#Employment disputes in New Zealand

[thomascarterpd]

Working in New Zealand as An Australian

Working across the Tasman Sea in New Zealand offers Australians exciting opportunities, but it comes with specific considerations. From visa requirements to taxation, employment rights, and healthcare access, understanding these key aspects is vital for a successful and seamless transition to the Kiwi workforce. Explore this guide to working in New Zealand as an Australian

Visa Requirements

Australians have the advantage of being able to enter New Zealand and work without the need for a separate work visa, thanks to the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement. This agreement allows for easy movement between the two countries, making it relatively straightforward for Australians to seek employment in New Zealand. However, it’s essential to be aware of certain requirements. You must meet New Zealand’s health and character requirements, which include being in good health and having no criminal convictions. It’s advisable to carry your Australian passport as proof of citizenship while in New Zealand to facilitate a hassle-free entry and employment process.

Additionally, it’s crucial to stay informed about any changes in immigration policies or regulations, as these can evolve over time. While the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement generally provides a smooth transition, it’s wise to check the government’s official immigration website when you are moving from Australia to New Zealand or consult with a migration expert for the most up-to-date information before making your move.

Taxation

When working in New Zealand as an Australian, understanding the tax system is vital. New Zealand has its own tax laws and regulations, which can differ from those in Australia. Aussies working in New Zealand may be subject to income tax on their earnings. However, there’s a Taxation Agreement in place between the two countries to prevent double taxation. This means that you may receive a tax credit in Australia for the tax you pay in New Zealand, helping to avoid overtaxation on your income. To ensure compliance and understand your tax obligations fully, consider consulting a tax advisor or contacting the tax authorities in both countries to clarify any questions you may have regarding your tax liability.

It’s essential to keep accurate records of your income and expenses while working in New Zealand to facilitate the tax filing process. Understanding the tax laws will enable you to manage your finances effectively and ensure that you meet all your tax obligations in both Australia and New Zealand while working across the Tasman Sea.

Employment Rights

Understanding your employment rights when working in New Zealand is crucial to ensure fair and legal treatment in the workplace. New Zealand has robust labour laws and regulations in place to protect employees. Key aspects to consider include minimum wage, working hours, and workplace conditions. The minimum wage is regularly reviewed and adjusted to align with the cost of living, so it’s essential to stay updated on the current rate. New Zealand generally follows a 40-hour workweek, but this can vary depending on your industry and employer. Be sure to review your employment contract for specific terms and conditions.

In the event of employment disputes or issues, the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) is the governing body that oversees disputes and ensures fair resolution. It’s advisable to familiarise yourself with the ERA’s functions and processes, as they play a vital role in safeguarding your rights as an employee in New Zealand. Additionally, joining a relevant trade union or professional association can provide you with valuable support and resources related to your industry and employment rights.

Read the full article to know more about Working in New Zealand as An Australian

[technologyblogs1211]

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[aimeemedia330]

Healthy Homes NZ

The Tenancy Services webpage offers information on tenants' rights to healthy homes in New Zealand. It also advises situations where landlords are exempt from the healthy homes standards.

I aim to use information from this website in my podcast, this will be used when offering advice about mouldy homes, breaking tenancies, and disputes with landlords.

For example, the website states the following:

If a rental property is part of a building and the landlord does not own the entire building (for example, if a landlord owns an apartment). The landlord will be partially exempt from complying with parts of the standards if their ability to comply with the healthy homes standards is not possible because:

they need to install or provide something in a part of the building where the landlord is not the sole owner, or

they need access to a part of the building that they are not the sole owner.

I will ensure that I will state clearly that I am using information from this website in my podcast.

References:

Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment. (2023) Healthy Homes. Tenancy Services. https://www.tenancy.govt.nz/healthy-homes/

[beyondthepage]

Expand Your Horizon, Pick Up a New Tongue

“One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way”, Frank Smith. Speaking, writing and reading are essential to everyday life, and language is the primary tool for expression and communication. There are roughly more than 7100 languages spoken in the world today, approximately 1.35 billion out of 7.8 billion inhabitants speak English and the majority aren’t native English speakers. Countries with native English speakers include New Zealand, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and others. So far, besides being widely spoken, it is the most commonly learned foreign language in the world. However, there are some disputes that learning a foreign language is useless. Some said that mastering a foreign language could have more job opportunities while others thought learning a new language is costly and time-costing. Therefore, the question arises, is it important for us to learn of second language?

