CTU

Chris Trotter makes an astute observation on the CTU and their so-called muscle:

[T]he involvement of the CTU was clearly no help. CTU president, Helen Kelly, is always reminding us that, “with 350,000 New Zealand union members in 40 affiliated unions”, the CTU is “the united voice for working people and their families in New Zealand.” Hmmm. If that was true, all she needed to do was ask every one of those union members to sign the “Keep Our Assets” petition and everyone else could have gone home.  Read more »

The Fiji Attorney-General and Tourism Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum has ripped into the fact free attack on Fijian tourism by the CTU and in particular Peter Conway’s comments.

Conway, who last visited Fiji over 6 years ago is clearly only getting his information from his fellow union brothers in Fiji who aren’t that happy with having their previous lucrative rorting stopped by the Bainimarama government.

Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum responds to Peter Conway. The comments about Fiji Airways are good too.

The Attorney-General and Tourism Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum  replied to Conway, not by attacking him or the overseas unions, but  by accusing  trade unionists in Fiji of being behind a new international campaign to hurt the country’s important tourism industry and those depending on it for a living.  He is “confident that our visitors will see this propaganda for what it is – a crude attempt to punish Fiji for its reforms, which are designed, amongst other things, to erode the ability of a handful of elites to use their power to damage the Fijian economy and work against the Fijian people.

“This same hegemony of four or five unionists time and time again continues to demonstrate a disdain for ordinary Fijians by wilfully misrepresenting the situation in Fiji. “Overall, we believe the impact of this petition will be minimal. Our visitors – like the Fijian employees – are smart enough to see through it.”

“For trade union leaders to encourage a tourism boycott – an industry that supports the livelihoods of tens of thousands of Fijian families – is the height of selfishness and irresponsibility. A boycott would not only threaten the livelihoods of those directly employed by the tourism industry and their families, but also the livelihoods of all those who play a supporting role in the industry: the taxi drivers, the airline and airport employees, women and men who produce handicrafts and the list goes on.  Read more »

Croz Walsh give Peter Conway a good old fashioned shellacking, but in his ever so polite fashion, over the CTU’s campaign to hurt Fiji workers.

Peter Conway urges tourists to talk to local people to find out what is really going on.  But to my knowledge, he has not been to Fiji for at least six years and his only source of local information is from the Fiji unionists he is supporting — who the A-G thinks are behind this latest move by the ANZ unionists.

So hasn’t been in Fiji for more than 6 years and he is spouting on about conditions there?

More importantly, where does he get information to support his claim that “sixty percent of of people earning a wage are living below the poverty line.”?  It is the highest figure ever mentioned.  Some have talked of 35%, others of 45-50% but these lower guesstimates are about “people” — not “people earning a wage.”

“People” is a far more inclusive term.  It includes the employed and unemployed, children, old people and rural people in the subsistence sector. If we multiply Conway’s 60% with the Ministry of Labour’s 171,865 workers in Fiji  and then multiple each worker by three (workers plus their dependents), the result is 309,357 people, or about 35% of the estimated population.  A far cry from Conway’s inflated 60%.  Read more »

The Aussie and Kiwi unions have launched a campaign that will only try to hurt the economy of Fiji by targeting holiday-makers.

Trade unions in Australia and New Zealand have joined forces in a campaign to get tourists visiting Fiji to support workers rights.

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 »

Have the Unions and Labour Party broken the Party Donation laws?  –Observation by the Owl

Current Labour Campaigns (from NZ Labour website)

1. Stop the great NZ Sell OFF
2. Labour champions Living Wage (Press Release 14/2/2013)
3. Manufacturing Enquiry

Current CTU and Union campaigns (from NZCTU website)

1. Keep our Assets
2. Living Wage
3. Manufacturing Crisis

Here is the rule regarding Party Donations (From Electoral Commission website)  Read more »

Festive season wishes from the Owl

Firstly I would like to thank all the people who have read and commented on my observations on Whale Oil. A big thank you to Cameron Slater who to this day doesn’t really know who I am yet allowed me to publish freely on his blog.

I have never done any of this for any financial gain, reward or recognition. While the majority of my observations were for the benefit of union members I was pleased that four times during the year my Observations were recognised.

1. Chris Trotter wrote that I was mis-guided in my direction and understanding of union finances. I think I won that discussion point.
2. Andrew Little showed his true colours when he wrote “the only parasites are employers” and was challenged in parliament – that comment will hurt his political career with the 1 million self employed business people in New Zealand
3. But finally in 2012 we saw Unions start to file their accounts and some had to spend thousands filing correct returns.
4. We uncovered finally that Unions were failing to disclose millions in funds and expenditure

Secondly – I believe my policy of always apologizing if wrong and only using information freely available in the public domain meant I could sleep each night knowing that I hadn’t gone into the “dark world” of reporting. All I have ever done is read what people put out and observed.

