Friday 6 March 2009

Ladies and gentlemen, start your faxes

This post will be at the top of the page until 5pm today. For newer Friday content please scroll down.

Today please send a fax to the Minister of State Services, Tony Ryall, who cancelled the pay equity investigations, expressing your dissatisfaction. His office fax number is 04 817 6504.


Here's a handy Hand Mirror fax template you can use and get your workmates/friends/whanau to sign too, before you send in. Big thanks to Anita at Kiwipolitico for the technical help with this.


Troubleshooting:
Fax number engaged?
Please try again later. Hopefully it means that Mr Ryall is getting lots of other faxes about the issue from all over the place.
You may want to mix it up a bit by trying John Key's fax number 04 473 3689 while you wait. Thanks to Steve at The Standard for suggesting this.

Can't get the download template thingy to go?
Please email me, julie dot fairey at gmail dot com, if you can't download the PDF and I will send it back to you as an attachment. You might also want me to send you the PDF so that you can email it to others you think might be interested.

No fax machine?
1. Email - you could email Mr Ryall and let him know your opinion on the matter, or send him a photo of your signed fax:
tony.ryall@parliament.govt.nz
2. Post - you can freepost (don't bother with a stamp) your fax to him, or send him a letter:
Tony Ryall
Minister for State Services
Parliament Buildings
WELLINGTON
Not that keen on The Hand Mirror's faxy wording?
Feel free to do your own version! The more the merrier.


Many thanks to Adders for the cartoon (and the interesting email conversation about Foxton).

Super big ups to the Tertiary Education Union for promoting the faxathon and doing their own version. Update: Massive gratitude to Schroedinger's Tabby and Idiot/Savant, and now also The Standard, (but wait there's more) and Frogblog and Reading the Maps, for their big plugs today. Further update: Props to the EPMU who have done a mass email out about the faxathon too, with the PDF attached. If you've come here from any of those routes, it's lovely to have you on board today :-)

And do feel free to comment here, and/or on the Facebook event page, when you've faxed :-)

More on pay equity stuff here - Because we're worth it: Pay Equity Hub

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Done! Went through on the first go :)

Anonymous said...

Done!!! Easy as pie :)

Julie said...

Mine's done too - I got ten signatures on it from my workmates and faxed it to both Key and Ryall. Wohoo!

Anonymous said...

Mine keeps saying busy (ihave maybe 15 to send) so I called his office to check I had the right number. The rudest woman ever answered the phone! This was even without me letting her know I was a radical, feminist lefty who wanted to complain about her minister:)

Is anyone else having probs?

Julie said...

Have you had any better luck Anon at 11.24? You might want to try John Key's fax instead for a while? (Number in the post)

Keely said...

I emailed both Ryall and Key. Heard back relatively promptly from Key's office. Stii waiting to hear from Ryall's.
Maybe they're a bit busy checking the fax machine. :)

Anonymous said...

Went through to Ryall's fax just fine.

Everyone I asked to sign it was only too happy, except one who stated that they never put their name to anything in case it came back haunt them later. Then that person proceeded to tell me bitterly about being paid much less in a former job than two male colleagues who only did half the work. Mind you they are a dyed in the wool National voter...

Anna said...

I dropped mine in in person - what a debacle! Thanks to Parliament's security and incomprehensible mail arrangements, it took 20 minutes. I wish I'd bloody faxed it!

stargazer said...

just collected a whole heap of signatures at the international women's day event in hamilton, as well as from the protestors outside at lunchtime. will be faxing them through shortly.

Julie said...

Yay!

Why was it so tough Anna? Did they want to check your fax didn't mention any naughty words like "public health"?

Anna said...

I went to Bowen House. Bowen House doesn't send internal mail 100 metres to the Beehive. The woman offered to send it through the national postal system. I politely declined.

I then went to the Beehive, including through the security check I'd been trying to avoid by going to Bowen House. I made to reception, only to be told that I had to leave again and walk round the exterior of the building to the special secure mail room. When I got there, my letter had to go through a frickin' xray, and I had to give my name to the security guy, who couldn't tell whether I was saying 'Anna' or 'Hannah' and belowed the same question three times.

Efficiency, thy name is Parliament.

Anonymous said...

Anna, you KNOW those proceedures are in place to disuade the average protestor/voter. If they can't blind them with brilliance, bamboozle them with Bulls***, and mebbe we'll go back to chuntering in our little holes.

Anna said...

Well, it certainly bamboozled me!

Anonymous said...

Sophia and I have been on the road and couldn't find a fax so we just left a message for Ryall with his EA :)

Julie said...

A for effort Anna :-)

And thanks Jordan K for passing that on, the important thing is definitely the message, not the medium!

Psycho Milt said...

Once the day of faxes is over, could someone maybe post on why Tony Ryall should take the slightest notice? Julie kindly linked to my post on why right-wingers ocnsider this a complete non-issue; I believe the reasons they feel that way are factors that pay equity enthusiasts are going to have to take into account if they want to lobby effectively, because Tony Ryall and his mates are after all right-wingers themselves.

Julie said...

When time allows I am definitely keen to respond to your post Psycho Milt. Sorry I haven't got to it yet. If anyone else wants to have a go that's cool too!

You're right to some degree - if we want to make any progress on this issue before a change of Govt then we are going to have to think hard about how to do that.