Unions.

It’s not clear why the media thinks she speaks for the New Zealand workforce given only 17% of employees belong to a union, the other 83% deciding to do without Ms Kelly’s advocacy.

However, according to Ms Kelly, Mr Bridges’ proposals are the worst attack on workers’ rights since the 1990s.

Interestingly, that’s broadly what she wailed in 2010 about the 90-day trial period, saying it stripped away “fundamental” rights and was a “massive attack on the job security of every New Zealand worker”.

Lo and behold, later that year, Ms Kelly screeched that the Hobbit legislation to clarify the status of contractors was yet another attack.

No matter how minor a proposal, Ms Kelly can be relied upon to cry wolf at full volume.  Read more »

Chris Trotter has written a cogent explanation of why the anti-democratic intentions of the Greens, Labour, Grey Power and the CTU with their asset sale petition is bereft of logic and flies in the face of the government’s electoral mandate to partially sell assets:

The target of 310,000 signatures has been reached – or so we are told.

The coalition of interest groups and political parties seeking a citizens’ initiated referendum on the National Government’s plans to partially privatise the state-owned energy generators has yet to submit its petition to the Clerk of the House for checking.

Even if this final hurdle is cleared, the petitioners will still have to find their way around a much more daunting obstacle: the Government’s mandate.

The government most certainly does have a mandate. And the Greens, Labour, Grey Power and the CTU would like to believe that they don’t. Trotter comprehensively destroys that myth.  Read more »

ᔥ Karl Du Fresne

Charles Chauvel inadvertently reinforced for many the belief that Labour is captured  by the unions. Karl du Fresne explains why and also how this will likely cause trouble between the Greens and Labour:

In other words, transparency’s all very well when it’s wicked professional lobbyists and corporates who are under scrutiny, but Chauvel thinks people like Council of Trade Unions president Helen Kelly and secretary Peter Conway – two of the lobbyists outed last week as having swipe cards giving them special access to Parliament – should be allowed to continue flying under the radar. They are, he says, “less sinister” than the other sort of lobbyist. Well, he would say that, given Labour’s need to protect its friends and benefactors in the unions.But hang on. Either we have transparency or we don’t. Chauvel wants us to believe that union lobbyists are all honourable people with unimpeachable motives, so can be relied on to go about their business without scrutiny, while anyone representing business is by definition “sinister” and cannot be trusted. Good luck with that, as they say. He also expects us to assume that all charities, churches and NGOs are by definition beyond suspicion when many of them are highly politicised and should be subjected to exactly the same rules of transparency as everyone else.

The trouble with Chauvel’s panicky back-pedalling is that it immediately creates the suspicion that Labour and the unions have something to hide. The public are not stupid: they will think it very telling that Labour and the unions are the only people baulking at the Walker bill.

It also hints at the tensions that would inevitably arise in a Labour-Greens coalition, where the well-intentioned idealism of Green MPs like Walker would sit very uncomfortably alongside the murky realpolitik practised by Labour.

Aspiring Labour MP for Rongotai Helen Kelly lied about Peter Jackson. Obviously when you are as high profile and as good in the media as an Oscar winner you know how to hit back.

Sir Peter Jackson has hit back at the Council of Trade Unions’ claim that he is trying to set up the actors’ union to take the blame for The Hobbit going overseas.

Last night up to 1500 film technicians marched in Wellington over fears that the US$500 million film will be lost to another country.

CTU president Helen Kelly today alluded that Jackson had helped organise it.

”I couldn’t believe it. It was the first time I really got very angry,” Jackson told The Dominion Post today.

”I watched the march on TV. I wasn’t there and unlike what Helen Kelly’s been saying I didn’t have anything to do with organising it. Suddenly I see Helen Kelly and she starts slagging off  the production. She slags off the studio [as] ‘they’re greedy. They’re wanting this, they’re wanting that, it’s all engineered by them because all they are after is the money. They always intended to go. I’m thinking ‘this is a legitimate march by 1000 people who are basically wondering how they are going to live for the next two years.’

”Here’s Helen Kelly, who represents the workers of New Zealand, and she’s trivialising the feelings of these 1000 very concerned people and supporting an Australian union. I thought ‘God, what planet are we living on?”’

When will the mainstream media work out that they need to fact check anything said by unions? Propaganda merchants like Simon Oosterman make people like Helen Kelly think they can get away with telling lies. The only way to stop them is to tell the truth, and tell it repeatedly.

