MARCH/RALLY: Budget 2011
DON'T CUT OUR FUTURE.
12 noon, Sat 28th May,
QE2 Square, Bottom of Queen St, Opposite Britomart.
More info call CSJ 09 8366389 or 0212106720
"When good people lay idle, evil prospers".
Stand up NZ before it's to late!
Monday, May 16, 2011
They Say Cutback, We Say Fight Back
More info call CSJ 09 8366389 or 0212106720
"When good people lay idle, evil prospers".
Stand up NZ before it's to late!
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Why You Need to Join Unite!:
Why you need to Join Unite! Union- and Waitemata Unite!
Unite! is a Community Union
Unite! is for low paid and casual workers, and for those who may not be in paid work for any reason, such as unemployment, illness disability, studying or parenting. We are all members of a community or whanau. We are all members of the working class. Unemployment rates are soaring. The government is not interested in creating suitable jobs that meet our needs or family responsibilities. It doesn’t value the contributions we make. It just wants to cut spending on benefits, and make us look for non- existent work. It is about to implement a number of the beneficiary bashing recommendations of the Welfare Working Group. Its basic philosophy is that ‘work makes us free’. To drive home this message it’s proposing to abolish most benefits and combine them into a lower-paid ‘Jobseeker Allowance’. Note that instead of a ‘benefit’ to which we have a right, it is called an ‘allowance’ so that we are only ‘allowed’ to get it if we seek jobs. This shifts the responsibility away from society to create jobs, onto us to find jobs. If we don’t find them because they aren’t there, or if we refuse to work for a starvation wage, or get sacked under the 90 Day Act for no reason, we are going to be blamed as ‘lazy bludgers’. Unite! is a Union for Low Paid and Casual Workers
Unite is one of New Zealand’s fastest growing unions with over 10,000 members. Many young people who had never been in a union before are now proud Unite members. We are a lively and strong union who have had many successes! We successfully campaigned to abolish youth rates. Many of our members, such as those in the fast food industry, now have better wages and conditions protected by collective contracts. Most recently the Unite! ‘UTU’ squads of activists have successfully picketed bosses sacking workers under the 90 Day Act and lockouts of workers like at Skycity. Low paid workers are learning that when we unite together and stand strong, we can win!Unite! is a Union for Unpaid Workers
Mothers are bringing up the future workers of our society. Carers care for the sick and elderly. Students work hard on their studies and still have to make ends meet in their spare time! Many of us do voluntary work, and help our communities. Now the Welfare Working Group is proposing that mothers and fathers on what is now the Domestic Purposes Benefit must work when their youngest child becomes 3yrs old. And if you have a child while on the DPB you will be punished and forced to go to work when the child reaches 14 weeks! Child centres will be allowed to take up to 75 under 2yrs with only 5 staff to look after them! Baby farming under 2’s while the mums and dads are turned into slave labourers! Join Unite! Fight against forced wage labour for mothers and baby farming for under 2’s and for the right to a living benefit!The Fight against Work Tested Benefits and the 90 Day ‘Fire-at-Will’ Act
The 2010 Social Security Amendment Act came into effect last October. Mothers with children over six , and those on sickness benefits, have joined those on unemployment benefits in having to be available for paid work, whether it suits our family or health needs or not. Those on invalids’ benefits are being forced off them, losing $50 per week and having to look for work too! We will be punished by having half our benefits slashed if we don’t comply. If we still don’t comply after four weeks, our benefits are stopped altogether! Whenever we apply for a benefit, we face a thirteen week stand down if we left a previous job “for no good reason’ or were sacked for “misconduct”. Now the 90 Day ‘Fire-At-Will’ Act means that we could be sacked from a job for no reason, and then could face a benefit stand down for another 91 days for being sacked! What’s Behind the Welfare Reform plans for Major Cuts in Social Welfare?
Why has the Welfare Working Group and Treasury proposed to savagely reduce our rights even further? Columnist Michael Laws calls us “ferals” and wants all benefits stopped to stop us “breeding”. John Key says that nobody would starve if all welfare was abolished. The WWG ‘razor gang’ wants all beneficiaries to be work tested and penalised if they do not take offered work. Invalid and Sickness beneficiaries will be medically reviewed and pressured into work. To cover up this trick they propose to eliminate benefits and combine them into a single ‘Jobseeker Allowance’. The effect will be to push people into meaningless work on poverty wages to drive down all wages towards the minimum. Meanwhile the government has raised the minimum wage by a miserable 25cents to $13 an hour when GST, food, petrol, rents etc costs will rise at over 4% plus this year. So that is a minimum wage cut! They are legislating to create a huge pool of poor people competing for non-existent or rubbish jobs while the rich are getting tax cuts and companies are getting bailouts. The government says its reforms will create jobs. Yes, the employers will be encouraged to create more minimum wage jobs on poverty wages to boost their profits!This is why you need Unite! Unite! can fight these laws!
Unite! fights for the rights of employed and beneficiaries!
Waitemata Unite! is a branch of the Unite! union
If you are a paid worker, Unite! will represent you in any disputes with your employer. If you become unemployed, you can still be a member of Unite!
If you are a beneficiary Waitemata Unite! will support you if you have troubles with WINZ getting the benefit you are entitled to. We will attend WINZ appointments with you, and can call a picket if WINZ persists in treating someone unfairly.
Unite! is picketing employers who sack any worker under the 90 Day legislation. We intend to make this law unworkable!
Lower benefits mean lower wages! Employed and unemployed need to Unite! for a living income for all ! Join Unite! Fight for a living benefits and a living wages! Waitemata Unite will fight every unjust benefit stand down!
