NZ “Not As Squeaky Clean As People May Perceive”

 1981 Springbok tour, dark days for NZ

The Rugby World Cup is very likely to become a focus for civil disobedience among NZ protest groups who are threatening civil disobedience and the flour bombing of matches.

“…Groups protesting against Government economic policies are proposing “civil disobedience” to disrupt the Rugby World Cup – possibly including flour-bombing Eden Park.

The protesters, including unions and church groups, plan to march up Queen St in Auckland from noon tomorrow against last week’s Budget cuts to KiwiSaver, family tax credits and public services and state asset sales.

Spokesman Meredydd Barrar of the newly formed Coalition for Social Justice said the groups also “intend to take action during the World Cup to alert the world that New Zealand is not as squeaky clean as people might perceive. We might have to flour-bomb Eden Park again,” he said.

Anti-apartheid protesters famously dropped bags of flour over the stadium from a plane during the final test of the Springbok rugby tour in 1981…” read the rest in The Herald

During the 1981 Springbok tour ("The Flour Bomb Test") Eden Park was peppered with flour bombs and flares dropped from a low flying Cessna. All Black prop Gary Knight was knocked to the ground by a flour bomb. Outside the ground violence erupted on a grand scale.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkZMIySG75c]

In Hamilton the match against Waikato was called off in front of a full house after a pitch invasion by several hundred anti-tour protestors, and rumours that a light aircraft had been stolen from Taupo and was headed for Rugby Park. (source)

New Zealand Exposed

Among the people threatening to disrupt the tournament are Maori activists Titewhai Harawira and Ngaire Te Hira. In February they announced they were going to use the Rugby World Cup to "expose" New Zealand's treatment of Maori.

Titewhai Harawira was reported as saying

"We are going to use the international media to expose what is going on in this country," she told the Sunday Star-Times.

"I want to be telling international media that all those reports they get that say we are well looked after and our land is intact are rubbish. We are going to be talking to the international media, absolutely."

Harawira said she hoped to provide visitors with a "whole chronology of what has happened in this country".

"I will talk about how legislation has taken away and denied us," she said. "We have time to put it all together, hand it out and talk about it." read more here

Unite Union is running a campaign for a $15 an hour ($12 US) minimum wage and is says it "plans to use activities around the Rugby World Cup to press hard for the significant increase in the minimum wage."

Of course getting the truth out about New Zealand is nothing new.

There are people who have been exposing the truth about New Zealand for many years. A group of expatriates set up a website called Expatexposed.com to draw attention to the raw deals that migrants get in New Zealand. Many of its members were taken-in by misleading marketing and the promises of work and higher living standards that never materialised.

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Would You Like A Future With That? The Burgerization of McZealand, Up To $16,000 A Head (updated)

Update: The Dom Post is carrying a story today saying "McDonald's restaurants will receive up to $16,000 a year of taxpayers' money every time it recruits a beneficiary under a partnership with Work and Income.That's potentially a $112 million bill for the tax payer.

New Zealand already has the world's greatest number of McDonalds restaurants per $GDP and the second highest number per capita (the first is the United States) add to that New Zealand's dismal record in obseity - third highest in the OECD - and many will ask does the country really need more fast food joints.

One time truck stop waitress Social Development and Employment Minister Paula Bennett is citing the relationship with the fast-food giant as an example of the Government's commitment to getting beneficiaries into jobs but a long-term unemployed person could gain an employer a $16,000 subsidy over 12 months more than $300 a week.

Seems like an awful amount of money to be spending at a time when cut backs are being made in higher education courses.

On 20 May 2007 John Key promised:

"If I have the great honour of becoming Prime Minister of this country then I want to leave a legacy too.

My legacy will be a strong New Zealand economy with higher wages, lower taxes and greater competitiveness. My legacy will be a country that young New Zealanders want to stay and work in.That's what a National government will give you."

Contrast that with recent reports in the papers:

• Stuff.co.nz "Thousands of beneficiaries could soon be flipping burgers under a deal between Work and Income and McDonald's."

• NZ Herald "Education Minister Anne Tolley says there is no more money to fund extra places in polytechnics during the recession. Between 6000 and 8000 students would be turned away because of the Government cap on places in the following year." (ed. but there's 7000 jobs going at Maccas)
  

• Jobless people looking to upskill through polytechnics could be turned away if the Government does not lift the enrolment cap."

Back in May the Department of Work and Income struck up a deal with global fast food giant McDonalds to provide 6,000 new jobs in New Zealand over the next three years.

Any ideas other than McDonald's?

At the time MP Jacinda Arden asked the minister of youth affairs Paula Bennett this question across the floor of parliament:

"Will the Minister adopt any ideas other than those generated by McDonald’s, such as those ideas generated by the Youth Jobs Summit I hosted last week, including greater investment in skills and training, lifting the cap for tertiary education, and introducing a guaranteed employment or training scheme for the long-term unemployed under the age of 25 years, given that the Minister sees the power of working together to create creative solutions?"

I think her question must've gone unanswered.

That is until today, when our worst fears were confirmed with the news about 7,000 (ed. where did the extra 1,000 come from? ) McDonalds jobs are to be advertised and trained for by the Department of Work and Income over the next over 5 years (ed. huh? I thought it was 3 years )

Is this the best they could come up with and is a job with McDonalds a career for life which will give all Kiwis higher wages?