To start off, learning foreign language can improve the chances of getting jobs and better job prospects. In today’s business driven society, being bilingual or multilingual can give you a competitive edge when searching for jobs, or maintaining your current employment. Companies that are planning to expand or have expanded overseas and global, such as Allianz and Apple, are constantly looking for bilingual employees. They are well paid and have good benefits, because they will ultimately give the company a huge competitive advantage and performance. By learning a foreign language, you will be indispensable in your workplace as you can easily bridge the cultural gap between the two countries by understanding the needs of global customers, partners and suppliers. Hence, foreign language is beneficial for your career.

Furthermore, mastering one or more foreign languages could increase cultural awareness. Cultural awareness is being aware of and respecting the influence and role of different cultures. This enables us to communicate effectively and understand the intentions of the people from different backgrounds. A lack of cultural awareness may mislead crucial decisions. Apart from that, it helps us avoid misjudging people from different cultural backgrounds and allows for a better way of relating than having a conflict. The ultimate goal is to understand the differences between yourself and people from different countries and backgrounds, especially with unique attributes and values.

On the contrary, acquiring foreign language takes time and it’s costly. You can never succeed in any set of tasks without putting in enough time. Different languages have completely different systems of grammar, different alphabet and different sounds. Foreign Service Institute (FSI) research indicates that it takes 480 hours to achieve basic fluency in the first languages and 720 hours for second to fourth languages. Learning a language with cheap or free materials, such as YouTube videos, will never do you any good compared to the well-packed offered by recognized and expensive programs provided by educational institutions and experienced teachers. Unless you are not keen on mastering a language, you cannot learn without spending money.

Additionally, we will not necessarily have the opportunity to speak the language. If you haven’t travelled or aren’t interested in travelling, then you won’t have the chance to speak the language with natives. Even if you have the opportunity to travel, it’s easy to get around in many countries while speaking English. Knowing a foreign language may help in some careers, but it doesn’t help in many jobs. For example, a blogger or a truck driver.

To sum up everything that has been stated so far, learning a second is essential for people especially when they are looking for a job and also in their social activity. It is true that learning a second language cost time and money and it is possible for not speaking it up with the native but just simply knowing a new language could help us add skills to our own and there will be a time where you can speak up.

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 13 February 1951, Aotearoa/New Zealand's biggest ever industrial dispute began when dock workers started an overtime ban demanding the same 15% pay increase that all industrial workers had just been awarded. Waterside workers had only been offered a 9% pay increase, by the mostly British-owned shipping companies. The employers responded by locking out the workers, supported by the government who introduced emergency laws, brought in the army and navy to work as scabs and deregistered the Waterside Workers' Union. The national umbrella union group, the Federation of Labour, supported the government, and the opposition Labour Party also failed to support the Waterside workers. Despite all the forces ranged against them, up to 20,000 other workers took solidarity strike action in support of the dockers, and thousands more refused to handle scab goods. But after 151 days, the workers were forced to concede defeat. In the wake of the dispute, many militants were blacklisted and prevented from working on the docks for years afterwards. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1920052584846549/?type=3

[southeastasianhistories]

The Australian external territory of Christmas Island is infamous for its immigrant detention center. But the island also has a history of solidarity: in the 1970s, its Chinese and Malaysian workers led a union struggle against colonialism and apartheid.

Christmas Island rises from the Indian Ocean around 1,600 kilometers from Australia. Closer to Singapore than the mainland, it is home to a population of around two thousand people, the majority of whom have Chinese ancestry, with a sizable minority of people of Malay heritage. This tropical rocky speck is unlike most of Australia — on Christmas Island, Lunar New Year, Hari Raya Haji, and Hari Raya Puasa are public holidays.

Christmas Island is well known to Australians, but not for its natural beauty or unique red crab migrations. Rather, this far-flung external territory primarily features in Australia’s consciousness as a site of human misery. It plays host to an infamous immigration detention center, a cornerstone of a draconian border protection system that has driven Australian politics to the right for years.

However, few realize that Christmas Island has a more radical, internationalist history. It was the site of a militant trade-union struggle against a form of apartheid that segregated white and Asian workers until the 1980s. The victory of those who stood up to the Christmas Island Phosphate Company demonstrated the power of collective action to overcome racism and exploitation.