These employment and benefit laws are unjust, and they must be changed! We need to stand strong and show the Government we will not take it!
Workers in paid employment can go on strike. Beneficiaries can refuse to go shopping or take our kids out on a demonstration instead of doing the housework. We can all go on pickets. We need to support each other. Together we are strong.
We meet every 3rd Saturday of the month at 11 am at the Avondale Community Centre, and have regular pickets and forums.
Come along, have a cuppa, get involved!
Unemployed and Employed, Join Waitemata Unite today!
Welfare Working Group's Infamous Report
The WWG's report may be found at the following site:
http://ips.ac.nz/WelfareWorkingGroup/Downloads/Final%20Report/WWG-Executive-Summary-Final-Recommendations-22-February-2011.pdf
On February 22nd, the day the Christchurch earthquake struck, Paula Bennett’s Welfare Working Group (WWG) released its recommendations, which were greeted with a lively and well attended protest demonstration at the Henderson office of Work and Income. The more spectacular of the two catastrophes of course received far greater attention from the media, despite momentousness of the WWG’s report, and the likelihood that in the long term the recommended welfare “reforms” could result in a higher but less easily visible toll of casualties.
At a time of high unemployment attributable entirely to the unresolved global economic crisis, the WWG’s recommendations set the ambitious target of ”at least 100,000 fewer working age people receiving welfare by 2021…” Needless to say, the measures recommended to achieve this goal are thoroughly draconian, and include intensive case management of “Job Seekers” (as all beneficiaries including sole parents and invalids are to be designated) with punitive sanctions for those who seek but fail to find non-existent employment: Benefit cuts and stand-downs and forced labour are the order of the day.
In the preamble the WWG report predictably claims, “Our welfare system has major deficiencies that need to be corrected…”. Substitute the word “report” for “welfare system” and their claim would be valid. A search of the report in electronic pdf file yields zero results for certain words with obvious relevance, namely “recession”, “depression” or “financial crisis” This glaring omission cannot be explained by culpable ignorance or naivety on the group’s part, as the report does at one point fleetingly refer to the global crisis, trivializing it as an “economic downturn” which it blithely assume will be temporary. Nowhere do they discuss whether such optimism is warranted, nor do they address its implications, which if adequately considered would make a mockery of their ideological premises. Where they recommend that the government ”undertake an investigation into whether labour marker barriers to employment need to be addressed as part of a strategy to reduce benefit dependency.” It attests to its own disgraceful failure to make the very investigation necessary to formulate meaningful recommendations, and thus implicitly acknowledge its abject incompetence to do so.
The real significance of this gross omission is as follows: By pretending that no economic crisis has occurred it becomes unnecessary to blame the government’s bosom-friends the financiers for the widespread misery it has caused, and equally unnecessary to correctly identify the crisis as the real cause of the high levels of welfare dependency that the WWG so self-righteously deplores- and condemns. Instead, the wrath of the working class at being subjected to wage & employment cuts is diverted to the convenient scapegoats in the form of the crisis’ hardest-hit victims. Thus does the working class become divided and weakened at a time when in angry unity it could rise up to threaten the abusive power of its oppressors.
More than just diverting the blame for the crisis onto its victims, the WWG’s recommendations will serve very effectively to divert the cost of the crisis onto the working class as a whole. When 100 000 sole parents and invalids are goaded into the labour market they will be competing for employment with an army of former government employees laid off by cuts just announced to the civil service. The threat of eviction if not starvation will force them to accept whatever wage employers care to offer, however low, and crisis- hit employers will be to intent on defending their threatened profits at anyone’s expense but their own. So wages will be driven down to maintain bosses profits. That this is the true purpose of “welfare reform” is borne out by other such anti-worker legislation as the 90-day Fire-at-Will Act.
Further evidence that the WWGs recommendations are tailored to suit the corporate agenda is that along with the radically “fundamental” reform of placing all claimants on a “Job Seeker” benefit goes the contracting out of welfare services to “private and community, not-for-profit sector agencies to deliver employment services.” When the “community” has been devastated (earthquakelike) by other neo-liberal cutbacks, that leaves the field clear for such multi-national “players” as Lockheed -Martin, which has extended its tentacles all over the US welfare system. Oops, this overlooks the Iwi agencies who, considering the disproportionate representation of Maori amongst the unemployed, are to be assigned a major role in achieving the aforementioned target of reduction by 100,000.
Amongst the most maniacally single-minded of the WWG’s “work-focused” recommendations (albeit only by a “majority”) is the one “that a work test in the case of parents having an additional child while on welfare should be aligned with paid parental leave provisions (when the youngest child reaches 14 weeks).” This despite paying lip service elsewhere to “identify[ing] the likely impact of welfare reform on the well-being of children.” That WWG is apparently unaware after months of “consultation” that the “likely impact” has already been identified by concerned professionals (otherwise it could never have considered such a proposal) is proof that it has been selective in its consultation.
Perhaps this last proposal was calculated to make John Key look benign in comparison when he publicly rejected it.
With respect to the last recommendation, the WWG covers its backside by recommending that “the current Taskforce on Early Childhood Education consider ways to improve the availability and affordability of childcare and early childhood education services for lower paid families and people on welfare, including reprioritising some of the existing ECE expenditure.”
True to its real agenda, Key’s government has already responded ever so benignly to this the only commendable recommendation by slashing the funding of ECE with the effect of making childcare services unaffordable to those who will be coerced into using them.
