Mr Toloi's letter in today's Herald is a cracker (Herald 6 January, p. A8). He is a wharfie, who happily admits to earning over $100k a year. And he shows how - by working a 64 hour week which grosses him $2000 a week. He works a 3000 hour year, a tad over $30 an hour. Is that overpaid, I ask? He also points out that, contrary to the crisis rhetoric of Mr Gibson, he has received regular productivity-based bonuses over the past six months, much as the POAL Annual Report suggests. And he makes the point that strikes me most strongly - the idiocy of comments that port work is unskilled is revealed by the skilling that goes on across the workforce.
He also suggests that Mr Gibson earns $3000 a day (I have not verified this, but it is a plausible figure).
Let's hear the POAL rebuttal of this case. It will be interesting to hear how they get round such data.
IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW: The Ruminations of Robert Winter
Will Johnny Toloi be one of the lucky ones to survive the downsizing of POAL now that the bigger revenue streams have diverted to Tauranga and Napier?
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