Don't like surcharges? Vote with your feet, says Restaurant Association chief executive Steve Mackenzie.

Customers claim businesses are being greedy in adding surcharges on days not officially holidays.

MPs were given a 1.4 per cent pay rise despite Prime Minister John Key urging the Remuneration Authority to freeze their salaries.

Members of Parliament have just got an early Christmas present - a 1.4 per cent pay increase plus an extra $2000 to make up for the scrapped international airfares rebate - in the latest review in MPs' salaries.

Silver Ferns Farms has hit back at complaints that workers at its Te Aroha plant had their pay deducted for observing a two-minute silence to remember the Pike River miners.

NZ women still struggle to gain leadership roles and suffer from high levels of domestic violence, a report says.

Staff at a North Island freezing works had their pay cut for the official two-minute silence to remember the 29 miners killed in the Pike River mine.

Grey District Mayor Tony Kokshoorn is calling for Pike River to be made into an opencast coal mine, amid efforts to keep the 114 skilled miners made redundant today on the West Coast.

Add Christmas and the associated financial pressures into the mix, and I suspect this unfortunate trend of employee theft and fraud may continue into 2011.

The Ministry of Education and the primary teachers and principals' union have reached an agreement on collective contracts.

Name suppression has been lifted for an accountant who fiddled a payroll system to give himself a $10,000 payrise.

Phoenix coach Ricki Herbert hasn't been paid for several weeks as Terry Serepisos struggles to pay his bills.