Gillard slaps down union heavies

Posted in: News- May 27, 2011 No Comments

The above was a recent headline in The Australian. Ms Gillard ordered union leaders to be more respectful to employers after Australian Workers Union leaders, Paul Howes and Bill Ludwig, declared war on mining giant Rio Tinto. The real issue is that the union is not a player in Rio Tinto because they pay their people well and employ them on individual agreements, in much the same way as NZ Aluminium Smelters at Tiwai did in the early 1990s.
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China’s rising wage bill

Posted in: News- May 27, 2011 No Comments

Han Zheng, the mayor of Shanghai, has just delivered a pleasant surprise to the city’s workers: their minimum wage is to rise by more than 10 per cent in April.

No one will be getting rich – the new rate amounts to a less than princely Rmb1232 (NZ$225) a month. But Mr Han’s announcement is part of an emerging trend. Chinese officials are seeking to head off a repeat of last year’s labour unrest amid fears that persistent and rising inflation could provide an irritant in wage discussions.
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Industry News

Public Holidays – Christmas/New Year 2011/12

Entitlement There are special rules in the Holidays Act governing the observance of the Christmas/New Year public holidays when they fall on a weekend. Note: This requires an individual assessment for every employee. This year 25 December is a Sunday and therefore: If that day would otherwise be a working day for the employee, the [...]

Payment for Public Holidays

Employee does not work on the holiday If an employee does not work on a public holiday, they are entitled to: Payment at their relevant daily pay for the day (ie what they would have got had they worked on that day), provided that day would otherwise be a working day for them, or A [...]

Holiday Entitlements for Employees Terminating Employment

When an employee is terminating employment they may be entitled to payment for public holidays occurring after the date on which they terminate. A terminating employee is entitled to any public holiday which would have fallen during the employee’s annual holidays, had the remaining annual holidays been taken immediately after the date of termination. So [...]

Declining CPI

Few wage increases this year exceeded 3%, even though the CPI for the last 12 months exceeded 4% and peaked at 5.3% for the year to June. The reason is that 2.52% of the increase was caused by increases in GST, ETS and tobacco tax, which as a matter of Government policy were offset by [...]