Turbo-capitalism & the $15hr Living Wage Movement
Turbo-capitalism & the $15hr Living Wage Movement
On Friday 19th March Unite Union will be holding a meeting for all VUW students and staff interested in hearing more about or getting involved in the Campaign for a Living Wage. The Campaign aims to raise the minimum wage to $15hr and then set it at 2/3rds of the average wage has been out and about with petition clipboards and thousands of tiny yellow stickers at summer events around the city like One Love, Newtown Festival and Homegrown.
The Campaign for a Living Wage is being run by the Unite Union, a trade union that represents workers in fast food restaurants, cinemas, hotels and retail stores. The campaign has begun enrolling students in Unite on Campus clubs around Aotearoa to get students involved in the campaign and teach them about their rights at work. Not having secure hours, low pay, no breaks and ever increasing workloads are some of the issues that students as workers confront everyday in the workplaces of Wellington. The Living Wage Campaign aims to challenge the idea that in the age of turbo-capitalism, where enormous corporations compete for eye-wateringly high profits, workers can be treated like another expendable commodity.
This Friday students who want the Government to raise the minimum wage should get themselves to Meeting Room 1 in the Student Union to hear more about turbo capitalism and the campaign to end poverty wages. Union leader and left political commentator for over twenty years Matt McCarten will speak about the rise of turbo-capitalism in New Zealand workplaces and the need for a living wage. Joe Carolan, who has been leading the $15hr Campaign, will discuss how the campaign has brought together new and old forms of social movement organising and why John Key should be worried about the growing rage on the streets. And John Leslie, Assistant Professor at the Political Studies Department at VUW, has studied the links between union power and the minimum wage in European economies and will provide some international background to the issues surrounding the minimum wage. Followed by a chance for students and staff to debate and discuss the ideas and get involved in the campaign.
Where: Meeting Room 1, Student Union building.
When: 3pm, Friday 19 March
Contact: campaign@unite.org.nz
Comments
Minimum Wage demands and inflation
Well, here we go again. As much as I understand the need for a "fair wage" this is not going to work for most no matter how much you try to argue! Raising the minimum wage to $ 15 per hour will have as a result that employers will increase their prices for products and services offered. It is always working like this. They will want their margins and pass on the costs. So what is gained by this? The only way you have real results may be if you socialise or nationalise enterprises so that they are not "profit oriented" anymore. Then you will deal with costs to cover and a hopefully fair and reasonable pricing agenda for products and services. The question will be though, what incentive will any operator have to run a "business" on that basis? As most want some "gain" (profits are usually re-invested or used for other similar means) there will be no incentive. The "wage" or "salary" of a person taking responsibility to run any economic operation will have to be paid. Also do costs get passed on from suppliers and so forth. We can demand whatever we like, what though will the result be. Suddenly the litre of milk will not cost $ 1.80 anymore, then it will be $ 2.10 or whatever. So what is the gain of this. Please explain in reasonable terms, because I do not fall for idealistic dream shows and BS.
So in your world HC the
So in your world HC the working poor should remain poor so the slightly less affluent can afford their milkshakes?
No logical and sensible comment!
Perhaps go and try living in North Korea. Maybe you will be happier there? Certainly all get their "fair share" and "rations" in that kind of society - are they not?
Ohh, burn! you got me there.
Ohh, burn! you got me there. Seriously is that the best you can come up with? - piss off to a country you assume that I have some sympathy with their national leadership, Itś about as pointless and redundant as me telling you to fuck off to the US
We all know how fucked up Nth Korea is, kinda shows what happens when people get in the way ideology. On a smaller scale that is happening here, with the Nats cutting services without any thought on how that will affect the services to those who need them.
oh dear he price of milk will
oh dear he price of milk will go up ...good its not only bad for you ,its a huge industry that pollutes and exploits animals
what a shit speices humans are the only ones that have to drink the milk of another
¨its a huge industry that
¨its a huge industry that pollutes and exploits animals¨
So is the Soy Bean industry. In fact any industry by it´s very nature is exploitative. Try having a look outside your bubble and seeing how most people live
how about you get out of your
how about you get out of your bubble ,but i guess your heads firmly in the sand ,its all about you isnt
The Workers Are Going to Abolish Wages Slavery.
The IWW--Industrial Workers of the World say they will abolish wages slavery which they call conservative, and put forward the goal of a 'workers state' that will end all forms of exploitation of labour. Workers of the world, unite!!
More drivel and phantasising
What do you mean by a "worker's state"? Where is it going to come about? What are you doing to achieve it? Maybe start opening borders and let free migration flow, share your flat and house with whoever may come in from the street to want and need a place for the night, let goods and services flow freely across borders! Are you not convincing "the masses"? It should already happen anyway, because there is so much exploitation and suppression. I see little of it though. The students in town are busy parading up and down Queen St, chatting about the newest gig, fashion, boy-friend, etc., planning their careers to be better off than others, the other side of society is busy drinking, drugging, screwing and watching stupid videos, etc.. What enlightenment we have! Get on with it you smart revolutionaries! Good luck!
More drivel and more drivel
How do you get a fair minimum wage on a global scale? Do you even anticipate this? What about working out the average income and/or wage of every individual on this planet by adding up all individual incomes and dividing it by the number of people living on this earth? That may be an acceptable average minimum wage for all on the globe, may it not be? How do you equally share the resources like water, minerals, fertile grounds, and so forth, when they are not equally distributed amongst geographical regions? All this would be necessary to do to really achieve a "levelled" and perhaps "fair" global and international scenario. Are you actually achieving this by talking about some random minimum wage figure in one country that is perhaps applicable here? I doubt it. Show us and explain a bit more how this can be achieved. The age of "isms" is over, I am afraid, we need practical solutions, not drivel and propaganda.