British Imperial Apartheid Settlement of the uninhabited island, named Christmas Island in 1643, only began after British surveyors discovered phosphate deposits in 1886. Britain annexed the island in 1888 and gave the Christmas Island Phosphate Company a ninety-nine-year lease on the territory. Phosphate mining began in 1899, using indentured labor from Singapore, the Malay Archipelago, and China.

In 1919, Britain transferred the management of mining on Christmas Island — as well as that of Nauru and Banaba, now part of Kiribati — to the British Phosphate Commissioners (BPC). The BPC comprised government representatives from Australia, New Zealand, and Britain. In 1949, the British government sold its mining rights to Australia and New Zealand. And in 1958, the UK transferred sovereignty over Christmas Island from Singapore to Australia. All the while, the BPC continued to manage the island using extraordinary powers. The BPC paid Asians a fifth of what white workers received and could summarily dismiss workers, who had no right to appeal.

The authorities deported fired workers within twenty-four hours, stamping their passports with NTR — “Never to Return.” They forbade Asian workers from owning land on Christmas Island or settling permanently. The BPC owned everything, including the local shop.

The island’s housing, transport, swimming pools, and education system were also highly segregated. White families lived in houses built to Australian standards while Asian families lived in small flats without hot water or air conditioning. Single Asian men lived in dormitories the size of bathrooms, without mattresses.

There were also two schools, one Asian and one European. The island’s European population were almost totally opposed to proposals to integrate the two schools.

Unsurprisingly, given this setup, one resident described Christmas Island as pretty much the last outpost of the British Raj. The BPC men were all there with their white shorts and long socks and they all played golf on Friday afternoons. The European people would put on shows at the Christmas Island Club, but by virtue of the fees, it was a European stronghold.

Striking Against the BPC The catalyst for change came in 1974, when workers struck to oppose the dismissal of Teo Boon How, the chief interpreter in the administrative office. The BPC had fired him on March 26, ordering him to leave Christmas Island within twenty-four hours. The next day, more than 1,100 workers refused to report to work, instead marching in protest.

The strike forced the acting administration to rescind Teo Boon How’s deportation order and later to reinstate him. This was not the first strike on Christmas Island. However, it signaled a shift. It was the first time the island’s Asian community exercised political power.

On March 21, 1975, fifteen Asian community leaders met secretly and formed the Union of Christmas Island Workers (UCIW). On Teo Boon How’s recommendation, they elected schoolteacher Michael Grimes as the UCIW’s first general secretary on a part-time basis, in part thanks to his experience organizing teachers’ unions. They also elected as president Lim Sai Meng, a worker with a Chinese background who had come to Christmas Island from Malaysia in 1973. Within a week of its formation, more than seven hundred workers had joined the new union.

Grimes had arrived in 1975, alongside some twenty other people from the Commonwealth Teaching Service. Their salaries outstripped those of local teachers, highlighting the extent to which the BPC underpaid Asian workers.

In 1978, Grimes resigned as UCIW secretary and was replaced by Gordon Bennett, an English migrant. Bennett’s more militant style of union organizing caught the attention of mainland Australian newspapers, highlighting the plight of Christmas Islanders.

The Chinese community nicknamed Bennett “Tai Ko Seng” (Big Brother Who Delivers). Under his leadership, the UCIW immediately called for a $30-a-week raise and minimum wage parity with the mainland within a year. The workers also demanded Australian citizenship rights for Christmas Islanders and called for the Australian government to take full administrative control of the island.

In 1979, the workers met at a cinema in Poon Saan, Christmas Island’s second-largest town. Almost the entire workforce of the island voted to take strike action in support of the UCIW’s demands, bringing phosphate production to a halt. The workers self-levied to raise a war chest of $70,000 for their campaign.

The BPC fought back against the industrial action. They stood down three hundred workers in May, following a strike by ship loaders. According to their industrial agreement, the BPC didn’t have the power to sack these workers. James Taylor, the deputy president of Australia’s arbitration commission, came to the island to mediate the dispute.

At the company’s request, Taylor inserted a stand-down clause into the ship loaders’ agreement, retrospectively legitimizing the BPC’s move. Unsurprisingly, this only fanned the flames of the strike.

The workers reacted swiftly. A mass meeting of 1,500 workers voted to prevent Taylor from leaving Christmas Island. Taylor was only allowed to leave some days later, after Australian Council of Trade Unions president Bob Hawke flew to Christmas Island and intervened on his behalf.