On top of punitive sanctions against alleged malingerers there is intrusive prying into domestic affairs, with for example sanctions against mothers who become pregnant while receiving a benefit. Before the last election the corporate media were trumpeting the accusatory and disparaging slogan of “Nanny State” in their eagerness to get the Natacts elected. Their deafening silence now is hardly attributable to natural disasters. Fine by them that their ideal state now offers it ample mammaries only to voracious corporate suckers. For the working class it has become a harsh, puritanical and Calvinistic Victorian patriarch, with values that match its pure Victorian economic policies.
Other comments on the report may be found at:
http://gordoncampbell.scoop.co.nz/2011/02/24/gordon-campbell-on-the-welfare-working-group-final-report/
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1102/S00213/wwg-shows-no-understanding-of-social-security.htm
http://ips.ac.nz/WelfareWorkingGroup/Downloads/Final%20Report/WWG-Executive-Summary-Final-Recommendations-22-February-2011.pdf
On February 22nd, the day the Christchurch earthquake struck, Paula Bennett’s Welfare Working Group (WWG) released its recommendations, which were greeted with a lively and well attended protest demonstration at the Henderson office of Work and Income. The more spectacular of the two catastrophes of course received far greater attention from the media, despite momentousness of the WWG’s report, and the likelihood that in the long term the recommended welfare “reforms” could result in a higher but less easily visible toll of casualties.
At a time of high unemployment attributable entirely to the unresolved global economic crisis, the WWG’s recommendations set the ambitious target of ”at least 100,000 fewer working age people receiving welfare by 2021…” Needless to say, the measures recommended to achieve this goal are thoroughly draconian, and include intensive case management of “Job Seekers” (as all beneficiaries including sole parents and invalids are to be designated) with punitive sanctions for those who seek but fail to find non-existent employment: Benefit cuts and stand-downs and forced labour are the order of the day.
In the preamble the WWG report predictably claims, “Our welfare system has major deficiencies that need to be corrected…”. Substitute the word “report” for “welfare system” and their claim would be valid. A search of the report in electronic pdf file yields zero results for certain words with obvious relevance, namely “recession”, “depression” or “financial crisis” This glaring omission cannot be explained by culpable ignorance or naivety on the group’s part, as the report does at one point fleetingly refer to the global crisis, trivializing it as an “economic downturn” which it blithely assume will be temporary. Nowhere do they discuss whether such optimism is warranted, nor do they address its implications, which if adequately considered would make a mockery of their ideological premises. Where they recommend that the government ”undertake an investigation into whether labour marker barriers to employment need to be addressed as part of a strategy to reduce benefit dependency.” It attests to its own disgraceful failure to make the very investigation necessary to formulate meaningful recommendations, and thus implicitly acknowledge its abject incompetence to do so.
The real significance of this gross omission is as follows: By pretending that no economic crisis has occurred it becomes unnecessary to blame the government’s bosom-friends the financiers for the widespread misery it has caused, and equally unnecessary to correctly identify the crisis as the real cause of the high levels of welfare dependency that the WWG so self-righteously deplores- and condemns. Instead, the wrath of the working class at being subjected to wage & employment cuts is diverted to the convenient scapegoats in the form of the crisis’ hardest-hit victims. Thus does the working class become divided and weakened at a time when in angry unity it could rise up to threaten the abusive power of its oppressors.
More than just diverting the blame for the crisis onto its victims, the WWG’s recommendations will serve very effectively to divert the cost of the crisis onto the working class as a whole. When 100 000 sole parents and invalids are goaded into the labour market they will be competing for employment with an army of former government employees laid off by cuts just announced to the civil service. The threat of eviction if not starvation will force them to accept whatever wage employers care to offer, however low, and crisis- hit employers will be to intent on defending their threatened profits at anyone’s expense but their own. So wages will be driven down to maintain bosses profits. That this is the true purpose of “welfare reform” is borne out by other such anti-worker legislation as the 90-day Fire-at-Will Act.
Further evidence that the WWGs recommendations are tailored to suit the corporate agenda is that along with the radically “fundamental” reform of placing all claimants on a “Job Seeker” benefit goes the contracting out of welfare services to “private and community, not-for-profit sector agencies to deliver employment services.” When the “community” has been devastated (earthquakelike) by other neo-liberal cutbacks, that leaves the field clear for such multi-national “players” as Lockheed -Martin, which has extended its tentacles all over the US welfare system. Oops, this overlooks the Iwi agencies who, considering the disproportionate representation of Maori amongst the unemployed, are to be assigned a major role in achieving the aforementioned target of reduction by 100,000.
Amongst the most maniacally single-minded of the WWG’s “work-focused” recommendations (albeit only by a “majority”) is the one “that a work test in the case of parents having an additional child while on welfare should be aligned with paid parental leave provisions (when the youngest child reaches 14 weeks).” This despite paying lip service elsewhere to “identify[ing] the likely impact of welfare reform on the well-being of children.” That WWG is apparently unaware after months of “consultation” that the “likely impact” has already been identified by concerned professionals (otherwise it could never have considered such a proposal) is proof that it has been selective in its consultation.
Perhaps this last proposal was calculated to make John Key look benign in comparison when he publicly rejected it.
With respect to the last recommendation, the WWG covers its backside by recommending that “the current Taskforce on Early Childhood Education consider ways to improve the availability and affordability of childcare and early childhood education services for lower paid families and people on welfare, including reprioritising some of the existing ECE expenditure.”
True to its real agenda, Key’s government has already responded ever so benignly to this the only commendable recommendation by slashing the funding of ECE with the effect of making childcare services unaffordable to those who will be coerced into using them.
