Union scum

[CCS]

Originally Posted by adonis

The port's productivity was fine

Bullshit.

[Juice]

Originally Posted by adonis

The port's productivity was fine

And yet productivity has gone up %25 since the contractors have been working since the beginning of the strike? The long time workers are more than happy with redundancy because their payouts will be massive. Port estimates that despite the redundancy payouts it will be ahead again in a year.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by adonis

The NZ right wing, destroying national productivity since ages back. This was never about improving productivity, it was about improving shareholder profitability.

So the city of Auckland wanted the port of Auckland to generate more profit for Auckland? Holy shit, that's crazy talk.

[fixed_truth]

Destroying the village to make it more efficient

I’m no business analyst, but I’m guessing that months of stop-work meetings, losing hundreds of millions of dollars in customers, sacking the entire work-force, paying millions more in redundancy and being placed on a global black-list is also going to compromise the efficiency and profits of the port, and its ability to return a dividend to the people of Auckland, who Brown represents. You don’t have to be pro-union to see that the management’s decision to smash the union’s hold on POAL has been a financial disaster for the company they’re being paid to run.

[cyc]

Originally Posted by fixed_truth

Destroying the village to make it more efficient

This is a completely retarded piece of "analysis". It assumes that only the immediate cost is relevant in terms of analysing whether PoA should have bent over and let the union scum have their way.*

That assumption is plainly stupid. What about the future costs of labour inflexibility, the costs of other people getting the idea that the PoA is a soft touch? And I love how that dimwit resorted to the usual tactic of arbitraily naming a profit figure and more or less declaring it sufficient. Here's a tip, in the real world, people look for a return on capital and if one invests hundreds of millions and assumes all kinds of risk, 27 million PA return is shit fuck all. It was bandied around a while back that the PoA made a 6% return on investment (no idea whether that was after tax or not). Even if it was after tax, it's most unimpressive since any company can set up a NZ resident trust, settle some non-NZ capital into that trust, put it in fixed deposit here, pay SFA tax on risk-free fixed-deposit returns, and make about 4.5% per annum. All the people imploring the PoA to settle this with the unions are just demanding that all ratepayers redistribute miney and benefits to union scum.

Another piece of high quality internet reading given to you by fixed_truth.



* In any event, there's not one shred of evidence to support the claim that hundreds of millions of "customers" (WTF?) was lost.

[adonis]

Those are all easily understood facts cyc, I'd like to see how labour "flexibility" could possibly offset them in terms of actual productivity as opposed to profitability.

As far as making the business more attractive to investment by slicing into the worker's share, well, that's the fight that's been taking since the start of the industrial age, capital vs the workers. Workers have to band together to increase their bargaining clout because their work is the only chip they have. Capital is winning big time on a global level right now and it's choking the whole economy. Your entire point just makes it into a race to the bottom as far as how much workers get payed.

AB - The directors who instigated this whole thing were hired by Rodney Hide. Their end game is privatisation and destroying collective bargaining organisations.

I've had this conversation too often lately and it really has bored me to death, which is why I never replied to your reply in the other thread..

Originally Posted by Ab

Seriously? You think Australia outperforms NZ economically because of which entity oversees workplace safety in mines?

..because this facepalmingly stupid comment pretty much sums up the idiocy of the right's thinking.

If the unions had retained the right to manage their own work environment they most likely would have followed the same safety standards that they have in Australia, the accident most likely would have never happened, and that mine would still be producing today.

The thing is, that's the most obvious, most easily understood example of what I was talking about, and yet you still throw out these comments which display nothing if not your own pig-headedness on the subject. Discussing the more complicated stuff becomes a very high wall that I'm simply too lazy to try and climb over.

[fixed_truth]

Originally Posted by cyc

This is a completely retarded piece of "analysis".

You're very welcome to your opinion on danyl's "analysis".

re: "customers" - Ports of Auckland boss Tony Gibson has publicly stated that 'the recent loss of business by Maersk and Fonterra could cut port revenue by $25 million a year'.

Yes a 6% rate of return is what's being reported ($18 million p.a. to shareholders) - with the Council wanting an increase to 12% over five years. Whether or not this is reasonable in the present economic climate is arguable. And also it seems that where people sit on this issue is a lot relative to their opinion what's a reasonable R.O.I from a public owned company providing economic infrastructure.