Next, the UCIW took its campaign to the mainland, where they made use of a series of creative tactics. They took the home affairs minister to court for underpayment and established a protest tent camp outside Parliament House in July 1979. Later that year, they waged a twelve-day hunger strike, garnering media attention.

Against all odds, the union won the pay raise it had demanded immediately. And its protest actions resulted in a public inquiry into the BPC. The inquiry recommended that Christmas Island be brought under the same administrative jurisdiction and industrial legislation as mainland Australia. A former BHP executive, Wilfred Sweetland, ran the inquiry and was scathing of the BPC, describing it as “colonial” and “repugnant.”

By 1981, the UCIW had won all its industrial demands including wage parity. The publicly owned Phosphate Mining Company of Christmas Island took over the phosphate industry. This finally put an end to the BPC’s rule. Following his victory in the 1984 election, Bob Hawke’s Labor government brought Christmas Island fully under Australian administration.

Ongoing Injustices Despite these victories, Christmas Islanders are still confronted by injustices. In 1987, the Australian government closed the phosphate mine. Although union workers purchased the mine and reopened it in 1990, other attempts at economic diversification have not borne fruit.

The Australian government blocked proposals to boost tourism by revitalizing the island’s resort and casino, previously legislating to prohibit casino operations. This means that Serco, the company that runs the notorious Christmas Island Detention Centre, is the island’s largest employer.

The battle against the legacy of colonialism is also not over. Christmas Island has many of the characteristics of a non-self-governing territory, as described by UN Charter Article 73. Yet Australian governments still treat it like a distant possession. Islanders do not enjoy basic democratic rights.

Australian citizens in Christmas Island can vote in federal elections, but they must do so as part of the Northern Territory, and have no say over the Western Australian state laws that apply to them. Just as Christmas Islanders did not get to vote over the transfer of sovereignty to Australia in 1958, the Australian government has not consulted with them or allowed them a say over the island’s governance since.

Following its historic victories in the early 1980s, the UCIW has maintained its key role in the life of the island. Gordon Thomson, a UCIW leader who also serves as the president of the Christmas Island Shire Council, summed it up well: the collective power of unionism yet remains the most important and only real means of resisting those who would destroy us and the gains we have made as a union since 1975. Indeed, the story of the UCIW’s victorious battle against the colonial apartheid regime in Christmas Island should be as well known in Australia as other historic struggles, like the Wave Hill walk-off or the green bans. Christmas Island’s history shows that militant, class-struggle trade unionism is a powerful weapon against colonialism and racism.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

In serving big company interests, copyright is in crisis

Copyright rules are made with the needs of the entertainment industry in mind, designed to provide the legal framework for creators, investors, distributors, production houses, and other parts of the industry to navigate their disputes and assert their interests.

A good copyright policy would be one that encouraged diverse forms of expression from diverse creators who were fairly compensated for their role in a profitable industry. But copyright has signally failed to accomplish this end, largely because of the role it plays in the monopolization of the entertainment industry (and, in the digital era, every industry where copyrighted software plays a role). Copyright's primary approach is to give creators monopolies over their works, in the hopes that they can use these as leverage in overmatched battles with corporate interests. But monopolies have a tendency to accumulate, piling up in the vaults of big companies, who use these government-backed exclusive rights to dominate the industry so that anyone hoping to enter it must first surrender their little monopolies to the hoards of the big gatekeepers.

Creators get a raw deal in a concentrated marketplace, selling their work into a buyer's market. Giving them more monopolies – longer copyright terms, copyright over the "feel" of music, copyright over samples – just gives the industry more monopolies to confiscate in one-sided negotiations and add to their arsenals. Expecting more copyright to help artists beat a concentrated industry is like expecting more lunch money to help your kid defeat the bullies who beat him up on the playground every day. No matter how much lunch money you give that kid, all you'll ever do is make the bullies richer.

One of the biggest problems with copyright in the digital era is that we expect people who aren't in the entertainment industry to understand and abide by its rules: it's no more realistic to expect a casual reader to understand and abide by a long, technical copyright license in order to enjoy a novel than it is to expect a parent to understand securities law before they pay their kid's allowance. Copyright law can either be technical and nuanced enough to serve as a rulebook for a vast, complex industry...or it can be simple and intuitive enough for that industry's customers to grasp and follow without years of specialized training. Decades of trying to make copyright into a system for both industrial actors and their audiences has demonstrated that the result is always a system that serves the former while bewildering and confounding the latter.

