Dodgy Unions

The Union movement has occupied a privileged position in New Zealand. It is a vastly wealthy, incredibly well resourced sector with a staggering amount of money.

The headline figures are the Union movement has combined equity of well over $120 million dollars. Unions’ revenues are over $120m per year. Unions’ wage bill is over $70m per year, meaning they have a massive and ideologically pure work force. Most unions make a significant surplus, with the Corrections Association making a surplus of almost half their annual revenue.

Unions seem to live in parallel moral universe where they can do no wrong. They escape scrutiny and live in an echo chamber. They do not realise that they are the group that New Zealand public has the least trust in. This book uses publicly available information to tell New Zealand the story of the unions financial might.

Cameron Slater is New Zealand’s most popular and most fearless political blogger. He has been blogging since 2005 and has broken numerous political stories including Mayor Andrew Williams pissing on a tree outside his offices, the Labour Party’s web site security flaw and the Len Brown Sex Scandal. In 2014 his emails were hacked and Nicky Hager wrote the book “Dirty Politics” which has helped promote and expand Cam’s political consulting and social media business.