Finally I have only one goal for 2013 – NZCTU is held accountable for the complete lack of governance and to be finally shown to be nothing but a cult wasting millions of member’s funds. I hope ACC pulls all their funding because under the Health & Saftey programs – NZCTU have just failed completely to deliver on the program that they were contracted to do.

The Owl retires

Helen Kelly’s Together Union struggles – Observation by the Owl

The much vaunted launch of the Together Union which was going bring all the small operators into the great would of fighting for a better place at a bargain price $1.00 a week. The NZCTU funded the new Union with $90,000.00 of NZCTU reserves i.e. affiliated members funds

Now that is virtually giving it away.

The 2012 accounts have been filed and show a $28,947.00 LOSS

Ok for a start up business or is it?

Owls Observation

I congratulate the NZCTU for identifying that unions can be run $1.00 per week and encourage people to join.

After nearly 18 months of investment and advertising the total members who have joined are 47.  (Total annual fees and paid $2,459.00/ $52.00).

To increase members they need to target existing union members as the general working community has not seen the value in the service. I am disappointed because at $1.00 per week and what services they offer as it is quite frankly a great investment.

I do note that the some cherry person or entity invoiced them for $16,763 in “External Labour Charges”

There is no way that the Together Union will survive financially and the NZCTU should try and recover as much of the $90,000.00 as possible. The total cash on hand at the moment is approximately $50,000.00 from the original $90,000.00

I feel the Owl has done his best to promote the Together Union on here and the Truth.

The NZCTU $550 Million dollar question – by the Owl

It is a question which has been doing my head in for a while.

The NZCTU wants NZ to be unionised and everyone pay union fees. Their argument is that unionised work places have better business models and more successful.

There is according to which statistic you use 2.2 million workers in NZ. At an average rate of $250.00 in union fees per annum, unions in NZ would receive $550,000,000.000 ($550M) a year in revenues – taken from your pay packet.

If you extrapolate over a 10 year period, that is $5.5B in revenue to unions.

Observation by the Owl

1. What would the unions do with $550M a year?
2. What justification is there to take $5.5B out of the economy over 10 years?
3. Why on one hand talk about poverty and then on the other take the money out of the pockets of the people who need it most?
4. Union Fees are based on %ages of wages, if unions were compulsory does the %age fee decrease?

I find these numbers just incredible and zero justification for any organisation to demand compulsory fees being charged to these extremes.

This is why voluntary union membership is the correct model. If the Union provides a great service then sure, people will join. To make it law is just stupid.

Helen Kelly’s endorses Cameron Slater’s work for the Unions at the Labour Conference 2012 – by the Owl

Front and centre stage – there she was in full light and radiant smile.

That soon turned to grief as she read stories of young men dying at work from our nation’s poor health and safety culture. A great read and the touchstone of how desperate we are as a nation to reconcile work place safety and building a good business model.

I nodded and agreed as the words flowed off her well written and delivered speech. The Owl has always supported health and safety measures

Then as I was almost crushed at my failure to not speak out more on these issues as a citizen…I was truly inspired…then Helen moved from saving our sons to you guessed it …the Ports.

My eyes lit up only to find that the biggest reason the Ports strike became a national issue was because of none other than CAMERON SLATER.

Helen Kelly credits Cameron Slater for helping the Maritime Union and the Unions in getting the nation to support the Port workers.

I quote direct from her speech:

 “The Port’s plans attracted little outrage from the political community outside of Labour and the Greens.  Only when it deliberately breached the privacy of some of its workers to blogger Cameron Slater, did any other politician express true outrage. It was ok to dismiss and replace the workforce, but not to breach their privacy. ”

Observation by the Owl

So that meant, National, Act, Mana Party, The Maori Party and NZ First didn’t give a damn.  60% of Politicians were quite happy the way things were going until Cameron Slater put his nose in.

I would have a guess that Greens didn’t give a damn either because their mandate would be to close down wharfs anyway.

However I finally found the road block to the stalled negotiations in her speech on Saturday. She wrote:

“The Port has not moved in the facilitation – I have attended many of them”.

MUNZ went nuts and filed a claim of breach of good faith at POAL about breaching the Facilitators confidentiality agreement and yet NZCTU President who has attended “most” breaches the rules and delivers the details to a national conference.

More major governance issues at the NZCTU and a complete lack of understanding of ‘good faith bargaining” from the gatekeeper.

I would bet a $1.00 she had to sign a confidentiality agreement or at least been party to it.

PS: is there something going on between Cam and Helen????