But even considered as a rulebook for the entertainment industry, copyright is in crisis. A system that is often promoted as protecting the interests of artists has increasingly sidelined creators' interests even as big media companies merge with one another, and with other kinds of companies (like ISPs) to form vertical monopolies that lock up the production, distribution and commercialization of creative work, leaving creators selling their work into a buyer's market locked up by a handful of companies.

2019 was not a good year for competition in the entertainment sector. Mergers like the $71.3B Disney-Fox deal reduced the number of big movie studios from five (already a farcical number) to four (impossibly, even worse). The Hollywood screenwriters have been locked in a record-breaking strike with the talent agencies—there are only three major agencies, all dominated by private equity investors, and the lack of competition means that they increasingly are negotiating deals on behalf of writers in which they agree to accept less money for writers in exchange for large fees for themselves.

On top of that, the big entertainment companies are increasingly diversifying and becoming distribution channels. The Trump administration approved the AT&T/Time-Warner merger just as the Obama administration approved the Universal/Comcast merger a decade earlier. Meanwhile, Disney has launched a streaming service and is pulling the catalogs of all its subsidiaries from rival services. That means that the creators behind those works will no longer receive residual payments from Disney for the licensing fees it receives from the likes of Netflix—instead, their work will stream exclusively on Disney Plus, and Disney will no longer have to pay the creators any more money for the use of their work.

To top it all off, the DOJ is working to end the antitrust rule that bans movie studios from owning movie theater chains, 70 years after it was put in place to end a suite of nakedly anti-competitive tactics that had especially grave consequences for actors and other creative people in the film industry. Right on cue, the already massively concentrated movie theater industry got even more concentrated.

The most visible impact of the steady concentration of the entertainment industry is on big stars: think of Taylor Swift's battle to perform her own music at an awards show where she was being named "Artist of the Decade" shortly after rights to her back catalog were sold to a "tycoon" whom she has a longstanding feud with.

But perhaps the most important impact is on independent creators, those who either cannot or will not join forces with the entertainment giants. These artists, more than any other, depend on a free, fair and open Internet to connect with audiences, promoted and distribute their works and receive payments. The tech sector has undergone market concentration that makes it every bit as troubled as the entertainment industry: as the New Zealand technologist Tom Eastman wrote in 2018, "I'm old enough to remember when the Internet wasn't a group of five websites, each consisting of screenshots of text from the other four."

The monopolization of the online world means that all artists are vulnerable to changes in Big Tech policy, which can see their livings confiscated, their artistic works disappeared, and their online presences erased due to error, caprice, or as collateral damage in other fights. Here, too, independent artists are especially vulnerable: when YouTube's Content ID copyright filter incorrectly blocks a video from a major studio or label, executives at the company can get prompt action from Google -- but when an independent artist is incorrectly labeled a pirate, their only hope of getting their work sprung from content jail is to make a huge public stink and hope it's enough to shame a tech giant into action.

As online platforms become ever-more-central to our employment, family, culture, education, romance and personal lives, the tech giants are increasingly wielding the censor's pen to strike out our words and images and sounds and videos in the name of public safety, copyright enforcement, and a host of other rubrics. Even considering that it's impossible to do a good job of this at massive scale, the tech companies do a particularly bad job.

This is about to get much worse. In March 2019, the European Union passed the most controversial copyright rules in its history by a razor-thin margin of only five votes—and later, ten Members of the European Parliament stated that they were confused and had pressed the wrong button, though the damage had already been done.

One of the most controversial parts of the new European Copyright Directive was Article 17 (formerly Article 13), which will require all online platforms to implement copyright filters similar to Google's Content ID. The Directive does not contain punishments for those who falsely claim copyright over works that don't belong to them (this is a major problem today, with fraudsters using fake copyright claims to threaten the livelihoods of creators in order to extort money from working artists).

Article 17 represents a bonanza for crooks who victimize creators by claiming copyright over their works—without offering any protections for the artists targeted by scammers. Artists who are under the protective wing of big entertainment companies can probably shield themselves from harm, meaning that the heavily concentrated entertainment sector will have even more leverage to use in its dealings with creators.