And btw the productivity of the company actually was increasing steadily. We had Gibson (in September) announcing that the rate of cargo unloaded off ships was “the best ever recorded at the Ports of Auckland”. Workers boosted productivity by 4.1% last year and were rewarded with a barbeque and bonuses. We also had the union saying that the port is the second most time-efficient in Australasia, next to Tauranga.

The concerns about the Port needing to reduce its wage bill by reducing the amount of time that workers spend on paid breaks are legitimate. What danyl and others are pointing out is that the way top management have gone about things might not of been the best way to handle the situation.

[Golden Teapot]

It's going to be tough on those families; daddy is going to have to go to work for a whole 8 hours per day if he is to take home pay for a full day. How are they going to cope?

It's going to be bloody tough for them to get a job too. Having on your CV that you'd behaved as these folk have isn't going to lend to many job offers I imagine.

[A Corpse]

Oh I dunno, Len Brown could sort them out some jobs as council workers. They're probably qualified to stand around leaning on shovels looking into a hole.

[Ab]

3News: "One worker's quest for a fair go"

http://www.3news.co.nz/One-workers-q...8/Default.aspx

Comment at Whaleoil from a port worker:

Last night John Campbell interviewed Ports of Auckland and MUNZ member Mita Skipper who told the viewers that he has worked at the Ports of Auckland for 5 years as a straddle driver and really loves his job.

Mita is the face of the MUNZ postcard which has been dropped in mailboxes all over the city.

Mita has been on ACC and light duties for the last 2 and a half years. His light duties entail that he has to turn up to work for 4 hours a day and he spends those sitting in the mess room talking to people.

Mita Skipper is going to find himself not only redundant but not wanted by any contracting out company. Which is a shame as he has 12 children.

[cyc]

Originally Posted by fixed_truth

And also it seems that where people sit on this issue is a lot relative to their opinion what's a reasonable R.O.I from a public owned company providing economic infrastructure.

For all the emotive description of PoA as a provider of public economic infrastructure (this kind of description is nigh on useless since that's applicable to so many entities), one reality remains: if you accept artificially low ROI as the ONLY shareholder, you're effectively approving of a form of wealth redistribution to certain favoured groups that benefit from the low ROI. Do you support the Auckland Council so behaving?

I have no problems with wealth redistribution if it's based on campaigned-for policies and done by democratically elected people/entities. But PoA was set up as an independent investment entity and should operate under usual commercial principles. If you don't like this, get the Auckland Council to change their policies. Until then, get with reality.

[Macca@Work]

Originally Posted by adonis
The port's productivity was fine

[fixed_truth]

Originally Posted by cyc

But PoA was set up as an independent investment entity and should operate under usual commercial principles.

Yes but setting out to causualise permanent staff isn’t necessarily a ‘usual commercial principle’. I don’t see how in this economic climate PoA was going to double its productivity in the short time-frame without doing what they’ve done.

[cyc]

Originally Posted by fixed_truth

Yes but setting out to causualise permanent staff isn’t necessarily a ‘usual commercial principle’. I don’t see how in this economic climate PoA was going to double its productivity in the short time-frame without doing what they’ve done.

Yeah but you're just being deliberately disingenuous by focusing on the outsourcing in terms of defining what constitutes "usual commercial principle". A fundamental plank of a company operating under usual commercial principles is that the management endeavours to maximise shareholders' returns long term AND that the board/shareholders stay out of the day-to-day operation. If the shareholders/board don't like what the management is doing, they can sack these people. If you don't like the fact that PoA is/should be operating under such a structure, campaign to the Auckland Council to change this. Until this is changed, STFU.

The PoA isn't doing anything wrong per se by choosing to casualise the workforce in the management's endeavours to maximise shareholders' returns. Time will tell whether their strategy is right or wrong. What is for certain is that they aren't accountable to you and I (nor should they be under the current structure) and what is ordinary commercial principles isn't whatever floats the fancy of the hard left.

[fixed_truth]

Um if people don't like the current operating structure then they're obviously going to raise concerns.

And yes time will tell if their strategy is right or wrong. Which is what the link I posted was considering. It's not unrealistic that the cost of the dispute (including loss in business, redundancy etc) could take over 10 years to be offset by the gains from a lower wage bill.

edit: btw I'm not saying that PoA management shouldn't aim to maximise ROI nor simply concede to the Unions demans; rather that IMO, maybe they could of handled things a bit less aggressively (explored other options ie, different productivity systems) and anticipated costs better.

