Tertiary education for the rich, not the poor

August 7, 2012 by

While University funding has been trending downwards per student since the 70’s, cuts have started to ramp up since the election of the current National government in 2008. The recently unveiled budget contained an actual cut to the tertiary education budget, when recently the budget has seen below-inflation increases. Down from $4 billion to $3.9 billion. Funding is not expected to reach 2009 levels until 2016 and by then inflation will have undermined the value of that funding in real terms. Since 2008 the number of university students has increased by 5,000 but funding has decreased by $500 million after inflation. The Universities have survived to an extent by cutting programmes and applying wider cuts to funding levels. The point is being reached where the easier cuts to back-room funding, tutors etc. will not make the savings required at the lower funding levels, redundancies and harsher cuts as seen at Canterbury will become the norm across the country.

Alongside the cuts to general funding pools for the university. The government has been making loans and allowances harder to access. The 10% repayment rate on income over $19,084 has been increased to 12%, in Australia repayments start at 4% on and income of $44,912 and slowly rises to 8% for $83,408 and above. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Education

Rest home workers strike

August 4, 2012 by

“When someone works for less pay than she can live on when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. The ‘working poor,’ as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else.”

– Barbara Ehrenreich

It’s an indictment on our economic system that some of the most socially valuable work is also the lowest paid. Last month 70 members of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) and the Service and Food Workers Union Nga Ringa Tota (SFWU) employed at Aranui Home and Hospital took three days of industrial action. The majority of Aranui rest home care staff are paid the minimum wage of $13.50 an hour and over the past 11 years have only had pay increases when required by law. The workers have been in negotiations with their employer since last October.

“The Human Rights Commission’s recently released report exposed the crisis of modern day slavery occurring in residential aged care.” Said NZNO Industrial Advisor Rob Haultain. “Aranui is a very good example of this slavery. These workers are shown little respect for the complex work they do or the fact that they are the core of the employer’s business.”

“If slavery means working hard in difficult situations with challenging residents for the minimum wage then there is no question that these workers face this experience daily.”

Aranui owner Ashton Parker has interests in early childhood facilities, gynaecology services as well as residential aged care. All of those sectors receive significant state funding. In times of austerity those services are cut back or allowed to stagnate such as with this years “zero budget”. The struggle of carers at Aranui is wider than just one employer or industry, but relates to the wider situation New Zealand finds itself in four years into the great recession caused by the global financial crisis.

Byron Clark

Filed Under: Workers in Struggle

Quebec student leader tours Aotearoa/NZ

August 2, 2012 by


Guillaume Legault is a leading member of Quebec’s CLASSE — the Broad Coalition of the Association for Student Union Solidarity — a radical student organisation at the forefront of a months-long student strike against tuition fee hikes.

Quebec’s student movement is still locked in struggle with the ruling Liberal government over the new fees. The government has responded with police repression and harassment of students. It also passed a new law that bans protests of more than 50 people unless police have given prior approval.

Guillame Legault is participating in a speaking tour across Aotearoa, details below:

WELLINGTON

Date:    TONIGHT (Thursday 2nd of August)
Time:    6pm-8pm
Location:    19 Tory St
Facebook:    http://www.facebook.com/events/332438563509759/

CHRISTCHURCH

Date:    Saturday 5th of August
Time:    5pm
Location:    Canterbury WEA, 59 Gloucester St
Facebook:    http://www.facebook.com/events/417456524956987/

DUNEDIN

Date:    Monday, 6th of August
Time:    2pm-5pm
Location:   OUSA – Clubs and Societies Centre
Facebook:    http://www.facebook.com/events/439709249385162/

Filed Under: Education

Mine safety under scrutiny

August 1, 2012 by

Flames coming out of a ventilation shaft at Pike River

Byron Clark

Questions about the safety of New Zealand mines are being asked after incidents last month. On July 25 a miner was nearly killed by falling coal while installing roof supports in a new tunnel at the Spring Creek mine on the West Coast, near the site of the infamous Pike River mine. Just over a week prior, twenty-eight miners became trapped by a truck engine fire at Newmont Waihi Gold’s Trio mine, in the northern Hauruki district. In that case all the miners were evacuated safely.

Solid Energy, the owners of the Spring Creek mine, have been criticised by mine safety consultant Dave Feickert, who told Radio New Zealand that company is complacent and, at times, arrogant. “I’ve come to the conclusion that they are a company that must raise their game. They claim to be best-practice, they claim to be introducing the Queensland model which is the world’s best – well, not all of it, because they don’t want to have check inspectors. They’ve made these claims and I’m afraid they have just not proven it.”

Back in February, the Department of Labour issued Spring Creek with a prohibition notice following three separate safety incidents related to system breakdowns in safety controls. The notice was lifted two weeks later after the department said it was happy with the company’s response to the incidents.

In the wake of the Wahi fire the union representing miners, the EPMU, also called for the implementation of the Queensland model “One of the key elements of the Queensland model is for workers to elect their own check inspectors to ensure there’s an independent and trusted safety representative on the job to signal the alarm as soon as potential safety hazards arise.” Said assistant national secretary Ged O’Connell.

“We understand the Government is waiting on the Pike River Royal Commission report, but it’s increasingly clear that unless our mine safety standards are brought up to international standards New Zealand’s miners will continue to be put at risk.”

The Huntly East underground coal mine, also owned by Solid Energy was also closed for several days in June. The state owned company is one which the government has earmarked for privatisation.

Filed Under: Pike River

Greece: The simmering revolt

July 30, 2012 by

Mike Kay

Recent mainstream media reports on Greece have focused on the two general elections held in quick succession: the first, inconclusive; the second, a shaky win for the right wing New Democracy party, after voters were blackmailed into backing pro-austerity parties. But beyond the spectacle of parliamentary politics, Greece remains in simmering revolt, as the economic hardship ratchets up daily.

Union federations have called a number of general strikes, albeit with little in the way of a co-ordinated and on-going campaign to change the political game plan. A couple of disputes exemplify the militancy of workers who have had enough of being screwed. Employees at Greek Steel have faced down legal challenges and employer scab-herding to continue their struggle against job losses and cuts in pay. As the strikers put it: “we are not returning to a dangerous job that places at risk our lives for the pittance of 500 euros per month and without our 120 sacked work colleagues being reinstated”. Meanwhile workers at Phone Marketing have been on strike for over 100 days against demands by their employer to reduce them to working one day a week and being paid less than €200 a month.

On the political front, the emergence of a hard left coalition, Syriza has been remarkable. In 2009, it was polling 4.5%, but the most recent election gave it 27% of the vote, beating the social democratic Pasok party into third place. Whilst the leadership of Syriza is reformist, the coalition includes a large number of revolutionary groups. Where the revolutionaries stood independently (most notably in the Antarsya coalition) their results were disappointing. The other major force on the Greek left is the Communist Party, KKE, which remains die-hard Stalinist, has suffered a decrease in its vote, but retains a heavy base in the working class. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Greece
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