In their ongoing protest against AFFCO wanting workers to do a fair days work for a 5% pay increase, Helen Kelly and Simon Oosterman are using 1970’s tactics and media manipulation to try to win a battle they lost when Stan Rodger sorted out the unions in the 1980s.

Council of Trade Unions president Helen Kelly has been with the striking workers as they travelled around the Talley’s houses, and will join them for a march in Nelson at midday.

”We’re showing what is going on in these communities of Wairoa, Wanganui, the Manawatu, and Morea to the communities of Nelson and Motueka,” she said.

The Talley family, ”one New Zealand family”, had inflicted incredible hardship on 1300 other New Zealand families, she said.

Helen and Simon – this is 2012. Not forty years ago. The public of New Zealand are not on your side. The public do not care for your stupid rhetoric about one family causing hardship on another 1300 just as they didn’t side with the wharfies in Auckland who were getting paid $91,000 or more to work 26 hours a week.

If you really cared about your workers suffering hardship you would come to terms with Talleys rather than fighting your stupid, 1970’s ideological battle. In what might be news to you AFFCO have taken hundreds of your members who want a 5% pay increase for doing an honest days work, rather than fight your battles for you. And Simon, you have lost your touch with getting repeaters to repeat your stories in the media, maybe because you sold them a pup with people like Cecil Walker.

ᔥ Stuff.co.nz

The big tough unionists are having a cry about security guards and cameras at Ports of Auckland. Well they only have themselves to blame, after running a fear and intimidation campaign on Facebook and elsewhere the Port had no other option but to protect workers. When they run logos and posters saying they are going Scab Hunting what else is the Port supposed to do?

Image from MUNZ Facebook

Wharfies returning to work at the Ports of Auckland are being treated like thugs, being watched by security guards in their tearoom and by cameras on their equipment, their union claims.

The Council of Trade Unions is outraged over the moves, which president Helen Kelly says are designed to intimidate workers and feed “into the port’s narrative that these workers are thugs”.

Unionised workers returned to the port last week after it had been operated by a non-union crew for six weeks after a bitter break dispute between the Maritime Union and the company, which wants to casualise its workforce.

CTU president Helen Kelly said wharfies had found security cameras in all the straddle drivers and cranes.

”It’s simply intended, in our view, to intimidate port workers. None of us want to work all the time in front of a security camera.”

Security guards in the workers’ tearoom was ”feeding into the port’s narrative that these workers are thugs”.

”It hasn’t worked, the people of Auckland have got to know these wharfies and are backing them.”

The port has also banned the wearing of union paraphenalia. Workers in the past had ”proudly” worn union badges and t-shirts to work, Kelly said.

”It’s a message clearly that the port is anti-union.”

The latest moves by the port had left wharfies feeling ”incredibly bullied”.

The union bullies of the Maritime Union have enlisted the aid of their militant bruvvers in Australia in yet another illegal secondary action.

Australian port workers are showing their solidarity with their kiwi counterparts by refusing to unload a ship handled by non-union workers in Auckland.

A spokeswoman for the Maritime Union of Australia said union members are refusing to unload the Maersk Brani, which docked at Sydney DP World Wharf at Botany Bay at 5am.

The ship left Auckland on Wednesday evening, after being loaded by non-union staff at the Ports of Auckland.

I imagine the courts in Australia will boot this the same as the courts here.

Meanwhile the union march in Auckland could only be described as a failure. With just 2000 people out of a population of 1.4 million it is clear that their claims that the population of Auckland supports them are somewhat hollow.

When hardened left wing politicians express public disappointment then you know you are rooted.

Despite the numbers, former left wing MP Willie Jackson described the turnout as “disappointing”

“The union movement has to really get out and support these guys,” said Jackson.

“The CTU (Council of Trade Unions) needs to mobilise these unions a bit more. There’s a challenge for the CTU, these guys deserve their support.”

On a fine sunny day in Auckland the best the Maritime union could do was 2000 people and even then most were union ring-ins from other unions. I note that Labour decided to trough it up on the taxpayer flying Charles Chauvel from Wellington, Megan Woods from Christchurch and Moana Mackey from Gisborne.

Cactus Kate looks at the CTU’s latest political campaign on behalf of Labour. labour are flat broke and so we are now seeing the unions step up in the campaign spending members money on supporting Labour.

This election Labour sponsor, Helen Kelly’s wealthy Council of Trade Unions has poured members funds into a series of advertisements targeted at their voting pool. The under class and lower wealth classes of New Zealand.