[cyc]

Originally Posted by fixed_truth

edit: btw I'm not saying that PoA management shouldn't aim to maximise ROI nor simply concede to the Unions demans; rather that IMO, maybe they could of handled things a bit less aggressively (explored other options ie, different productivity systems) and anticipated costs better.

How do you know they haven't re: looking at other options? Are you privy to all aspects of the PoA internal discussions?

[adonis]

Originally Posted by Macca@Work

Originally Posted by adonis
The port's productivity was fine

Calling me a commie huh? Yeah that's a worthy addition to the discussion. Bit of an odd picture to post though considering the period from which it came. The Soviet Union went from being underdeveloped compared Europe and the USA and went on to become an economic super power in a single generation. There are lessons to be learned there other than "communism sucks", you'd have to look at Nazi Germany to see faster development.

The system has many flaws, but in the early days at least productivity was certainly not one of them. When success in an industry is easily measured a monopoly will always be more efficient in terms of actual physical productivity, when it's kept free of corruption anyway.

[Macca@Work]

"The Soviet Union went from being underdeveloped compared Europe and the USA and went on to become an economic super power in a single generation"

Hell yeah.Those gulags in Siberia rocked my boat! Sign me up.
Go read Animal Farm or anything by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

[Baxton]

Originally Posted by Macca@Work

"The Soviet Union went from being underdeveloped compared Europe and the USA and went on to become an economic super power in a single generation"

Hell yeah.Those gulags in Siberia rocked my boat! Sign me up.
Go read Animal Farm or anything by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

that all happened under stalins reign not lenin right?

[Torka]

Originally Posted by Macca@Work

Go read Animal Farm

lol until now I believed people who think Orwell was anti-socialism were a myth

[Macca@Work]

that all happened under stalins reign not lenin right?

Good point!! Let's look at other more contemporary models of communism.
How about..North korea and China?Two shining examples of why we should all adopt this amazing ideology.

[Macca@Work]

lol until now I believed people who think Orwell was anti-socialism were a myth

George Orwell was actually a fan of communism until he saw what it really did.
That's what prompted him to write the book in the first place.

[CCS]

Originally Posted by adonis

The port's productivity was fine

Australasia, in order of productivity:
1. Tauranga
2.Melbourne
3. Wellington
4.Brisbane
5.Lyttelton
6.Otago
7.Freemantle
8.Sydney
9.Adelaide
10. AUCKLAND
11.Napier

No, really, it's fine!



I said, IT'S FINE! As long as Auckland is more productive than Karachi then we're sweet!

[cyc]

Originally Posted by CCS

I said, IT'S FINE! As long as Auckland is more productive than Karachi then we're sweet!

LOL! Look for the hard left shit to come back with some brain dead reply that PoA wasn't enough of a monopoly.

[cyc]

Originally Posted by adonis

Those are all easily understood facts cyc, I'd like to see how labour "flexibility" could possibly offset them in terms of actual productivity as opposed to profitability.

Of course what that post of mine pointed out were relatively easily understood facts fo people with sense and an attachment to reality, which evidently excludes you. For all my disagreements with F_T, that guy at least has a reasonable attachment to reality, whereas you seem to think that you're some kind of oracle who can just assert blatantly ridiculous propositions like monopolies being more efficient and pretend that everyone else who refuses to agree is crazy.

You have no understanding of why profitability matters, particularly within the present context. For all the emotive shit about workers being shafted and race to the bottom etc, it's beyond a shadow of a doubt that PoA's productivity could do with improvement AND that its ROI is abysmal. Anyone who refuses to do anything about this in view of its current ownership structure AND supports the continuation of the excessive benefits for this bunch of unproductive workers concerned is supporting cronyism in favour of a select bunch using other people's money.

[adonis]

Originally Posted by Macca@Work

Hell yeah.Those gulags in Siberia rocked my boat! Sign me up.
Go read Animal Farm or anything by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

No-one is suggesting that we adopt that system, I'm certainly not at least.

CCS: even if that graph is correct, casualising the work force isn't going to increase productivity. Other measures may, but pro tip: paying your work force less (and from the director's POV that's what this is about) won't increase productivity.