Is this THE initiative that will give "young New Zealanders a country that they'll want to stay and work in" or just a cynical attempt to hack a few digits off the unemployment figures?

Last year Chantelle Coup, age 18 and who now lives in Australia, was awarded $15,000 after being constructively dismissed from the McDonalds in Kaiapoi for joining the union 'Unite' in August 2007. Chantelle, who was 17 at the time, had her hours cut and she was bullied into resigning. Chantelle later said that she'd like to use the money to pay off her student debts.

At the time Unite's national director Mike Treen said in a statement that his union often had problems with McDonald's franchise operators, saying that they often took the decision of their employees to join the union as a personal affront.

The employer was also found to have been destructive in their dealings with Unite Union and to have used undue influence to get their employees to resign from the union.

The restaurant manager was described in the Employment Relations Authority report to have been in a "position of significant influence" over their work. The boss, Patrick Cornish, was described as a "father figure", and it was acknowledged that McDonalds Kaiapoi is "part of a large and powerful organisation."

The workers there were all young and none of them had guaranteed days or hours of work. This fact, coupled with pressure from the manager was found to have pushed a number of staff to resign from the union.

"That is one reason we want security of hours included in their new collective agreement with McDonald's."

Unite also stepped up its campaign to end bullying at McDonalds restaurants and supported staff at four sites to stop work to protest a contract that allowed their employer to use their shift roster as a form of bullying and control. They cited cases where a McDonald’s manager demanded that a seventeen-year-old girl stay and finish her shift after her foot was run over whilst working at a drive through and many occasions where workers were pressured to work two or three eight hour shifts in a row with no breaks or being rostered off.

Patrick Cornish said he would appeal the decision and file a new case with the Employment Court. Chantelle would have to return from Australia where she now lives to attend the hearing. Mr Cornish did have a range of other options open to him including making an out of court settlement. No such case seems to have been heard at the Employment Court. but neither has there been any news about Chantelle receiving her compensation.


In October 2008 Unite organised a series of lunch and dinner strikes in Auckland and Hamilton at around the time that McDonalds Corporation announced a third quarter profit of $1.07 billion. The rolling strikes in some of NZ's poorest suburbs were used to put pressure on the company to match what competitor 'Restaurant Brands' (KFC, Starbucks and Pizza Hut) pays union members. Full time managers and crew at Restaurant Brands are paid $20.80 to $174.40 a week more than McDonald's workers. Mike Treen said:

"It's disgusting the world largest fast food corporation is gloating over its soaring profits while the majority of its crew are stuck on minimum wage and managers are paid less than $15 an hour. It is however a true reflection of the world economy with the rich getting richer and making sure the poor stay poor.

"There have now been more than 35 strikes at 24 different restaurants and we plan to escalate this campaign until our 1200 union members at McDonald's get secure hours and decent pay rises."

Wage rates for 16 and 17 year olds are 80% of the adult rate, i.e.$10 an hour but that rate is supposed to have been abolished at all the employers organized by Unite including McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, Burger King, and the major movie theatre chains.

Is McDonalds really the best company to be pouring the future of New Zealand's youth into and will it do anything to address New Zealand's much lamented low wage economy or its expanding waist line.

I seriously doubt it.

For today's posts see: latest posts

Poverty Wages - NZ Workers' Stage Hunger Strike to Protest

From: Unite

"Over twenty professional market researchers will begin a hunger strike at 4pm today that their union says will last for at least twenty-four hours.

Market researchers from the residential team at the east Auckland call centre of the global market research firm Synovate, which has an annual turnover of $720 million have taken the action to protest poverty wages, often as low as $12.50, inadequate breaks and no job security.

The Unite Union which represents the market researchers at Synovate are asking for pay rates that would see full timers get paid $17 an hour and part timers get paid $15 an hour. Current pay rates are as low as $12.50, significantly less than the $21.72 an hour that Synovate researchers earn in Australia as a result of their strong union won agreement. Other improvements the union is asking for include union members being paid for shifts cancelled at short notice, five minutes break for each hour worked and guaranteed hours for long serving staff.

“Worker’s should not be expected to be the eyes and ears of corporate capitalism while working on poverty wages with no job security in a call centre that often has it’s carpet infested by fleas,” said Unite Union organiser Omar Hamed.

“The company seems to want to keep delaying raising our wages. Management has been telling us constantly that we should be tightening our belts. So we decided to take them at their word,” said Synovate call centre worker and union delegate Maria Evaroa.

“A recent survey by Synovate found that internationally New Zealanders are among the least concerned about the global recession. Yet there is a strong sense in Synovate’s own call centre that the company is using the recession as an excuse not to pay living wages.

“Aegis Group which owns Synovate made a £94.4 million profit in 2007. It was call centre workers like us who created that profit yet in the good times we never saw our fair share.

“Negotiating for living wages and good working conditions in the midst of an economic crisis has taught us that multinational corporations will always try and make workers pay for the crises they create,” concluded Maria Evaroa.

Union members will be on hunger strike from 4pm on Wednesday the 25th of February until 4pm on Thursday the 26th of February. A community picket will be held at Synovate’s call centre in Aviemore Drive, Highland Park from 5pm to 5.30pm on Thursday the 26th.