Those damned pesky employment laws

The EMA (Northern) had a special meeting of its Board scheduled for today.  Board Chair Graham Mountfort had hinted strongly that CEO Alasdair Thompson would be sacked, saying Mr Thompson’s future would be the subject of the meeting, and “He won’t be an advocate for us in the future.”

Now we find that the meeting has been canceled. Seems someone on the EMA Board must have recalled that our employment laws still don’t permit employers to sack employees at will (apart from in the first 90 days of their employment), and that the law gives Thompson, like most other employees, the protection of the right to a fair investigation following due process.

The EMA will oppose youth rates. Yeah right!

I’m a proud unionist, so today I joined a protest my union (Unite) helped organise against the Government’s proposal to reintroduce youth rates for the minimum wage.

We had originally planned to direct the protest at John Key, but given his absence overseas and Alasdair Thompson’s brain-fart about women’s supposed lower productivity due to their menstrual cycle earlier this week, decided to take it to the National Party policy unit  Employers and Manufacturers Association office.

It was a fun time – a hundred or so tampons (none of them used – we are heath and safety conscious) were thrown at the EMA office, or inserted through a convenient gap in their locked sliding glass door.

• [Note to self: take a camera next time – it would have made a great pic.] 
• [Note to EMA: Not a good look re health and safety – if tampons can get in through the gap in your front door, so can small incendiary devices or biological pathogens.]

TVNZ ran a small item on the protest.  They spelled Unite organiser Joe Carolan’s name wrong, but more significantly, they quoted Alasdair Thompson:

Thompson said he has always supported equal pay for equal work.

Guess that means Thompson and the EMA will be opposing the reintroduction of youth rates. Yeah, right!