Bradford Sue: General Debate 
Bradford Sue: General Debate 
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SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 As I am sure many in the House have noted employers around Aotearoa are increasingly going on the offensive in a bid to drive down wages and conditions and reduce the bargaining strength of unions. We are in a classic situation at the moment with a National Government newly in power and rising unemployment combining to give some employers the confidence they need to try to suppress wage demands and undermine conditions. On top of that Bill English and John Key have on occasion taken to trying to talk down wage expectations by making public comments about accepting only nil wage increase demands from some groups of public sector workers such as firefighters nurses and teachers. This kind of dog whistling heightens the willingness of private sector employers to increase the pressures they put on workers in current bargaining rounds. 
Today cleaners working for contractors in schools office buildings and shopping malls are taking to the streets seeking public support for their demands for higher wages. I sincerely hope they will get it. After all these cleaners who are on wages such as $12.55 an hour which is barely over the minimum wage are seeking a rise to $14.62 an hour which is the rate already paid to cleaners in public hospitals and schools yet their employers are offering only 25c extra an hour. 
At Open Country Cheese in the Waikato which is owned by Talley’s Group a large group of workers has been locked out with the employer refusing to accept that workers can actually choose to join a union and negotiate collectively. These workers are standing up for the right to have some job security and to not be forced into casualisation. In return their employer is using so-called replacement labour to do their jobs and one locked-out worker has even been physically assaulted by his manager who slammed a sliding window on his head and put a whole lot of weight on it. The manager then said he would throw tomatoes at the worker next time round. Rather unsurprisingly the union is following this matter up with the police. Open Country Cheese has also tried to stop workers accessing on-site union representation and that comes on top of making false allegations of environmental vandalism or sabotage after sludge from the factory was poured straight into the Waitoa River. 
In other areas Bridgeman Concrete in Manukau locked out its workers last week saying it would lift the ban on work only if staff agreed to a total wage freeze. Infratil in Auckland has threatened bus drivers with a lockout simply for trying to achieve slightly better pay and conditions in their current bargaining round. Over at the Warehouse a major restructuring programme called Project Invigorate is wreaking havoc on the personal and family lives of staff all over New Zealand while at the same time the Warehouse chief executive officer Ian Morrice has had his income for the year lifted to $3.8 million. 
Foodstuffs (South Island) made a profit of $227 million in 2008 and its chief executive officer is paid $920000 a year yet this company is offering workers on a take-home pay of $10.39 to $12.14 an hour a zero increase in wages and conditions. Telecom New Zealand is making hundreds of its line engineers redundant as it hands their jobs over to Visionstream which will take them on only as contractors. And guess what Paul Reynolds the chief executive of Telecom gets around $7 million a year in salary and bonuses. That is a package 17 times greater than the one the Prime Minister receives. 
These are not companies in trouble. In fact these companies are doing pretty well for themselves. Their approach is in contrast to that of the unions involved in a number of situations where businesses have been threatened with closure and in which workers have gallantly offered to help out by moving to working 9 days a fortnight for example. It is disgraceful that big successful companies like these see the recession as being simply an opportunity to put the boot into workers and extract even greater profits from them. 
On the one hand we have a Government that talks about the need to raise incomes here so that they more closely match Australian incomes. Don Brash is leading a commission on the matter. On the other hand we have John Key and Bill English saying that there must be nil wage increases for large groups of State sector workers thereby indicating to private sector employers that it is OK to keep wages as pressed down as possible. Caught in the middle are many ordinary people on very ordinary wages who are struggling to find the money to survive. The Green Party will continue to support the call of the Unite union and others for a minimum wage of $15 an hour now and for the right of unions to effectively bargain collectively on behalf of their members.