But that's not all: Article 17 may have snuffed out any possibility of launching a competing platform to discipline the Big Tech firms, at least in Europe. Startups might be able to offer a better product and lure customers to it (especially with the help of Adversarial Interoperability) but they won't be able to afford the massive capital expenditures needed to develop and operate the filters required by Article 17 until they've grown to giant size—something they won't get a chance to do because, without filters, they won't be able to operate at all.

That means that the Big Tech giants will likely get bigger, and, where possible, they will use their control over access to markets and customers to force both independent creators and big media companies to sell on terms that benefit them, at the expense of creators and entertainment companies.

To see what this looks like, just consider Amazon, especially its Audible division, which controls virtually the entire audiobook market. Once a minor sideline for publishing, audiobooks are now a major component of any author's living, generating nearly as much revenue as hardcovers and growing much faster.

Amazon has abused its near-total dominance over the audiobook market to force creators and publishers to consent to its terms, which include an absolute requirement that all audiobooks sold on Audible be wrapped in Amazon's proprietary "Digital Rights Management" code. This code nominally protects Audible products from unauthorized duplication, but this is a mere pretense.

It's pretty straightforward to remove this DRM, but providing tools to do so is a potential felony under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, carrying a penalty of a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine for a first offense (EFF is suing the US government to overturn this law). This means that potential Audible rivals can't offer tools to import Audible purchases to run on their systems or to permit access to all your audiobooks from a single menu.

As Amazon grows in scale and ambition, it can, at its discretion, terminate authors' or publishers' access to the audience it controls (something the company has done before). Audiences that object to this will be left with a difficult choice: abandon the purchases they've made to follow the artists they love to smaller, peripheral platforms, or fragment their expensive audiobook libraries across a confusion of apps and screens. 

Copyright was historically called "the author's monopoly," but increasingly those small-scale monopolies are being expropriated by giant corporations—some tech, some entertainment, some a weird chimera of both—and wielded to corner entire markets or sectors. In 2017, EFF lost a long, bitter fight to ensure that a poorly considered project to add DRM to the standards for Web browsers didn't result in further monopolization of the browser market. Two years later, our worst fears have been realized and it is effectively impossible to launch a competitive browser without permission from Google or Microsoft or Apple (Apple won't answer licensing queries, Microsoft wants $10,000 just to consider a licensing application, and Google has turned down all requests to license for new free/open-source browsers).

Copyright has also become a key weapon in the anticompetitive arsenal wielded against the independent repair sector. More than 20 state-level Right to Repair bills have been killed by industry coalitions who cite a self-serving, incoherent mix of concerns over their copyrights and "cybersecurity" as reasons why you shouldn't be able to get your phone or car fixed in the shop of your choice.

All this is why EFF expanded its competition-related projects in 2019 and will do even more in 2020. We, too, are old enough to remember when the Internet wasn't a group of five websites, each consisting of screenshots of text from the other four. We know that, in 2020, it's foolish to expect tech companies to have their users' back unless there's a meaningful chance those users will go somewhere else (and not just to another division of the same tech company).

(Crossposted from EFF Deeplinks)

https://boingboing.net/2020/01/22/in-serving-big-company-interes.html

[bilbobagginsbrainrotblog]

@lydiardbell thank you for the important addition, also YIKES

@hr-nm-grnd-zr of course! Wikipedia is a little clearer on the wording;

In return, the government agreed to introduce legislation to remove the right of workers to organise trade unions in the film production industry and to give money to big budget films made in New Zealand.[77][78][79] The legislation reversed a decision by the New Zealand Supreme Court called Bryson v Three Foot Six Ltd[80] holding that under the Employment Relations Act 2000, a model maker named Mr Bryson was an "employee" who could organise a union to defend his interests.

Basically, as I understand it, there was an intial dispute about the fairness of some of the labor contracts and residuals during the filming of The Hobbit, the union got involved and instead of working with them Warner Brothers and co. threatened to pull out of filming in New Zealand. This caused a huge stir, because tourism based on the LotR franchise is a major source revenue for the country. It also involved Peter Jackson and others involved with production going on TV and basically decrying selfish and evil unions for depriving NZ of their movie. In the end, the government completely caved and essentially took away the rights of people working in the film industry to organize in a union. As of 2021, they are still trying to get this bill overturned- coincidentally just in time for Amazon, who is well-documented for refusing to work with unions, deciding to move their production of LotR to the UK.