On top of punitive sanctions against alleged malingerers there is intrusive prying into domestic affairs, with for example sanctions against mothers who become pregnant while receiving a benefit. Before the last election the corporate media were trumpeting the accusatory and disparaging slogan of “Nanny State” in their eagerness to get the Natacts elected. Their deafening silence now is hardly attributable to natural disasters. Fine by them that their ideal state now offers it ample mammaries only to voracious corporate suckers. For the working class it has become a harsh, puritanical and Calvinistic Victorian patriarch, with values that match its pure Victorian economic policies.
Other comments on the report may be found at:
http://gordoncampbell.scoop.co.nz/2011/02/24/gordon-campbell-on-the-welfare-working-group-final-report/
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1102/S00213/wwg-shows-no-understanding-of-social-security.htm
Saturday, April 2, 2011
What it's really like for single mothers
Reality ignored in parallel welfare universe
By Donna Wynd and Susan St John
Wednesday Mar 30, 2011 NZ Herald
The Government taskforce's plans amount to a punishment for young mothers.
The Welfare Working Group's final report, Reducing Long-term Benefit Dependency 2011, is arguably one of the most unenlightened pieces of work ever to emerge from a government-funded taskforce.
Most submissions were ignored, revealing that much of the consultation process was simply a public relations exercise.
The report uses the term "paid work" 242 times but "unpaid work" does not appear once. Thus, caregiving to young children by their parents is invisible and unvalued.
Parents are either paid workers or "jobseekers", but not nurturers caring for the next generation of New Zealanders.
The working group proposes a range of reforms to sort out feckless sole parents. To illustrate how these would operate they use the example of "Nikki", who has two children aged 3 and 6, works part-time at night and has just separated from her partner.
Under the present rules, Nikki will receive the domestic purposes benefit and not be expected to work until her younger child is 6.
Under the working group proposals she would become a "jobseeker", but a benefit would be unnecessary because her "co-ordinator" - a private-sector case worker paid to move people off benefits - will arrange "free" childcare at the local kindergarten and an accommodation supplement, and help her claim Working for Families from Inland Revenue and Child Support from her ex-partner.
As if by magic, Nikki "continues working, and also looking after her children".
This facile case study obscures the bothersome reality that Nikki faces. In Child Poverty Action Group's experience, the story is more likely to go something like this: Nikki and her partner find themselves under increasing stress from financial difficulties.
Her partner works long hours for low pay, and to help the family finances Nikki works 10 hours a week at night at the local supermarket.
When Nikki's partner moves out, the children are distraught and develop behavioural problems. On being notified of the separation, Inland Revenue cuts off her In Work Tax Credit and bills her for overpayments because she does not work 20 hours a week.
Eventually Nikki's meagre savings run out and she is forced on to a benefit and to seek cheaper accommodation in another part of town with few services.
The local kindergarten is full but the day-care centre accepts the unsettled 3-year-old. While the 20 hours' day care is supposed to be free, in fact it costs $150 a week, money she does not have.
Meanwhile, in the welfare working group's parallel universe, Nikki is a "jobseeker". To help meet the government group's specified outputs, she must come off the DPB and work at least 20 paid hours.
Suppose that Nikki is fortunate enough to find 20 hours of work during day-care hours. At the minimum wage, 20 hours nets her $223 a week. From this she still has to pay for day care.
Added to the 20 hours is commuting time and travel to drop off and collect the children. She also has to run the home, cook meals, help with homework and remain sufficiently emotionally stable to be a good parent on her own.
Obviously 20 hours does not give her enough money to live on. "No problem", says the co-ordinator, who organises a top-up to $408 a week under the Minimum Family Tax Credit from the IRD.
With the "In Work Tax Credit" of $60 each week plus the Family Tax Credit, she is better off than on a benefit. But only because the Government is giving her a huge wage subsidy through the tax system.
For a few weeks Nikki manages to work the required number of hours. Then the day care centre rings: the 3-year-old has measles and she has to look after him for 10 days at home. Then the 6-year-old breaks her arm at school.
Then Nikki finds she has no one to look after the child in the school holidays. Her own health suffers, and while her employer tries to be understanding she loses her job. The rent falls behind and debts start to mount.
Nikki has to claw her way back on to a jobseeker's benefit, something her "co-ordinator" is reluctant to facilitate. The last straw is when her younger child is admitted to hospital with pneumonia, contributed to by the cold damp housing in which she lives.
Back on a benefit, a few hours a week might be the only paid work that Nikki can manage. Currently earning $100 a week would give her about $82.50 extra net income.
Under the working group's proposals, extra earnings would be abated much more harshly so as to teach her that she should really be in full-time work. Nikki would now get just under $40 a week for her efforts.
The government group would also like to put Nikki on long-term contraception as a condition of getting a benefit, although it pays no regard to the freedom of her ex-partner to continue to have children when he chooses.
In the parallel universe of the Welfare Working Group, all childcare can and should be done by paid caregivers, while the mothers who are deemed solely responsible for producing them must be coerced into work, no matter how inappropriate.
What example are we setting for our children when grown adults allow such punitive policies for young mothers to be taken seriously?
* Donna Wynd is a Child Poverty Action Group researcher; Susan St John is Associate Professor Economics, Auckland Business School.
By Donna Wynd and Susan St John
Wednesday Mar 30, 2011 NZ Herald
The Government taskforce's plans amount to a punishment for young mothers.
The Welfare Working Group's final report, Reducing Long-term Benefit Dependency 2011, is arguably one of the most unenlightened pieces of work ever to emerge from a government-funded taskforce.
Most submissions were ignored, revealing that much of the consultation process was simply a public relations exercise.
The report uses the term "paid work" 242 times but "unpaid work" does not appear once. Thus, caregiving to young children by their parents is invisible and unvalued.
