Trade Union

The Owl writes:

I read with interest the articles and in the whole do not see anything major.

The Owl has always put the union members heart on the front foot on union financial matters.

Firstly I have never been paid by anyone and nor have I ever seeked any financial contributions. I am seriously ‘Joe Public’. WO can verify this and would stand in court with my head held high and swear an oath. I had no editorial rights nor sort any.

Think of it this way – instead of writing a letter to the editor of the Herald, I wrote a letter to the editor of a Blog.  Read more »

The Young Nats have got their remit wanting the government to remove Section 97 of the Employment Relations Act through the Norther Region conference today.

Only a few dirty lefties from the North Shore slopes were against it. Joseph Bergin (of the Devonport Local Board) and Matthew Piper should really hand in their membership cards for cuddling up to unions. They described the remit as a “gratuitous attack on unions”….Is there any other sort of attack on unions?

Joseph is now walking around the conference bending the ear of anyone who will listen at how aggrieved he is I called him a dirty leftie…well what did he xpect standing up and voicing support for unions at a National conference.

The Young Nats are pretty chuffed, as well they should be. Their press release says:

The NZ Young Nats are thrilled by the support for their remit to allow employers to take on temporary labour in the event of a strike or lockout, endorsed by the party’s Northern Convention this afternoon.

“Repealing section 97 will restore balance and fairness to the workplace,” says Northern Young Nats Chair, Brittany Raleigh.  Read more »

The Young Nats have a great remit at the regional conference in Auckland calling for the repeal of the draconian and unprecedented Section 97 of the Employment Relations Act 200.

Good on the Young Nats for manning up to the enemy.

Unions are the enemy, there is no such thing as good faith with unions, but National don’t get it.

Unions fund Labour. They buy seats in the house for union hacks. They buy legislation like Section 97. They have 20% of the votes in the choice for Labour Leader. They are the funding wing of the Labour Party, and they are the enemy.  Read more »

The Young Nats’ Mitchell Baker has a great remit at the National Party Northern Region Conference this weekend, calling for the repeal of Section 97 of the Employment Relations Act 2000. Section 97 was bought by the union funders of the Labour Party, to give them disproportionate power in contract negotiations.

Section 97 was unprecedented. It did the following:

1.    Removed the right for employers to use others, including volunteers, management and workers from other divisions during strikes.

2.    Allowed Unions to hold primary production operations to ransom, knowing that no labour in a milk factory meant millions of dollars a day of wasted milk.

3.    Removed the right for employers to test the market to determine if union demands are fair.

Unions bought this legislation to skew the playing field in their favour and put business at a disadvantage. New Zealand has had labour related legislation for over 100 years, prior legislation including that passed by previous Labour governments has never had anything like Section 97. There was no prohibition on use of replacement labour in The Employment Contracts Act 1991, or its predecessors, the Labour Relations Act 1987, the Industrial Relations Act 1973, the Industrial Relations Act 1949, the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1925 or 1908.

Unions are good at buying legislation mainly because no one on the right is ever willing to call it for what it is.

This is very different from the way Labour squeals like a little girl over things like Sky City’s convention center.

National should follow Mitchell Baker’s lead and man up to the enemy rather than running away from them the moment they squawk.

The Young Nats have a remit up at the Northern Region conference calling for the repeal of Section 97 of the Employment Relations Act, 2000.

This Act was bought by the unions who funded the 1999 campaign for Labour, and their money bought them Section 97. Section 97 removed the right for employers to replace striking workers with temporary labour, giving massive power to unions, especially over some of New Zealand’s biggest primary production industries.

How it works is meat or dairy processes have massive amounts of raw product coming during the peak of the milk or killing season. The unions know this, and know that a strike at peak times will cost businesses millions. So they wait until the worst possible moment for the business and call a strike with an extortionate demand.  Read more »

Nowhere in the world are ratbag unions worse than Australia. Over there they are mired in scandal, bribery and corruption allegations. And yet they are still trying to pervert democracy.

After the excesses that are now being borne out in the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption the O’Farrell government moved to clamp down on political donations and the unions are fighting back.

Political donations laws in NSW will be tested in the High Court for the first time in a case brought by the union movement, which argues they infringe freedom of political communication and association.

The laws, introduced by the O’Farrell government in 2011, ban donations from anyone other than individuals on the electoral roll and restrict what individual unions affiliated to a political party can spend on campaigns.

They also prohibit the payment of affiliation fees such as those paid by unions to Labor and restrict the ability of Unions NSW and business or environment groups from receiving money from member organisations to run political advertising.

In documents to be lodged on Monday, lawyers for Unions NSW and five trade unions – including two not affiliated with the ALP – argue the legislation ”interferes with the right of free communication in relation to political matters”. The secretary of Unions NSW, Mark Lennon, said if the laws were allowed to stand they would ”muzzle debate and silence the voice of working people”.

”This case transcends the interests of any one political party,” Mr Lennon said. ”At its heart, our High Court action is about the right of working people to ensure their collective voice is heard.”

The unions have also announced an all out war to keep the Coalition from winning in the election later this year.

The Green Taliban have produced a taxpayer-funded online video (see the crest?) boasting about the role they played in the jack up referendum they’ve sorted out with Labour and the trade unions – using yet more taxpayer money.

I’ve fixed it for them.  Read more »

Simon Bridges is a new minister, he needs things to do, here is an idea with which he can make himself useful:

Mr Springborg said he had launched a review to learn whether “these policies are about delivering for patients and workers, or if they are about delivering for union bosses and Labor”.

“I don’t think that’s right, people can join a union if they want, they shouldn’t be encouraged to join a union and we shouldn’t be having our staff [following] some sort of edict which was dreamt up by the Labor party and the unions,” he said.  Read more »

Julia Gillard is prepared to take on the unions, something John key hasn’t yet been prepared to do with his previous Labour minister being in the thrall of them.

Simon Bridges is yet to say or do anything, here’s hoping they find some courage from what Gillard is doing:

Union officials face limits on the number of visits they can make to factories and worksites under the latest changes by the Gillard government to the Fair Work Act.

Big employers, such as BHP Billiton, have complained that unions have been abusing right-of-entry rules and in some cases have made hundreds of visits to their sites.  Read more »

You would have thought that the unions, and especially Actors Equity would have learned from the Hobbit debacle.

Peter Jackson was right to mis-trust the unions and to continue to mis-trust Actors Equity in particular.

This is what their vice-president, Todd Rippon, thinks about the role of unions:

As Vice-President of New Zealand Actors’ Equity it is my job to agitate and get underneath the skin of people like you ie employers. Unions exist to work against employer’s best interests. That’s how it works. You live in a country that has accepted that system. It may not be perfect but it’s fairer than any other system in the world. If you don’t love your country as much as I do then grow your business and take it to China. I’m sure you’d love your employees to have the same guaranteed minimum terms, conditions and pay as New Zealand Actors currently have, which is exactly none.  Read more »