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However the major newpapers have not been reporting the detail of the important dispute with its employees. It is the first dispute to go the the Employment Relations Authority and be heard under the new Employment Relations Act.
"INL, as one of the country's largest public companies, is not acting with openess in its reporting of New Zealand industrial news by suppressing national coverage of ongoing industrial trouble at its various titles", says the union.
"We believe this breaches the requirements for fair and accurtate
reporting. This is a leading industrial dispute with a company that is
testing the provisions of the new industrial law, the Employment Relations Act."
Union membership increases under ERA A recent Victoria University survey found that union membership has risen for the first time since 1985 - an increase in the year 2000 of 16,000 - to 319,000. The increase takes union membership to 22.5% of wage and salary earners, up from a low of less than 18% under the previous Employment Contracts Act. The director of the university's Industrial Relations Centre said there were a number of reasons for the membership increase. "While it is still early days of the new employment laws, the Employment Relations Act (ERA) appears to have contributed to an environment where workers feel better about joining unions. "In addition, unions have taken on board lessons from overseas about organising and making themselves more attractive in the workplace". The survey also found that the number of unions had risen - up from 82 in 1999 to 134 in 2000.
Part of the increase in the number of unions could be attributed to the
Employment Relations Act requiring unions to be registered before they could
engage in collective bargaining.
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Boy wins unpaid wages case for work as a 12-year old A 15-year old farm-worker representing himself at an employment tribunal hearing has been awarded $200 in unpaid wages for working on a farm at a time when he was 12-year old. His parents had been employed on the dairy farm as contract share milkers and farm assistants.
However the farm owners said the boy had simply been helping his parents on
weed spraying, calf rearing and milking. Although he did not have a written
contract, the farm owners had paid him $15 an hour for previous work.
The tribunal ruled that an employer-employee relationship had occurred and
ordered the farm owners to pay $200 in unpaid wages to the boy.
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The country's top earners were aided in their financial recovery by tax cuts from 66% in 1986 to 33% in 1988.
The top tax rate was raised to 39% by the new Labour/Alliance coalition after its election to Government in 1999.
The figure of 33% of households in poverty is an increase on the previous ten years when the number working on a farm in 1988 was 20.7% Poverty is defined as households with income 60% below the national average. The report, Distributions and Disparity - New Zealand Household Income, also found that the gap between top-earning households and the poor increased by 17% between 1988 and 1998.
Families on benefits have been hardest hit over the years, with their incomes less than 60% of the average income.
In general, households with children have also failed to feel much evidence
of economic recovery, tending to cluster at the bottom two-fifths of the
income distribution.
Source material for this issue of the "Workers' News" includes: the City Voice, Evening Post and The Dominion. Further information about these news stories can be requested from "WORKERS' NEWS" (as above). |
