March 23, 2016
Labour’s Future of Work Conference Day 1
Labour's Future of Work Conference Day 1
MARTYN BRADBURY
The Labour Party have embarked upon a huge undertaking to peer into the future and attempt to understand how we are going to work and how to prepare for such an undefined employment environment.
The conference being held at AUT is packed. The mainstream media may be more focused on Max Key and the Batchelor, but many business and community groups are fascinated and perplexed by the questions Labour is raising.
Professor Robert B. Reich begins this conference with an intense critical evaluation of Capitalism. He points out that with the rapid technological advances, jobs will become redundant faster than employment can adapt. His answer is a Universal Basic Income. Labour are currently considering the idea which would have enormous impact on the lives of every NZer.
Robert argues that it is an issue of power. Corporations have total economic power and this translates into political power. The conclusion of his logic is difficult to escape. The wealthy will become far richer and the middle classes pushed below the poverty line. Without a serious response to realign how we redistribute wealth, democracy will become meaningless.
It would be difficult to top Robert – but Professor Guy Standing manages it. Author of the critically acclaimed Precariat theory. He argues that the present model of Capitalism is broken and that it is an obligation of academics and activists to build a new model. He argues that we must look at work in a very different way.
I think his critique against the selfishness of neoliberalism would strike a deep chord within Maoridom. His argument that we need a more collective approach within the economic structure opens a door with Maori that deserves exploration within a NZ dynamic.
Standing argues that global competitiveness has created down ward pressure on our wages and pitted worker against worker in different nations. The benefactor in this are the trans nationals who play each group of worker off against each other.
It was a fascinating speech.
There has been some political criticism directed at Grant Robertson ever since he took the Finance portfolio. He has been missing in action because he has been carefully crafting this Future of Work movement. Grant has shown remarkable maturity to upscale his knowledge of economics and he has out thought the current free market model. The insight, intellect and creative thinking he has managed to bring together silences any criticism of his mastery of finance and puts him smack in the centre of this debate.
It is a debate that demands answers and with the intensification of Dairy failing so spectacularly the Government has not yet had anything to say.
Labour has reshaped this discussion and owned it.
Martyn Bradbury
Editor – TheDailyBlog.co.nz
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