As everyone is getting (rightfully!) pissed about Amazon taking the filming of their new Lord of the Rings series out of New Zealand to the UK, now seems like a good time to remind everyone that back in 2010, Warner Brothers basically blackmailed the entire country into passing anti-union labor laws, known as "Hobbit Law", that are still affecting film workers in New Zealand today. This was done with full vocal support of Peter Jackson, by the way. Amazon is scummy and deserves all the derision it's getting- but Warner Brothers, Newline Cinema and Jackson should not be let off the hook either. The original Lord of the Rings trilogy would not have been remotely the same iconic piece of media it was without the people, talent and amazing landscapes of New Zealand, and it's important to recognize both the country's contribution and how poorly they've been treated in this entire franchise.

[princesstsukimi-blog]

Moving To Eugene Oregon 

For some time, it seemed the United States and the United Kingdom would go to war for a third time in 75 years (see Oregon boundary dispute ), but the border was defined peacefully in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty The border between the United States and British North America was set at the 49th parallel The Oregon Territory was officially organized in 1848.

Eugene, city, seat (1853) of Lane county, western Oregon, U.S., on the Willamette River, adjoining Springfield to the east. The area around what became Eugene was inhabited for several centuries by Kalapuya Indians. Settled by Eugene Skinner in 1846, the city was laid out on Willamette bottomland in 1852. The town site was relocated and named Eugene City in 1853. The arrival of the Oregon and California (now Southern Pacific) Railroad in 1871 stimulated Eugene’s growth as an agricultural and lumber center. The University of Oregon was founded there in 1872, followed by Northwest Christian College in 1895 and Lane Community College in 1965.

The earliest history of Native people in the Eugene-Springfield area is that of the Kalapuya tribes from the area, Chifin, Winefelly,  Pee-u (Mohawk), and Chelamela tribes. These people signed a treaty with the United States in 1855, and were removed to temporary reservations in the Willamette valley. The Yoncalla, in the Umpqua valley, and in the Calapooia Mountains just south of Cottage Grove were removed to the Umpqua reservation after they signed the Kalapuya and Umpqua treaty in 1854. The tribes in the Eugene area of the Willamette Valley were taken to Spores farm to live for a year until they removed to the Grand Ronde Indian Reservation in 1856. Some of the Yoncalla, members of the Halo family, chose to remain living around Yoncalla, and Cottage Grove, Oregon.

Eugene recently ranked in the Top 10 on the Livability.com 100 Best Places to Live list, ranked on the Best Places for Business and Careers -Forbes and we ranked 10th on the 2013 Allstate America’s Best Drivers Report™ just to name a few…

Moving to Eugene, Oregon has its pros and cons. Led by the college towns of Corvallis and Eugene, Oregon had three of the top 50 places to live in Livability's 2018 Top 100 Best Places to Live Corvallis , home of Oregon State University, was ranked third; Eugene , home of the University of Oregon, was 28th;and Ashland , in the southern part of the state was 49th.

However, it is not big of a problem since Eugene also has a good amount of big employers such as University of Oregon, PeaceHealth Medical Group, Lane County, Eugene School District 4J, Springfield Public School, City of Eugene, and Monaco Coach Corporation, which employ a thousand of people and more.

Eugene's jogging trails include Pre's Trail in Alton Baker Park, Rexius Trail , the Adidas Oregon Trail , and the Ridgeline Trail Jogging was introduced to the U.S. through Eugene, brought from New Zealand by Bill Bowerman, who wrote the best-selling book "Jogging", and coached the champion University of Oregon track and cross country teams.

A team of City of Eugene Parks and Open Space and Eugene Police employees worked together to create a more welcoming experience for the myriad local, national and international visitors who spend time in our city's 700-acre riverfront park system each year.

According to the Department of Numbers, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the unemployment rate for Eugene rose 0.1 percentage points in September 2017 to 4.8%. 6,958 people were determined to be unemployed in May 2017, but as of today, the number of unemployed has now grown by 1,861.

The city hosts a multitude of cultural events and festivals, such as the annual Eugene Celebration, a three-day block party held downtown; the KLCC Microbrew Festival, an event commerating the Pacific Northwest cultural staple of craft beer; and the Oregon Festival of American Music, held annually every summer.

