The Labour Day Long Read
28th October 2024
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It’s Labour Day again- the Public Holiday set aside to celebrate the rights of workers. Believe it or not New Zealand was the first in the world to claim this right when, in 1840, the carpenter Samuel Parnell (pictured) won an eight-hour day in Wellington.
Labour Day was first celebrated in our country on this very day, 28 October, in 1890. Shops and businesses were closed on Labour Day and parades were held to celebrate the dignity of working people and their battle against exploitation.
A 134 years later many New Zealanders are working today because they need the money, or because if they are contractors and not employees they don’t get holiday pay.
So what happened to the country I grew up in where the weekend really did mark the end of the working week?
Answer - the rise of the economics and politics of selfishness.
In 1984 - the Labour Party introduced Neo- liberalism the economic theory we've been living under ever since. A theory that says the State shouldn't interfere with the marketplace, that workers are a "resource" not our friends and neighbours, and that the public utilities we all paid for with our taxes could be relabelled as "assets" and sold off to the highest bidder. An ideology that saw National undermine collective bargaining with the Employment Contracts Act that deregulated the labour market, reduced the power of the unions, and ushered us down the path to the low wage economy we have today in which a reduced number of employees are working longer and harder for less.
Public servants are a case in point.
To date the Coalition Government has fired 7276 of its employees.
And last Thursday Finance Minister Nicola Willis gave a speech to some of those who still have jobs in Wellington that roughly ran as follows…
Yes we have sacked a lot of your colleagues.
Yes, times are tough but, she urged them, “be bold and bring new ideas to the table”
Oh, and by the way some more of you are likely to be fired anyway.
Willis then haughtily finished up with a quote she said was “attributed to that great New Zealand pioneer, Ernest Rutherford: 'We haven't got the money, so we'll have to think.'”
Talk about arrogance, ideology and lack of empathy!
Imagine the Governor of a prison asking the inmates to come up with ideas on how to make the prison more secure.
As for the Rutherford quote -my response to it would be:
“You think you haven’t got the money because your ideology is blinding you to the fact that our country has a AA+ credit rating, and because governments can borrow money at far lower rates than private individuals, you could be developing your own “bold ideas” on how to make our nation a better place in which to live, instead of promoting unemployment and forcing us to swallow the austerity pills that are causing so many of us so much misery.”
Source:
And where’s the gratitude?
Remember a couple of years ago during the lockdowns at height of the Covid Pandemic when essential workers like grocery workers and nurses were heroes? How quickly this Coalition government has turned its back on those who gave the most of themselves in the engine room of our economy and in our health system when we needed them most.
Oh, that’s right, you delivered tax cuts that allowed the average earner to buy a couple of loaves of bread a week while the cost of every essential for life continued to rise, and the “ I get it, I’m wealthy” Luxon ilk creamed their tax free capital gains.
There is of course an undercurrent of worker anger brewing.
Last week we saw the CTU hold a major hui in cities and towns up and down the country –which was willfully ignored by TVNZ and THREE news who, no doubt, did not want to draw attention their own drastic staff cutting measures.
But this week’s prize for arrogance, lack of empathy and downright rudeness has to go to none other than the Minister who job it is to promote Commerce ANDREW BAYLY – who reported told a worker on a visit to a vineyard to F*** off home and called him a loser.
Now, even if– and I stress the word “If” – Bayly thought he was joking, the reality is his PR mask slipped and his comments betray the adversarial contempt he towards workers.
Bayly, who is also Minister for Small Business, has been forgiven by his small -minded Prime Minister who has clearly taken the view that Bayly’s sin was not just thinking his distain for working people, but saying it our loud,
So – what’s you’re choice of L words to describe Andrew Bayly MP?
L for loser?
L for Luxon’s lackey?
L for Let’s get rid of this lot?
L , to our shame , might also stand for Let’s pay women last.
The Equal Pay Act was passed in 52 years ago last Sunday.
Yet in the public service the gap is 6.1 per cent ( but not you Nicola! ) and over all the gap is 8.1percent.
Equal pay? What about Fair Pay?
National has scrapped Fair Pay Agreements that set out minimum terms and conditions for workers across an industry or occupation, as agreed by employers and unions, despite the progress it made towards improving pay and conditions for people such bus drivers, hospitality staff, early childhood teachers, port workers, cleaners, and security guards.
So all in all I don’t see much that workers have to celebrate this Labour Day.
Perhaps we could start treating it like Anzac Day – when we remember Samuel Parnell and the working men and women of our country who stood up against the greedy owners and heartless politicians, to win the right to a 40 hour week with Saturday and Sunday off.
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This needs to be widely read, and acted on. I'm old enough to remember a lot of governments, and the viciousness of this one probably surpasses the evil actions of Ruth Richardson and her 'mother of all budgets' that destroyed so many New Zealand lives. I'm saddened to have to watch a bunch of rich, arrogant fools destroy the country in exactly the same way the Tories have destroyed the UK, blathering about 'austerity' for everyone but themselves and their rich mates, and overseeing the ruin of our young people's futures. All completely unnecessarily.
Your article today Bruce sums up a very dreadful time in Aotearoa New Zealand for many workers and the recently unemployed inflicted upon the country deliberately by an extreme heartless and cruel CG lead by Luxon and Willis . Completely anti worker, anti Maori and anti New Zealand.