Parents are either paid workers or "jobseekers", but not nurturers caring for the next generation of New Zealanders.
The working group proposes a range of reforms to sort out feckless sole parents. To illustrate how these would operate they use the example of "Nikki", who has two children aged 3 and 6, works part-time at night and has just separated from her partner.
Under the present rules, Nikki will receive the domestic purposes benefit and not be expected to work until her younger child is 6.
Under the working group proposals she would become a "jobseeker", but a benefit would be unnecessary because her "co-ordinator" - a private-sector case worker paid to move people off benefits - will arrange "free" childcare at the local kindergarten and an accommodation supplement, and help her claim Working for Families from Inland Revenue and Child Support from her ex-partner.
As if by magic, Nikki "continues working, and also looking after her children".
This facile case study obscures the bothersome reality that Nikki faces. In Child Poverty Action Group's experience, the story is more likely to go something like this: Nikki and her partner find themselves under increasing stress from financial difficulties.
Her partner works long hours for low pay, and to help the family finances Nikki works 10 hours a week at night at the local supermarket.
When Nikki's partner moves out, the children are distraught and develop behavioural problems. On being notified of the separation, Inland Revenue cuts off her In Work Tax Credit and bills her for overpayments because she does not work 20 hours a week.
Eventually Nikki's meagre savings run out and she is forced on to a benefit and to seek cheaper accommodation in another part of town with few services.
The local kindergarten is full but the day-care centre accepts the unsettled 3-year-old. While the 20 hours' day care is supposed to be free, in fact it costs $150 a week, money she does not have.
Meanwhile, in the welfare working group's parallel universe, Nikki is a "jobseeker". To help meet the government group's specified outputs, she must come off the DPB and work at least 20 paid hours.
Suppose that Nikki is fortunate enough to find 20 hours of work during day-care hours. At the minimum wage, 20 hours nets her $223 a week. From this she still has to pay for day care.
Added to the 20 hours is commuting time and travel to drop off and collect the children. She also has to run the home, cook meals, help with homework and remain sufficiently emotionally stable to be a good parent on her own.
Obviously 20 hours does not give her enough money to live on. "No problem", says the co-ordinator, who organises a top-up to $408 a week under the Minimum Family Tax Credit from the IRD.
With the "In Work Tax Credit" of $60 each week plus the Family Tax Credit, she is better off than on a benefit. But only because the Government is giving her a huge wage subsidy through the tax system.
For a few weeks Nikki manages to work the required number of hours. Then the day care centre rings: the 3-year-old has measles and she has to look after him for 10 days at home. Then the 6-year-old breaks her arm at school.
Then Nikki finds she has no one to look after the child in the school holidays. Her own health suffers, and while her employer tries to be understanding she loses her job. The rent falls behind and debts start to mount.
Nikki has to claw her way back on to a jobseeker's benefit, something her "co-ordinator" is reluctant to facilitate. The last straw is when her younger child is admitted to hospital with pneumonia, contributed to by the cold damp housing in which she lives.
Back on a benefit, a few hours a week might be the only paid work that Nikki can manage. Currently earning $100 a week would give her about $82.50 extra net income.
Under the working group's proposals, extra earnings would be abated much more harshly so as to teach her that she should really be in full-time work. Nikki would now get just under $40 a week for her efforts.
The government group would also like to put Nikki on long-term contraception as a condition of getting a benefit, although it pays no regard to the freedom of her ex-partner to continue to have children when he chooses.
In the parallel universe of the Welfare Working Group, all childcare can and should be done by paid caregivers, while the mothers who are deemed solely responsible for producing them must be coerced into work, no matter how inappropriate.
What example are we setting for our children when grown adults allow such punitive policies for young mothers to be taken seriously?
* Donna Wynd is a Child Poverty Action Group researcher; Susan St John is Associate Professor Economics, Auckland Business School.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Our Offensive PM
So John Key thinks that when beneficiaries need food parcels they are making a ‘lifestyle choice.’ http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10707102
In December he was saying “If we cancelled welfare to 330,000 people currently on welfare, how many would starve to death? Bugger all.”
Since the tobacco tax was raised there has been a noticeable increase in smokers picking up buts from the gutters. No doubt JK thinks that a ‘lifestyle choice’, too. And when Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight in Tunisia and brought about the downfall of a government, no doubt that was a ‘lifestyle choice', too.
Thanks to Bomber Bradbury on his Tumeke blog for this apposite remark on John Key’s callous remarks about beneficiaries:
‘John Key's grossly offensive comments on why the poor need food parcels reminds me of the famous Herman Melville quote:’
"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well housed, well warmed and well fed."
http://tumeke.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html
Thanks also to John Minto for a more detailed critique of Key’s gross opinions.
http://auckland.scoop.co.nz/2011/02/john-minto-what-right-has-john-key-to-lecture-the-poor/
In December he was saying “If we cancelled welfare to 330,000 people currently on welfare, how many would starve to death? Bugger all.”
Since the tobacco tax was raised there has been a noticeable increase in smokers picking up buts from the gutters. No doubt JK thinks that a ‘lifestyle choice’, too. And when Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight in Tunisia and brought about the downfall of a government, no doubt that was a ‘lifestyle choice', too.
Thanks to Bomber Bradbury on his Tumeke blog for this apposite remark on John Key’s callous remarks about beneficiaries:
‘John Key's grossly offensive comments on why the poor need food parcels reminds me of the famous Herman Melville quote:’
"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well housed, well warmed and well fed."
http://tumeke.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html
Thanks also to John Minto for a more detailed critique of Key’s gross opinions.
http://auckland.scoop.co.nz/2011/02/john-minto-what-right-has-john-key-to-lecture-the-poor/
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Solidarity with Tunisian Unemployed
The following letter was wriiten in accord with a resolution passed at the Januay meeting of Waitemata Branch:
As a branch of Unite union dedicated to organising unemployed workers we have followed the momentous events unfolding in Tunisia with great interest.