Melbourne port isn't far off Tauranga by the looks of things, and guess what? Their Union makes ours look like a toothless kitten.

http://www.cargonewsasia.com/secured...?article=27429

Their union is being told no to a 15% pay rise over 3 years, our union was essentially asked to disband.

[adonis]

You have no understanding of why profitability matters, particularly within the present context.

You have no idea what I understand. profitability matters in the context of a competitive market system, but a market system is inefficient when dealing with industries that benefit from central planning and collective ownership, which is what I've been saying all along. The fact that you keep throwing out these strawman arguments indicates that you do not understand the what my argument is, and are even further away from creating an appropriate rebuttle to what is actually a very simple, logical premise.

cronyism in favour of a select bunch using other people's money.

You appear to have right wing libertarian leanings. I suggest you get that looked at.

[cyc]

Originally Posted by adonis

You have no idea what I understand. profitability matters in the context of a competitive market system, but a market system is inefficient when dealing with industries that benefit from central planning and collective ownership, which is what I've been saying all along. The fact that you keep throwing out these strawman arguments indicates that you do not understand the what my argument is, and are even further away from creating an appropriate rebuttle to what is actually a very simple, logical premise.

Assertions are not arguments. "Simple, logical premise"? Get back to the mental asylum. You've never proven that this industry benefits from central planning and collective ownership. Nor have you ever proven that monopolies are more efficient.

[adonis]

Again you misunderstand my argument, and this discussion has gotten a little OT from the current dispute.

Markets cost money, that is a fact, I'm not talking about this particular industry specifically. Competition costs resources, any fool can see that.

In order to justify the extra costs, there has to be an associated benefit, and it has been far from proven that in all cases this is true. YOU have to prove that markets are better than monopoly positions, I shouldn't have to prove a negative.

If there are benefits, and I'm sure in many cases there are benefits to having a market system, they need to overcome the material requirements of having a market, benefits of which will vary depending on how easily central planning can control the resource.

The thing is, under a market system, when competition no longer meets the benefits, businesses tend to amalgamate in order to reduce costs. So you end up with a defacto monopoly, sometimes an oligopy where not much competition takes place. As a result of that you end up with the same problems with corruption that any monopoly that lacks sufficient levels of accountability have. This is pretty obvious with oil companies, which essentially provide the same service, compete to a degree, but they follow each other's actions with a fine degree of scrutiny, including their less desirable traits. Like funding AGW denial.

[GM]

You don't need to go that far really, central planning and collective ownership exists in new zealand under the guise of Bureau's, competing media companies such as Fairfax and APN collectively own and operate these as they understand having multiple sales avenues and systems are actually detrimental to the system as a whole. Anyway carry on.

[cyc]

Originally Posted by adonis

YOU have to prove that markets are better than monopoly positions, I shouldn't have to prove a negative.

Err, no. I am not the one who's behaving like he's the know-it-all of economics. And you're the one making positive assertions, douchebag. Where do you hold your professorship, Mr I-just-disproved-every-mainstream-economic-theory?

[adonis]

The only positive assertion I've made is that a market requires resources. Do you dispute this?

[adonis]

Originally Posted by GM

You don't need to go that far really, central planning and collective ownership exists in new zealand under the guise of Bureau's, competing media companies such as Fairfax and APN collectively own and operate these as they understand having multiple sales avenues and systems are actually detrimental to the system as a whole. Anyway carry on.

Yep, I guess I kinda started at the "top" but there's plenty of other examples that are closer to home with varying degrees of public accountability.

[cyc]

Originally Posted by adonis

The only positive assertion I've made is that a market requires resources. Do you dispute this?

Yeah, keep pretending that you aren't asserting a monopoly is better in this instance, Mr PoA's-Productivity-Is-Fine.

[adonis]

Originally Posted by cyc

Yeah, keep pretending that you aren't asserting a monopoly is better in this instance, Mr PoA's-Productivity-Is-Fine.

I've never asserted that. Please to be quoting where I said that. Oh right, you're a two-faced lying shithead lawyer. Talking about some of the negative aspects of competition doesn't mean I've stated a definitive position on competition in this particular instance. For the record, with ports I think the issue is very complicated because of the way the service interacts with the rest of the economy. I do think that collective bargaining is good for the workers though, and good for the rest of the economy in the long run.

