Socialist media project based in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia
Philip Ferguson The Spark August 2006
Every few months exchange rates feature as a point of discussion about the state of the New Zealand economy. For many people it must seem odd that both a “high” and “low” New Zealand dollar are presented as problematic. What is going on? Does it really matter?
(Harper Collins, London, 2004)
-Jared Phillips
Continuing with the New Zealand employers’ labour-flexibilisation drive, Prime Minister John Key has announced the introduction of a 90-day probationary employment bill that will allow new workers to be sacked without appeal, and it will come into force in March 2009.
What it means for workers
Those whose conditions will be directly attacked are the employees who are or will be in their first 90 days of employment at firms employing less than 20 people.
Slightly more than 30% of employees are employed in firms with less than 20 employees. The Council of Trade Unions has observed that of all employees, approximately 100,000 are in the first 90 days of employment, with a small employer, at any one time.
Peter Boyle from the Australian radical paper Green Left Weekly spoke in Auckland 9 December on his impressions of the revolutionary transformation of Venezuela. The meeting was hosted by RAM.
Peter arrived in Auckland straight from Venezuela where he has spent the past three weeks.
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