On behalf of Waitemata branch I wish to express our profound admiration for the great courage of the Tunisians who at great personal risk have risen against the oppressive regime and against the global capitalist economic order that inflicts such great misery on the masses, and to offer our solidarity in the a struggle that is being emulated now in Egypt and beyond.
We condemn the deadly violence with which the regime sought to repress the uprising, and we condemn its attacks upon the union offices which have become centres of organisation.
We wish to extend our firm solidarity and sympathy to the families of those who have lost sons and daughters, brothers and sisters to the violence of the state, particularly to the family of Mohamed Bouazizi whose heroic martyrdom will be forever remembered.
Yours fraternally
Hon Secretary
Waitemata Branch
Unite Union
To the Unemployed of Tunisia
As a branch of Unite union dedicated to organising unemployed workers we have followed the momentous events unfolding in Tunisia with great interest.
On behalf of Waitemata branch I wish to express our profound admiration for the great courage of the Tunisians who at great personal risk have risen against the oppressive regime and against the global capitalist economic order that inflicts such great misery on the masses, and to offer our solidarity in the a struggle that is being emulated now in Egypt and beyond.
We condemn the deadly violence with which the regime sought to repress the uprising, and we condemn its attacks upon the union offices which have become centres of organisation.
We wish to extend our firm solidarity and sympathy to the families of those who have lost sons and daughters, brothers and sisters to the violence of the state, particularly to the family of Mohamed Bouazizi whose heroic martyrdom will be forever remembered.
Yours fraternally
Hon Secretary
Waitemata Branch
Unite Union
Friday, February 18, 2011
Ten Myths About Welfare
The politics behind the government’s welfare reform process
by Gordon Campbell
A long list of relevant issues have not been part of the WWG agenda. So far, the WWG’s investigations have not involved any substantial analysis of :
http://werewolf.co.nz/2011/02/ten-myths-about-welfare/
Monday, January 24, 2011
Report to UN: Government Fails Child Poverty and Child Health
Waitemata Unite is skeptical about the ability of the United Nations to save the children of the world-indeed The UN has itself has a poor record with children. It was responsible for about a million children's deaths during the Iraq sanctions; its "peace-keepers" have engaged in rape,trafficking and prostitution of women and children in several countries ; and blue-helmeted UN soldiers are hated and feared by the local populace in Haiti.
Nevertheless the UN declaration on the Rights of the Child is a good benchmark by which to measure the status of the children of Aotearoa. New Zealand is failing badly.
Here is an excellent report from the Child Poverty Action group to the United Nations about the the poverty and health of New Zealand children:
http://www.acya.org.nz/site_resources/library/Documents/Reports_to_UN/CYA_2010/Child_Poverty_Child_Health.pdf
Child Poverty and Child Health
Failing our commitments to children in New Zealand in 2010
by
M. Claire Dale, Susan St John, Innes Asher & Olaf Adam
on behalf of Child Poverty Action Group
Working Paper
July 2010
Published as supporting paper for the ACYA report
to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child
“Children and Youth in Aotearoa 2010”
Action for Children and Youth Aotearoa Incorporated
FAILING OUR COMMITMENTS TO CHILDREN: CHILD
POVERTY AND CHILD HEALTH IN NEW ZEALAND IN 2010
M.Claire Dale, Susan St John, Innes Asher, & Olaf Adam.1
Executive Summary
This working paper is to form part of the report “Children and Youth in Aotearoa 2010” to the United Nations
Committee on the Rights of the Child, prepared by Action for Children and Youth Aotearo Inc. (ACYA).
Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) believes that Aotearoa New Zealand fails to meet its commitments under
the convention in a number of areas, in particular income adequacy and health but also education and nondiscrimination.
The underlying issue is increasing income inequality and a consequent high number of children living in
poverty and severe hardship, in poor housing conditions, with limited access to primary health care. Our
research found that children from low income households in New Zealand are multiple times more likely to
suffer from large variety of diseases than their more affluent peers. These inequalities are most evident in
hospital admissions for relatively common diseases such as Rheumatic fever (28 times), Bronchiectasis (15
times), serious skin infection (5 times) and Tuberculosis (5 times).
Whilst these facts are well established. our evidence suggests that health inequalities are increasing rather
than decreasing, breaching Article 6 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (the
convention), every child’s inherent right to life. Such inequalities also breach Article 24 of the convention
which grants children the right to “...enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health...”, where health
outcomes of least deprived children serve as benchmark.
Ethnic disparities are similarly evident, which breaches Article 2. States Parties agree to ensure children are
protected against all forms of discrimination, yet Maori and Pasifika children disproportionately suffer higher
hospitalisation rates than New Zealand European/Pakeha.
In 2005, 170,000 New Zealand children lived in families earning less than 50% of the median household
income. New Zealand is outperformed by a number of countries with a much lower GDP per capita, i.e. Czech
Republic, Slovak Republic, Hungary and Korea. Widespread child poverty undermines children’s right to an
“adequate standard of living” as per Article 27 of the convention. In 2007 figures 50% of the median income
equates to $355 per week for a single parent, an amount considered insufficient to cover essential living cost.
As a direct result of poverty many children lack basics such as adequate nutrition or warm and dry housing.
New Zealand has the second worst child health and safety record amongst the 25 leading OECD countries as
measured in child deaths caused by infant deaths, immunisation rates and accidental deaths (OECD). These
measures, to a large extent related to poverty, result in a failure to meet Article 5 of the convention.