As for the ports productivity, I guess it depends on how you define "fine", but it certainly isn't going to be improved by the measures the directors are taking with regards to removing the union from the equation.

I suppose that if there are actions that the port can take to increase productivity that requires funds, funds that can only be acquired by attracting investment, and therefore reducing the workers pay is a strategy to acquire those funds, then I would consider that to be an example of one of the negative aspects of having a competition model. However I've heard no such reasoning specifically, the reasoning I've heard is basically along the lines of "Tauranga does it and their productivity is great".

Oh and BTW: a lot of "mainstream" (if there is such a thing, if there's one thing economists agree on is that they mostly disagree with each other) economists these days would agree with me on this (on monopolies vs markets). Keep up with the assumptions, insults and half truths though, because you're obviously no good at anything else.

[cyc]

Originally Posted by adonis

I've never asserted that. Please to be quoting where I said that. Oh right, you're a two-faced lying shithead lawyer.

Oh that's nice.

Keep up with the assumptions, insults and half truths though, because you're obviously no good at anything else.

Ain't that rich coming from you?

[CCS]

Originally Posted by adonis

CCS: even if that graph is correct, casualising the work force isn't going to increase productivity. Other measures may, but pro tip: paying your work force less (and from the director's POV that's what this is about) won't increase productivity.

Of course the graph is correct.

Do you know that the Port contractors will be paying their workers less? How do you know that? Keep in mind that the POA was already willing to pay something like 10% more and MUNZ said it wasn't about the money. POA will pay what it requires to get a workforce.

What POA wants is to pay the workforce for the hours they work, which seems fair to me. What MUNZ wants is to get paid 40 hours for doing 26 hours of work in a week. They want to show up, bugger about and when they have as ship to unload, they'll do it in their own sweet time because they know that in addition to getting paid for the idle hours, they'll get paid for overtime. Doesn't sound very productive.

This 'casualising the workforce' thing is really just a catchphrase that the union came up with which doesn't really describe the situation. BTW, as well as getting their redundancy, the union and non-union workers (they all got made redundant, remember) can apply for a job with the contractors. Despite people saying "they've lost their livelihoods!", they haven't really.

[adonis]

Most jobs have a certain amount of downtime. Sometimes customer service people don't have customers. Coder's have to wait for their shit to compile etc. The port were allowing the workers to schedule their rosters a month in advance, the problem here is this: What other business would work around this and provide them with supplemental income of similar magnitude? The answer is probably not many, I'd imagine most would probably be minimum wage.

The point here is that it's not just a matter of paying people for the work that they do, you have to pay people for their time as well. The port were offering an increase to their hourly rate, but their aim was to reduce the total amount they were paying out. No-one's really disputing this. My opinion is that the impact their work has on their lives should factor into how much they're paid.

Your previous points were worthy of discussion CCS, I think you're an insufferable douchenozzle (at least on teh webz) and that's prettymuch the closest thing to a compliment as you're likely to get from me, but then you added this idiotic brainfart,

Originally Posted by CCS

They want to show up, bugger about and when they have as ship to unload, they'll do it in their own sweet time because they know that in addition to getting paid for the idle hours, they'll get paid for overtime. Doesn't sound very productive.

ORLY? quite an accusation! I expect video footage and eyewitness accounts of this! Maybe there are some about who fit this discription? Fire them, if you can find proof that this problem is systemic, fire many people until the problem has been scourged from the business. Oh wait, they WANT to do this? Yeah that sounds like a sweet job, I'll take 2, wait are they actually doing this or just wanting to do it? 'cause I want that job. Just sayin'... but if I can't have it they should totally get fired. Yeah.

Originally Posted by cyc

UR

The guy who made a thread called "Union scum" felt it prudent to point out that I called him names. Funny stuff.

[cyc]

Originally Posted by adonis

The guy who made a thread called "Union scum" felt it prudent to point out that I called him names. Funny stuff.

I've already explained why I described the people concerned as "scum". You evidently have a much higher opinion of deliberate law breakers than the rest of us. Congratulations on being "different", i.e. stupid.

[adonis]

It depends on the law. Work is the just about the only negotiating chip workers have. If you get offered an unfair deal your options basically come down to threatening not to work, and following through with that threat.