WORK TILL YOU DROP

The CTU bureaucrats are going to support Labour's threat to raise the retirement age to 67.

What's 'a point of difference' between two right wing neoliberal parties, namely the Labour Party and National?

According to the hopeless Peter Conway, CTU secretary and Labour Party flunky, it's Labour's nasty proposal to raise the retirement age to 67.

Workers might think that Labour's plan to make them work until they drop is, to put it mildly, 'exploitative', but according to Conway, its 'bold'. In the same way that taking the axe to the welfare state is 'bold'.

Having obviously connived with the Labour leadership to come up with this lousy policy, Conway wants us to believe that 'The increase in the qualifying age for NZ Super will be a challenging issue for unions to work through.' As they might say in Parliament, Conway is being 'economical with the truth'.

Perhaps one of the 'challenging' issues for Peter Conway and the CTU will be trying to promote this policy to a membership who might reasonably expect the CTU to defend their interests - although after many years of being betrayed and sold out by the CTU bureaucracy many workers expect nothing from their union ''leaders'. Which is usually what they get. And less.

Conway goes on to say: 'But there will also be concerns, particularly among manual workers”.

Hey, what 'concerns' might they may be, Pete? Conway conveniently doesn't elaborate but one of those 'concerns' will be that people in the lowest paid jobs will have the least prospect of looking forward to an early retirement.

“But we will need to discuss this policy in considerable detail with workers and employers”, says Conway, engaging in more platitudes.

In other words, the CTU is not only not going to oppose Labour's dismal retirement policy but its going to promote it among the membership.

Of course working until he is 67 won't be on the agenda for Peter Conway since he has a nice pension plan, thanks very much.

Similarly working until the age of 67 won't be on the horizon for Labour leader Phil Goff and all his Parliamentary mates.

While its a gold plated, platinum-lined, copper-bottomed pension scheme for Phil Goff and his fellow Labour MP's, he and the Labour Party are campaigning for much tougher terms for everyone else.