Posts by DexterX
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Don't think Warner Bros have been "disingenuous" - as their concern is detailed in the link Simon provided - what follows down the page is also interesting in that some Actors consider splitting from union NZAE on the basis that the "union doesn't speak for them, and doesn't even speak for all its own members."
After MEAA & NZEA threw the shit at the fan a month ago MEAA then register to be a NZ union last Thursday. Not only were MEAA not consulting with their members of the affialite they respresent they also had no legal standing to throw the shit until last Thursday.
It is doubtful the present excutive of each of NZEA, The CTU and MEAA have the maturity to sort things out - it is one thing to through shit at people it is another to work constrcutively and clean it the mess it creates.
If the siutaion can be saved - it doesn't matter who does it as along as it is done.
-
Kyle made a comment about the use of the word "Union" - it is of course a trade union.
-
It is time to remove the rotten fruit from the bowl.
Having regard to Russell's statement:
"The global boycott was enacted without a meeting or a vote from New Zealand members.
It was authorised by the Australian MEAA executive Simon Whipp and it's unclear how many NZ Equity members even knew about it."
The union executive should not be able to committ to industrial action, blacklisting or otherwise, without a resolution from the members concerned.
The problem with the law - The Employment Relations Act - is that union executive who are selling your labour on your behalf don't actually have to consult you about how they do this and that is where the law needs to change.
Presently in NZ when you jion a union you cede your right to be bargain and be consulted to the union executive. Under the present law the only part of the process that requires input from the worker is ratification.
NZAE - should hold an all up meeting and see what the members want to do and that could be return to the table without the CTU and without MEAA and have someone act as their bargaining agent who will consult them and do a decent job of it and pull it all together.
If this happens then I would hope that the other "party" iis open to working to solve the problem with the maturity and professionalism that it deserves.
-
In response to:
"I'm a member of a CTU affiliated union and I don't think anything of what you've said here applies. Our executive members are unpaid, we vote before employment negotiations about our claims".
Meetings of the executive are not a meeting of the union. The problem got out of hand with the black listing, The question I have is was this a course of action that the members of the union sought from the floor or was it an initiative taken by the executive with no reference to the members – was a meeting held and a resolution voted on by the membership to blacklist the Hobbit.
The negotiation of new terms and conditions could have been arranged by the parties to the dispute as a set of terms and conditions for an employment contract (to be signed by individuals for the term of the projects they worked on) that could have gained industry wide acceptance and had grass roots input from the membership provided they were consulted. The union acting as the bargaining agent on behalf of it’s members.
The arrangement above would be more flexible and more suitable; to the industry and would not be a collective employment agreement. If the situation is to be resolved this is perhaps the path along which the matter needs to progress.
The problem with a collective employment agreement is that for the term they are in force there is no industrial action; the right to withdraw your labour if things are going badly for you is lost for the term of the collective. During the term of the collective you are in a weaker position.
There is a need to go back to square one and start again, with better consultation and communication, if that is at all possible.
IMHO The direction for NZAE needs to come from the floor and not the executive being lead or advised by the CTU.
-
Face it most people could have done a better job of this than the NZAE & The CTU.
The problem with Industrial Law in NZ, and in particular the Employment Relations Act, is that a Unions does not have to consult with the membership prior to or during any bargaining or in doing anything else the executive wants to do – such as blacklisting.
When you join a union you effectively cede your right to “negotiate” and to be “consulted” to the union executive. All you are entitled to vote on at law is the ratification of an agreement.
What this means is that the union executives often use the environment of negotiation to advance their own interests/agenda and this is sometimes quite opposite to the interests of the members.
There is at times a plus to all of this from the Employers point of view in that they don’t have to deal directly with the employees, they merely have to stitch together a deal with the union executive and then that gets put to ratification.
What is interesting is that even in collective bargaining the provision of a Bargaining Process Agreement that provided for consultation with union members during the bargaining process, or ratification in an all up meeting do not have to be adhered to. The Employment Court has supported this position.
Often the work force is prevented from getting together and expressing a view. An example opf this being that ratification is often achieved by a series of small meetings part of the aim is to stop the membership getting together.
The reason for calling off the Wellington meeting is that the union executive didn’t want to deal with the wishes or resolution of the union members and likely then have to back down and lose face.
The dynamic should be that the union members are the superior body of the union and that the executive are subject to the membership, however, this is not the reality.
What many people do not realise is that the CTU is essentially the funding arm of the Labour Party and if you belong to a CTU affiliated union you are making donations to the Labour Party via CTU capitation.
When you have a National Govt there is a climate of industrial unrest, yet when you have a Labour Govt, particularly in an election year, the emphasis is on settling without unrest.
It is all just a complicated game (refer XTC) and it doesn’t really matter to the union executives what your view is or what happens they keep getting paid regardless. Where members are unhappy with the union executive the executive organise the AGM on a day when only pro executive members can turn up and the voting is stacked.
In the Union rules (that get passed at stacked meetings) the threshold of membership participation in any petition to achieve a special all up meeting to discuss and vote out the executive is essentially impossible to achieve.
In essence in NZ a union executive can embank on any policy direction if they (the executive, the CTU, or the Labour Party) wish to without having to consult with the union membership.
In the Hobbit situation everyone would have been better off without New Zealand Actors' Equity taking the course they wanted to take for whatever reason.
-
Ratzinger's speech the “Nazi's were Atheists” and the pitiful manner with which the church has dealt with sexual abuse and the raft of predators doing God’s work are an illustration that he as the head of the church and the church itself have no common humanity for the victims of the holocaust or the victims of sexual predation.
The comments although made in public to a world wide audience are directed at his “home” crowd the catholic believers, who are largely ignorant or chose for their own convenience or comfort not to acknowledge the truth of these matters.
You could well consider the church is essentially in the same position as the Tobacco industry in denying that smoking does cause lung cancer.
Ratzinger doesn’t give a Ratz about offending wider humanity or human suffering; it is the church corporate that is his concern and it is this demonstrative lack of vision (concern for humanity), which will render the church largely irrelevant.
Seeing Ratzinger and the Archbishop of Canterbury on the TV News linked together in piety made me angry to the point that I visualised what it would be like to give them both a kick in the nuts and bring them to their knees.
-
This wee quote could apply to Ratzinger, Roy or Rodney.
“He who sups with the devil should draw a long spoon - What tell'st thou me of supping?” - Shakespeare Comedy of Errors.
Ratzinger gives new meaning to, ‘I just don’t give a ratz”. People getting serious about religion don’t get the joke.
The “fake” twitter accounts, for Banksie, Clarksie and others don’t hold a candle to the belly laugh that was Burton’s Diary as published in the NBR or the unscripted comedy of errors being the Act Party implosion – should that be the Party Act implosion.
Heather Roy, in opposition, published a diary on the Act site, with Act gone for a Burton I wonder if she will bring it back.
Off to do all those 20th of the month thangs.
-
Oh I see what you are trying to say, the inaugural blowjob marked the beginning of a great institution celebrated by a daily ritual. - Got it in one no less.
-
Making the inscrutable more scrutable.
-
After all of this SCF, Hanover etc - I ask will a fence be put at the top fo the cliff and what form should it take?