The September year report from Statistics New Zealand confirms the economy has stalled and unemployment is rising. But WINZ reports the number of people receiving considered work ready and receiving “jobseeker support” dropped by 1,022 between September 2014 and September 2015 from 66,754 to 65,732. The number on Jobseeker Support with a health condition or disability also fell. Total Jobseeker numbers receiving a benefit fell by 2,232 from 123,133 to 120,901.

Tertiary Education Union Unitec branch president Sid Aksoy says staff moral is very low.

(Reprinted from Stuff)

More than 225 people could lose their jobs in a major overhaul of the Unitec Mt Albert campus. Alastair Lynn reports

Unitec academics fear a restructure is just the beginning of further privatisation.

On November 6 Unitec announced 225 roles will made redundant or disestablished as part of plans to outsource student services and replace traditional faculties with eight new 'networks' more closely aligned with key industry sectors.

Check put our facebook page 

https://www.facebook.com/justiceforkfckaikohe/

This weekend thousands of New Zealanders will join rallies, marches, picnics and protests at fourteen actions nationwide to call on the government to reject the TPPA.

“After six years of secrecy and government spin, we can now see what’s in the TPPA. Buried in over 6000 pages of legal text are obligations that no government should sign up to”, said It’s Our Future spokesperson Barry Coates.

“The TPPA would mean that we give away sovereign powers from democratically elected governments to unaccountable foreign corporations. We say: don’t sign.”

By Malcolm Deans

(Reprinted from the AWSM website)

Since 7th September up to 150 New Zealand Meat Workers Union members at AFFCO’s Wairoa shed have been refusing to sign draconian new Individual Employment Agreements (IEAs) that AFFCO are making a condition of re-employment at the plant in the new season. This is the latest epsiode in a long running saga of bitter industrial conflict at AFFCO (Auckland Farmers Freezing Company) since that company was taken over by the Talley’s Group in 2010. Already, union members at three other AFFCO sheds, Rangiuru, Imlay and Manawatu, have signed these IEAs, rather than lose their employment. The NZMWU lost an Employment Court bid in June to impose an interim injunction on AFFCO arguing that the employer’s take-it-or-leave-it offer to its long term employees returning in the new season constituted an illegal lockout. Union members at these sheds made a collective decision to sign the IEAs and maintain their union membership and ability to fight the employer on the inside.

This morning workers at KFC Kaikohe were told they are to be laid off just before Christmas. A picket has been put on the store until the company decides to do the right thing by the workers.

The company was aware of the likelihood of closure for at least a year without letting the crew know.

"Restaurant Brands made $23.8 million dollars profit last year thanks in part to the loyalty of employees and customers in small communities like Kaikohe." said Unite Union organiser Gary Cranston. "It's not like they can't afford to pay them enough to get through Christmas."

On 28 November, Union members across New Zealand will march for climate justice. Join us.

In early December politicians will meet for the 21st time in 21 years to talk about  addressing climate change. Whether they end up cutting a deal or not, whether the deal is adequate or not, it’s time for union members to step into this conversation and make sure our demands and declarations for real action on climate change are left ringing in their ears.

Click here to join Unite Union members on the marches all over the country on the 28th of November.

Union members stand up for justice every day, in our workplaces, in our communities. Union members know that when it comes to making justice happen we’ve got to be involved, hands on. And we will.

That’s why the International Trade Union confederation which represents hundreds of millions of workers worldwide has already put its demands to the French Government in the run up to this year’s climate negotiations in Paris.

It will be workers and those most vulnerable to the effects of climate change that will be most affected by the choices made and actions taken in the face of it – and it will be workers that will be building, living and breathing the inevitable transition to a different world that needs to be made. Just as we need to fight for better working conditions we need to raise our voices and get stuck in ourselves in order to make sure we see real action on climate change.

On 28/29 November, the weekend before the Paris climate talks, marches will take place in hundreds of cities all around the world, with the goal of creating the largest ever mobilisation on climate change.

Marches are planned in several towns and cities in New Zealand with the biggest one happening in Auckland.

Now is your chance to get involved in the biggest conversation of our time.

Click here to find a march near you and register your attendance

A prisoner uprising is currently underway in one of the Australian detention camps located on Christmas Island.

The camp population is a mix of asylum seekers and New Zealanders being forcibly removed from Australia following a term in prison there.

One of the prisoners told Radio New Zealand that they faced being beaten and killed by the guards. "They don’t hold back, if they come in here they’re gonna hurt us without a doubt. We’re not thinking that they won’t, we know 100% that they’re gonna come in and try to hurt us, so we’re just sick of it. It’s abuse, it’s torture, it’s time that we took a stand."

 
Iranian Kurdish refugee Fazel Chegeni has been found dead following his escape from Christmas Island Detention Centre on Friday. A riot has broken out following his death

Transcript of a Radio NZ interview November 9, 2015, with a Kiwi prisoner on Christmas Island, an Australian Immigration detention centre, after prisoners seized control of the facility following the death of an Iranian refugee.

Protests need to be organised in Australia and New Zealand to stop a bloodbath against prisoners simply asserting their humanity.

RNZ: Hi there

Hi, how's it going?

Good, now tell us what's going on with you. What's happening right now?

Basically the detainees have taken control of the detention centre and we're sort of just waiting for a response. We don't know what's going to happen next and it's not like we've got anywhere to go so we've kind of just made our own little home on the island, I guess. Been waiting for the reaction of the immigration and border force to do what they have to do.

They go to great lengths to ensure the products are made to an exacting standard but it seems when it comes to using zero hours most fast food franchises just don’t care what happens in their stores and don’t want to know. 

Unite Union, which earlier this year negotiated the end of zero-hour contracts at four major fast food chains, wrote to over seventeen other chains in New Zealand to ask them whether their franchisees used zero-hour contracts and to request meetings to discuss their employment arrangements. Even after following up the original letter most companies did not respond.