THE other week I touched on how the Nordic countries' general social and economic success lay partly in having responsible union advocacy.
In regard to the relative degradation of New Zealand's social standards in recent times, with attendant repression of unions, correspondent Rob Butcher of Aramoho asks how can we "fix it".
Well, Rob, space is limited but perhaps we can take cheer that a major bulwark of the old union movement -- in the best tradition of the Boilermakers' Union and the featherbedding Maritime Union stewards on the Cook Strait ferries -- is still alive and well in the heart of our capital city.
It's colloquially known as the Trough Union and -- yes -- its HQ is right smack in the core of Parliament buildings. Its members also happen to be Members of Parliament.
Of course, they don't actually call themselves a union as such -- that would be a bit too obvious. But their cosy little collective is a union by any other name, a closed shop primed to advance the prerequisites of its members, as any self-respecting union should.
But get this -- it has the added advantage of being able to set its own terms and conditions. Loo-xury.
Historically, these terms and conditions are set through acts of Parliament passed in the dead of night just before the chamber goes into long recession -- ideally with some concurrent major disaster to help deflect any media attention that may otherwise shine a light on the nefarious dealings.
But, boy, talk about Pirates of the Caribbean -- these characters make the BNZ boilermakers seem like babes in the wood. Of course, with the current government the basic working premise is that all unions are insidious entities that must be severely curtailed, if not eliminated -- except for their own one.
Card carriers: You don't get them, they're part of the union. Prime Minister Bill English, right, and Finance Minister Steven Joyce. Photo/file
Now no one really objects to our esteemed representatives receiving appropriate wages and emoluments. Objectionable, though, is the hypocrisy that declares that bodies that advance the general interests of their employee members are all Bolsheviks, apart from comrade MPs.
No detail in their terms and conditions is wanting, given they're able to harness the best taxpayer-funded public service brains to get it right. For example, take the Members of Parliament (Accommodation Services for Members and Travel Services for Family Members and Former Prime Ministers) Determination 2014:
Limits on number of trips by family members (1) Travel under clause 43 is subject to the limits set out in this clause. (2) In the case of a family member of a member of Parliament who is not a specified member, the limits are as follows: (a) not more than 20 one-way trips in a year by the member's spouse or partner: (b) not more than 8 one-way trips in a year by a member's child if the child is 5 years or older, but not older than 17 years.
And so on ...
Geez, all those free trips. Pretty cosy, and how family-friendly.
Anyone you know score anything like this, Rob, given it's just one small example of screeds of similarly tidy entitlements? And not even counting the MP Superfund, air travel et al.
Meanwhile, in the real world of general anti-union blitzing, we now have legions of workers on pittances, mainly employed by employers who pretend not to be employing them to avoid responsibility for terms, conditions, holiday and sick pay, and the like.
Rodney Hide was the last MP to seriously criticise the Trough. But alas, in so doing he got a bit close to the edge, fell in ... next thing, he was junketing on a world trip with his girlfriend.
But Rob, even better, call our local MP. Chester's an affable fellow, I'm told, and -- as a four-term MP -- he'll have the real oil on the benefits of unions as evidenced by his own MP union's ability to extract lucrative Beehive honey through strength in unity.
Now he's quitting Parliament, he's got all the makings of a good shop steward.