1 Dr M.Claire Dale, Research Fellow in the Department of Economics, Dr Susan St John, Associate Professor of Economics, and Dr Innes
Asher, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Auckland, are Executive Members of Child Poverty Action Group. Olaf Adam is
a Post Graduate student at the University of Auckland Business School and researcher for Child Poverty Action Group. We thank Dr Mike
O’Brien, Professor of Social Work at Massey University for his helpful critique.
3
CPAG asserts that child poverty in New Zealand is a consequence of political choices and inaction, not an
economic accident. As such, this breaches Article 3 of the convention, and CPAG hold successive governments
responsible for the continuing discrimination against children from low income families.
The current social welfare system is insufficient to provide for an “adequate standard of living” for many
parents, who are unable to provide it themselves and as such New Zealand fails in its responsibilities under
Article 26 and Article 27 of the convention
http://www.acya.org.nz/site_resources/library/Documents/Reports_to_UN/CYA_2010/Child_Poverty_Child_Health.pdf
Nevertheless the UN declaration on the Rights of the Child is a good benchmark by which to measure the status of the children of Aotearoa. New Zealand is failing badly.
Here is an excellent report from the Child Poverty Action group to the United Nations about the the poverty and health of New Zealand children:
http://www.acya.org.nz/site_resources/library/Documents/Reports_to_UN/CYA_2010/Child_Poverty_Child_Health.pdf
Child Poverty and Child Health
Failing our commitments to children in New Zealand in 2010
by
M. Claire Dale, Susan St John, Innes Asher & Olaf Adam
on behalf of Child Poverty Action Group
Working Paper
July 2010
Published as supporting paper for the ACYA report
to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child
“Children and Youth in Aotearoa 2010”
Action for Children and Youth Aotearoa Incorporated
FAILING OUR COMMITMENTS TO CHILDREN: CHILD
POVERTY AND CHILD HEALTH IN NEW ZEALAND IN 2010
M.Claire Dale, Susan St John, Innes Asher, & Olaf Adam.1
Executive Summary
This working paper is to form part of the report “Children and Youth in Aotearoa 2010” to the United Nations
Committee on the Rights of the Child, prepared by Action for Children and Youth Aotearo Inc. (ACYA).
Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) believes that Aotearoa New Zealand fails to meet its commitments under
the convention in a number of areas, in particular income adequacy and health but also education and nondiscrimination.
The underlying issue is increasing income inequality and a consequent high number of children living in
poverty and severe hardship, in poor housing conditions, with limited access to primary health care. Our
research found that children from low income households in New Zealand are multiple times more likely to
suffer from large variety of diseases than their more affluent peers. These inequalities are most evident in
hospital admissions for relatively common diseases such as Rheumatic fever (28 times), Bronchiectasis (15
times), serious skin infection (5 times) and Tuberculosis (5 times).
Whilst these facts are well established. our evidence suggests that health inequalities are increasing rather
than decreasing, breaching Article 6 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (the
convention), every child’s inherent right to life. Such inequalities also breach Article 24 of the convention
which grants children the right to “...enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health...”, where health
outcomes of least deprived children serve as benchmark.
Ethnic disparities are similarly evident, which breaches Article 2. States Parties agree to ensure children are
protected against all forms of discrimination, yet Maori and Pasifika children disproportionately suffer higher
hospitalisation rates than New Zealand European/Pakeha.
In 2005, 170,000 New Zealand children lived in families earning less than 50% of the median household
income. New Zealand is outperformed by a number of countries with a much lower GDP per capita, i.e. Czech
Republic, Slovak Republic, Hungary and Korea. Widespread child poverty undermines children’s right to an
“adequate standard of living” as per Article 27 of the convention. In 2007 figures 50% of the median income
equates to $355 per week for a single parent, an amount considered insufficient to cover essential living cost.
As a direct result of poverty many children lack basics such as adequate nutrition or warm and dry housing.
New Zealand has the second worst child health and safety record amongst the 25 leading OECD countries as
measured in child deaths caused by infant deaths, immunisation rates and accidental deaths (OECD). These
measures, to a large extent related to poverty, result in a failure to meet Article 5 of the convention.
1 Dr M.Claire Dale, Research Fellow in the Department of Economics, Dr Susan St John, Associate Professor of Economics, and Dr Innes
Asher, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Auckland, are Executive Members of Child Poverty Action Group. Olaf Adam is
a Post Graduate student at the University of Auckland Business School and researcher for Child Poverty Action Group. We thank Dr Mike
O’Brien, Professor of Social Work at Massey University for his helpful critique.
3
CPAG asserts that child poverty in New Zealand is a consequence of political choices and inaction, not an
economic accident. As such, this breaches Article 3 of the convention, and CPAG hold successive governments
responsible for the continuing discrimination against children from low income families.
The current social welfare system is insufficient to provide for an “adequate standard of living” for many
parents, who are unable to provide it themselves and as such New Zealand fails in its responsibilities under
Article 26 and Article 27 of the convention
http://www.acya.org.nz/site_resources/library/Documents/Reports_to_UN/CYA_2010/Child_Poverty_Child_Health.pdf
NZ pretends recognition of the Rights of the Child
The Child Poverty Action group has issued a press statement exposing the government's hypocrisy about the Rights of the Child.
A recently released UN report on the Rights of the Child issued a damning assessment New Zealand's record, where twenty per cent of NZ children live in poverty, children's health is worsening, and social inequality is increasing.
