Retired employment consultant John Cuttance, of Dunedin, considers the extent to which we are all in the Covid-19 response together.
He waka eke noa. We’re all in this together. Or are we?
Will the new world that will emerge from the Convid-19 crisis create a fairer and more egalitarian society or will greed return us to the society where a small minority controls the vast majority of the world’s financial and economic resources? The burden of Covid-19 must not simply fall on those who suffer the immediate consequences of a loss of trade or employment.
Examples of greed abound. Did the people who cleared the supermarket shelves of toilet paper, flour and other products think of the people they deprived these products from? Not likely. Greed overcame need.
Are employers who have failed to pay the Government wage subsidy to their employees or failed to top up wage payments thinking of the suffering being experienced by those workers or are they being driven by greed in refusing to share the burden?
During the lockdown, the Otago Daily Times reported Scott Technology refused to pay its workers any more than the Government wage subsidy. It told its employees to take annual leave, which they may not have because of the company’s Christmas shutdown. The chief executive is quoted as saying “the company was doing what it had to to survive the economic shock…”
Air NZ, NZME and other companies have shed large numbers of staff. Should employee and wages cuts be the first line economic cuts? An executive’s 10% pay cut is meaningless compared with an employee’s 100% cut.
The Government has provided substantial support to the banks and banks have offered limited mortgage payment holidays and reduction in floating interest rates. However, there has been no reduction in rates for existing fixed term borrowers or excessively high credit card rates. Banks will profit from mortgage payment holidays. People who have lost their income will be forced into greater credit card debt with interest rates that will make their position worse. Will banks follow the course taken after the 1987 Share Market Crash and the GFC and put profits and bonuses before the fate of their customers?
Will we emerge as a better and fairer society or will we still have the vast inequities that have developed through 40 years of neo liberal market economics? If we allow greed to prevail we have little hope of producing that fairer society.
Continuing mortgages, leases and franchise payments will create financial ruin for small businesses unless mortgagors, landlords, or the franchisees accept their share of the burden and forego payments. For the home owner or business operator long term contracts will include personal covenants which will leave them with no protection from the ongoing payment obligations.
If banks, landlords and franchisors refuse to accept that we are all in this together, and instead enforce their rights and demand continued payments, then people will lose their homes, their business and other assets. Will the Government act to provide protection to those who find themselves in this position through no fault of their own?
We need better measures than GDP and stock exchange indices for measuring wellbeing. The NZX and similar indices are simply measures of greed. Air NZ and other listed companies announce hundreds of employees will lose their jobs and their share price and the NZX rises – where is the logic in that? Simply the market sees the companies as having cut costs to maintain profits – at the expense of the employees.
Are business executives and directors going to follow the actions of the Prime Minister and the Director General of Health, who must be the hardest working people in NZ, and share the burden of Covid-19 by taking meaningful cuts in their excessive salaries and bonuses?
“Your true inner happiness does not come from the material things of this world. Whether you’re flying first class…or economy class - if the plane crashes …you crash with it.” Steve Jobs, Founder of Apple, died with a fortune of US$7 billion.
Need, rather than greed, is what we must work for.
