Not so Savant

Goodness, I’ve been attacked by another left-wing blogger for being a party “hack”:

“One of the things I hate about the political blogosphere is that most of the people in it are hacks, who can reliably be expected to put party before principle, no matter what. To them, right and wrong are defined not by any moral principles, but by who is doing what to whom. Over the past few days we’ve been treated to a particularly unseemly display of this, as left-wing bloggers who should know better have lined up to defend the right of bad employers to victimise their employees if they dare to run for election for the wrong political party.”

First off, anybody who has been a regular reader of my blog would have seen posts critical of current research funding (“Frankly, Hodgson is a disappointment”), university funding (“The Government’s response was lame”), finance sector regulation (“Liane Dalziel seems to have dropped the ball”), school funding (“…it appears that [Carter’s] the only person in the country who isn’t aware…”), political blunders (“the symbolic import of ramming more unpopular legislation through Parliament should not be underestimated”), and so on.

That’s not hackery, Idiot, that’s independent, critical comment. Care to apologise?

As for the charge that I’ve “lined up to defend the right of bad employers to victimise their employees if they dare to run for election for the wrong political party”, I can only assume that you haven’t read the post, Idiot.

My first post set out the legal position, and clarified why it is that the EPMU did not — as the facts are outlined in the NBR article — breach the Human Rights Act by discriminating against Tan on the basis of his political opinion. This was in response to the frenzied glee of various right-wing bloggers charging that this is the case.

In your original post, you seemed to be confusing the various issues, but I chose not to correct you. (If you allowed comments, I might have been able to gently clear up some of your own confusion.) For one thing, running for Parliament is not the same as holding political beliefs. In any case, the EPMU in the past has refused permission for leave to stand for public office to staff members planning to stand for left parties. You don’t seem to grasp that the disciplinary procedure was initiated, according to the NBR article, because Tan did not seek permission as the collective agreement specifies. When one party to a contract doesn’t abide by the rules, should the other just stand by and say, “well, that’s okay then”?

Idiot, you say that employers should have to give unpaid leave so as to facilitate anybody who wants standing for Parliament. You’d have to legislate for that, as you say. But the empoyers would have something to say about how impractical that is in many situations. (One of the ironies of recent days has been the righties effectively calling for this — perhaps they should check with their local employers’ associations first.)

In the past many employers have been accommodating in most cases. Mine was when I stood in a general election for a main party. But what about the situations where it is not practicable or is unduly burdensome on the employer. Parental leave is analogous, and there are provisions to cover situations where it is unreasonable to expect the employer to hold poitions open. They don’t have to. So, in your proposed legislation you would need to include a provision to cover such situations. Which seems to be what the contractual provision that Tan ignored was designed to do!

[Update: Inventory2 at Keeping Stock replicates the EPMU’s email to members complete with Whale Oil’s idiotic running — or stumbling? — commentary. Good for a laugh.]

Tags: Workers' rights