Sue Mackwell, Deputy Chief Executive of the Ministry of Social Development, tried to put a positive spin on this appalling situation, with little success, as the CPAG points out:
http://www.cpag.org.nz/assets/Media%20releases/2011%20PR%20NZ%20response%20to%20UN%20Committee%20on%20Rights%20of%20Child%20Jan24.pdf
A recently released UN report on the Rights of the Child issued a damning assessment New Zealand's record, where twenty per cent of NZ children live in poverty, children's health is worsening, and social inequality is increasing.
Sue Mackwell, Deputy Chief Executive of the Ministry of Social Development, tried to put a positive spin on this appalling situation, with little success, as the CPAG points out:
http://www.cpag.org.nz/assets/Media%20releases/2011%20PR%20NZ%20response%20to%20UN%20Committee%20on%20Rights%20of%20Child%20Jan24.pdf
Government Hypocrisy over child abuse
Minister of Social Development Paula Bennett made a huge deal about a recent child abuse case when it finally came to light and used it to whip up anti-beneficiary sentiment and calls for punitive solutions. Michael Laws followed suit calling for all welfare to be stopped to stop the "ferals" breeding. But in fact the (accused) mother of the child had already written a letter to the Prime Minister appealing for help; as had the child's teacher, who had been trying all year to get something done. The NZEI wants the government to be more accountable.
Inter-generational poverty causes social distress and violence. There were almost no cases like this before the 1980's economic "reforms." A decent society ensures that there is a liveable income for all, and social support for all those in need.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1101/S00065/look-needed-at-government-response-in-auckland-abuse-case.htm
Inter-generational poverty causes social distress and violence. There were almost no cases like this before the 1980's economic "reforms." A decent society ensures that there is a liveable income for all, and social support for all those in need.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1101/S00065/look-needed-at-government-response-in-auckland-abuse-case.htm
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
nzherald.co.nz - Union deals sidestep Govt's 90 day law
Waitemata Unite thought you would be interested in the following item from nzherald.co.nz: Union deals sidestep Govt's 90 day law Unions are protecting thousands of new workers from the Government's 90-day trial period law by negotiating collective contracts that exempt them from it. But a battle looms in the public sector, where ... More Sign up for regular email news updates from nzherald.co.nz - click here. Visit nzherald.co.nz throughout the day for the latest breaking news. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ For internal use only: 203.211.105.228 - 2011011219.30.31 Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.7 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/7.0.517.44 Safari/534.7 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
91 Day Benefit Stand Down after 90 Day Employment?
We have been informed that WINZ has stated that it is their policy to give 91 Day Benefit Stand Downs to anyone who lost their job after being employed under a 90 Day Law.
This defies all natural justice, since the employer can sack anyone for no reason whatsoever.
However from the "Questions for Written Answer" in parliament last October, the Minister for Social Welfare, Paula Bennett, appears to be saying that this policy is wrong. In fact, it has to be proved that the worker who lost their job was guilty of "misconduct."
WINZ could possibly be denying thousands of people income that they are legally entitled to and need to survive.
8 OCT 2010
33437 (2010). Catherine Delahunty to the Minister for Social Development and Employment (08 Oct 2010): Have Work and Income staff have been instructed to assess applicants for the unemployment benefit who have lost their jobs under the 90 day law the same way as for any other employment arrangement, including whether or not they should be stood down?
Hon Paula Bennett (Minister for Social Development and Employment) replied: The information requested is available at the Work and Income websitewww.workandincome.govt.nz. This is also my response to written parliamentary questions 33438 and 33439 (2010).
* * *
1 DEC 2010
36825 (2010). Catherine Delahunty to the Minister for Social Development and Employment (01 Dec 2010): Can she confirm that a correct interpretation of the guidelines published on www.workandincome.govt.nz and referred to in her answer to written question 33437 (2010) is that a Work and Income client subject to a non-entitlement period from a work tested benefit under section 60H of the Social Security Act 1964 because they were fired under the 90 day trial provision and Work and Income Staff deem them to have been fired for reasons of misconduct cannot summons the employer to a Benefits Review Committee hearing.
Hon Paula Bennett (Minister for Social Development and Employment) replied: A Benefits Review Committee (BRC) is an administrative body which does not have the powers of a Court to summon witnesses. The Ministry however does have investigative powers and the investigation may include asking questions and seeking information the from an ex-employer. The Benefit Review Committee considers all the relevant information submitted from both parties in reviewing the decision.
* * *
1 DEC 2010
http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Business/QWA/7/f/6/QWA_36822_2010-36822-2010-Catherine-Delahunty-to-the-Minister-for.htm
36822 (2010). Catherine Delahunty to the Minister for Social Development and Employment (01 Dec 2010): Can she confirm that a correct interpretation of the guidelines published on www.workandincome.govt.nz and referred to in her answer to written question 33437 (2010) is that Work and Income staff assess applicants for a work tested benefit who have lost their jobs under the 90 day trial provision the same way as for any other employment arrangement, including whether or not they receive a non-entitlement period under section 60H of the Social Security Act 1964?
Hon Paula Bennett (Minister for Social Development and Employment) replied: Work and Income staff treat any application for Unemployment Benefit in the same way, whether a client is applying because of a dismissal under the 90 day employment trial or not. A voluntary unemployment stand-down can be considered where there is evidence of misconduct. However, the only difference under the 90 day employment trial, is if an employer alleges misconduct but does not provide proof, and the employee disputes the allegation, then a voluntary unemployment stand-down should not be considered. This reflects the fact that the employee does not have the right to take a personal grievance against the employer or challenge the dismissal in court with some exceptions, where a 90 day employment trial is operating. This is also my response for written parliamentary questions 36823 and 36824 (2010)..
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