Eugene is home to some of our regions best breweries, while downtown Eugene hubs are infused with bottleshops, taphouses and growler fill stations. Well-known breweries include Ninkasi, Rogue and McMenamins.    Eugene’s slogan is “A Great City for the Arts and Outdoors”. It is also referred to as the “Emerald City”, and as “Track Town, USA”. 

Many people have migrated to Eugene Oregon in the last decade particularly the young hipster crowd. With its foodie vibe and young seen many Long Distance Moving Companies are seeing large increases in interest in the area. 

[caheqeyi-blog]

Hungary Visa - Overview

http://www.ivisa.com/hungary-schengen-visa

Whispered Hungary Visa Secrets When employers from some other countries are considering to employ dedicated developers for their project, it's important to take into consideration the amount of professionalism of the staff. If you're a Canadian citizen, but in addition a citizen of Hungary, our capacity to provide you consular services could be limited as you're there. The nation provides attractive tax incentives and very low inflation rate.

Hungary Visa: the Ultimate Convenience! To get there you usually require a visa and enough money to get a plane tickettwo things that not everybody can become readily, especially whenever your country is being stormed by violent madness. Moreover, individuals get a chance to reside permanently in a nation. Sure, it is a good way to document your experiences, but it weighs you down a ton more than you believe.

Irrespective of nationality, all students should have a valid passport before entry, meaning they have to be in possession of a passport that's valid for at least two decades. The museum is getting a must-see spot for F1 enthusiasts. On a more critical note, it's very hard to get used to seeing children begging on the street in India.

Get the Scoop on Hungary Visa Before You're Too Late The procedure is quite easy. While you'll have to follow along with a weeks-long procedure, including gathering a good deal of documents and attending an interview, you will have the ability to finish the application process for an ETIAS within minutes. If you're eligible you will acquire an offer letter and then interview call.

The Tried and True Method for Hungary Visa in Step by Step Detail There are various opportunities in New Zealand once you've completed your studies. It's well worth noting that jobs outside the teaching field stay difficult to locate or land in either nation, while (legitimately) starting your own company remains an arduous proposition in any case. There is a vast selection of study alternatives offered for global students in Hungary.

Choosing Hungary Visa Is Simple A business visa is proper for an assortment of business related activities like attending a conference, business meetings and a lot of other purposes, but not for conducting business. If you are operating the company from a different country where you're personally tax resident, please consult the appropriate tax treaties and speak with a tax professional to see whether the corporation may be considered resident in your house country instead. Seeing that your company is Internet based, you might want to think about traveling with a laptop depending upon your aims.

The Meaning of Hungary Visa Then it's possible to travel and intend to finish the remainder of the procedure in Hungary at the mandatory offices. Most nationalities can receive a 180-day tourist visa, but you have to apply ahead of time. Hungary is a gorgeous eastern European nation, which is also economical, the price of living in the majority of the cities isn't so significant.

The passport is only going to be returned when the dispute is settled. Additional the form doesn't permit any typical deduction. If you are in need of a visa, apply a minimum of two months before the departure!

Following your ESTA is affirmed, it's substantial for quite a long time or until the point once your visa lapse dates. Travelers traveling on valid visas aren't required to submit an application for an ESTA. In the rest of the instances, a visa is needed.

The Ugly Side of Hungary Visa Irish citizens should have a passport that's valid upon their arrival in Hungary. Generally, if you're an EU-national and wish to study in another EU country, you won't require a visa. Hungary is part of the Schengen area, together with lots of other European nations.

Consistently, a large number of natives submit an application for a visa to visit Europe. Permanent legal residents of america are called resident aliens. Documents A valid passport must enter Hungary.

The 5-Minute Rule for Hungary Visa You shouldn't have any issues keeping some little bills as souvenirs, but don't expect to have a bunch of dinars to your residence bank and cash in. If you're going to bring your children, it's important to have a plan if you become separated. As soon as you try us, you won't ever return to transferring money the old way.

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 20 September 1979, Aotearoa's (New Zealand's) only nationwide general strike took place when the Federation of Labour called a one-day strike of all its members in support of the Drivers Union. 300,000 people took to the streets around the country after a pay agreement between transport workers and employers was blocked by the government. The government claimed that the strike had no impact, but they agreed to refer the dispute to the Arbitration Court, which upheld the original wage agreement as demanded by the strikers. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1533236443528167/?type=3