Not one European male, Asian or Indian, professional male or female of any race, not one well dressed or attractive model. All have been dressed and constructed in a way to look as underclass and needy as they could.

Sunglasses, gansta headgear, shaved female head, hats on sideways or backwards, threatening positions with knives for heavens sake, tatts, hoodies, earrings, nose rings, absolutely shameless use of kiddies as vanity props and skateboards.

…Labour MP’s have been plugging the ads on social media today.

This is an ad for Labour which will backfire I think as the models have been made to look so desperate and pathetic that it will attract Mana and Green voters to the booth instead. They are specifically worded to incite hatred against those who these voting groups currently believe to be more powerful than they are and lead by link straight to the enrollment pages. The models used are made to look as threatening as possible to the middle and upper wealth classes. A few there basically look ready to rob your house or steal your kid’s cellphone.

This highlights a significant problem with unions now. Originally setup to protect workers safety, work conditions, health and saftey they have now become political armies seeking to spend large amounts of their members fees promoting one political view point without reagrd to why unions were founded.

I believe that several law changes need to be made around unions. The first would be to require them to focus only on welfare, health and safety for their members. Secondly I would amend the Electoral Act so that only natural persons can belong to or donate to a political party. Labour only claims mass membership through it’s affliates. The last thing I would do is remove payroll protection for union dues. If the union’s want members cash they should ask for it themselves and make the arrangements to collect it. It shouldn’t be the employer’s job.

Remember too that the CTU is amongst nine unions plus Labour and the Greens who are registered to spend large amounts of money retaining MMP because they believe it is the the system that best gifts them power. Vote for Change in the referendum on November 26 and vote against the unions.

Confirmed in the Herald today, the union’s heavy hand of control over Labour is obvious:

The Labour Party’s vision for the future of work and wages is virtually identical to a unions’ wishlist outlined at the party’s annual conference a year ago, prompting questions about their influence.

But Labour’s employment issues spokeswoman Darien Fenton says it should come as no surprise that Labour and unions have a similar vision for the workplace.

This week, the party proposed industry standard agreements (ISAs) to apply to private sector industries – such as aged care, hospitality or security – where collective bargaining has a foothold, but many workers are not covered.

Ms Fenton said ISAs would lift wages and erase differences in pay and conditions for the same work that arose because part of the sector was not covered by collective agreements.

A year ago, Council of Trade Unions (CTU) president Helen Kelly – in her address to Labour’s annual conference – pushed for the same policy.

“If, for example, a union is dominant in an industry and bargaining collective agreements with employers in the industry, then the standards identified in those agreements would be extended …to workplaces within that industry that are not bargaining collective agreements,” she said.

Yesterday, Ms Kelly conceded there was no real difference on the issue between Labour and the CTU.

Tau Henare gets politician of the week, and frankly I can’t see anyone topping this effort.

National MP Tau Henare is refusing to apologise for calling a teenage select committee submitter “a liar”.

James Sleep, 18, convener of the the Council of Trade Unions youth sector, gave evidence to the transport and industrial relations committee on the Employment Relations Amendment Bill last month.

He said the list MP used “bullyboy tactics” by interrupting his submission and accusing him of lying about his evidence in “a bit of a tirade”.

“I was telling the story about how a worker had been sacked under the 90-day trial … We have several cases … and in my written submission I had talked about another story and he just went off his head really.

“He interrupted and said: ‘You are just a liar, you are bullshitting.’ I went on and he stopped [me] again: ‘You’re just lying, you are misleading us.”‘

Given that it was James Sleep, Tau Henare is probably 100% accurate. James has a habit of throwing himself in the way of harm and lying to a select committee is no different.

But Tau really gets the award for these comments, especially the last one about Caropotamus.

Mr Henare said he would not apologise. “Why would I apologise for a little turkey who got found out lying? He was reading out a submission and I was following it and in two parts … it was a completely different story.

“He’ll get over it and if he doesn’t, well, then, too bad … He’ll learn from his experience.”

He added: “Conway and his henchmen weren’t even there, so how could they complain?”

Labour MP Carol Beaumont, who sits on the committee, said she was concerned about how Mr Sleep was treated.

“Leaping into accusing somebody of lying and in quite an aggressive manner, I don’t think is appropriate.”

Mr Henare responded: “Quite frankly, who cares what Carol Beaumont says.”

Robust politicians should be rewarded not made to apologise to whining union kids. For that reason Tau Henare gets the Whaleoil Politician of the Week.