Workers from Rembrandt Suits held a picket on Saturday 6th December outside the Kirkaldie & Stains department store in central Wellington after receiving a pitiful offer from Rembrandt bosses.

The workers, skilled and experienced machinists (one of whom has worked for the company for 20 years) are currently on the minimum wage and are asking for $13.50 / hour. They have been offered only a 24 cent increase, which would take them to $12.24. Most of the workers require Government subsidies just to survive.

Thailand is currently in crisis, with a deformed expression of class struggle occurring between one side that wears yellow shirts and another that wears red. How can we make sense of this situation, and what is the way forward for those of us interested in the interests of the poor and working class? John Moore, formerly a resident in Thailand, and now a Workers Party activist, argues that the Thai working class is a mass force that has yet to roar, but that the small radical element amongst them shouldn’t ‘give up the bullet for the ballot’ to reform Thai society through the Thai capitalist state.

Links: Thailand: Anti-government PAD Thugs Want Dictatorship to Replace Democracy | Thailand: A second `coup for the rich'

"Western demand for kwila is not only killing the forests, it is also killing our people. The forest is seen as our mother, which provides us with food, water and shelter - and when that is taken away, our people lose everything."

Saturday 06 December 2008
13:00pm - 15:00pm
Design Warehouse
136 Fanshawe Street
Auckland
email aspaceinside (at) gmail.com for more info.

This summer a rag-tag bunch of activists will attempt to impose a people's ban on the selling of Kwila in Auckland City, a mostly illegally logged rainforest hardwood sold across the Western world as outdoor furniture or decking timber.

We are launching our campaign on Saturday December 6th, a Global Day of Action on Climate Change. We will be holding a protest outside Design Warehouse, 136 Fanshawe Street, a major seller of Kwila Furniture.

Come along and be part of the global movement against climate change and ecological destruction. [More]

GPJA FORUM – THE POLITICS OF THIRD WORLD MINING. Monday, December 1, 2008. 7:30pm Trades Hall 147 Great North Road, Grey Lynn

Speakers include:

Maire Leadbeater, human rights activist, will talk about the struggle for self-determination in West Papua and the impact of the Freeport mine operations, December 1st is the day the local people raise the West Papuan flag in defiance of their Indonesian occupiers who have banned the flag raising ceremonies in West Papua.

Joe Hendren, New Zealand trade union activist recently returned from the Philippines will talk about how the intensification of transnational owned mining is threatening the environment and local communities.

In particular he will look at Oceania Gold Mining in Nueva Vizcaya Philippines. Oceania Gold Mining is an Australian NZ Gold Mining Company, with mines in NZ in Macrae and Reefton. It has members of the board of Directors in Auckland and is financed by the ANZ and the HSBC banks. There is currently a campaign lead by local indigenous communities to close the Mine and they are seeking assistance in doing so from activists here.

Links: Peition against Oceania Gold Mine | Filipino Migrants Question ANZ Bank's Ethics | West Papuan Guerillas Demand Closure of Freeport Mine | Demo Against NZ Superfund Investments in Freeport | Papuan Tribal Chief to Sue Freeport

Anti terror raids in France on the 11th November 2008

In the early morning on the 11th november the french police conducted one of the biggest police raids in the latest history in the name of counter terrorism against the left in france. The police searched several buildings and appartements in Paris, Rouen, Limoges, the La Meuse region and in the village of Tarnac in central France. During this raid ten people were arrested and taken into custody, nine of them are now confronted with serious charges of terrorist conspiracy and malicious mischief. The official reason for the raids are sabotage actions on the high speed train (TGV) network conducted with grapples in the night of the 7th to the 8th november in four different places in France.

Political Anthropologist, Associate Professor Jeff Sluka, is coming to Wellington.

On Tuesday 2nd December Jeff Sluka will be the key speaker at public meeting discussing State terrorism during the 2007 ‘anti-terrorism’ raids in Rūātoki. This is the fifth in a series of meetings hosted by the October 15th Solidarity Group group.

“Jeff,” says Anna Thorby from the October 15th Solidarity Group, “was a guest speaker at the recent commemoration of the police ‘anti-terrorism’ raids at Rūātoki.” During his talk there he described the raids as ‘politically misguided, morally wrong and fundamentally counterproductive.’

The Hamilton bus company Go Bus has locked out 50 drivers after they took strike action for 24 hours, and were planning a fare strike on return to work.

Fare strikes have seldom been used in New Zealand, but they are a creative form of industrial action that can build public support while putting direct economic pressure on the company.

The company imposed a lockout once it heard a fare strike was likely and has kept the workers locked out despite the drivers withdrawing their notice of a fare strike. The drivers are paid $13.50 an hour and are seeking an increase to $16 an hour.

The drivers’ pay is well below a living wage. The Council of Trade Unions is advocating a minimum wage of $16.30, as that is two-thirds of the average wage.

Support the locked out bus drivers: gather at the Transport Centre in Hamilton at 9.30am Monday 24 November.

Links: NDU Press Release | Workers Party Release | Stuff.co.nz article | September 2008 300 Welly Bus Drivers Locked Out

Recent leaks have revealed membership details of neo-fascist groups on both sides of the world - the British National Party (BNP) and the New Zealand National Front (NZNF).

In the UK, a huge list of details of BNP members has been made available. The list contains names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of over 10,000 people who are or were BNP members and donors. The list also includes other information about many of them.

Several websites have sprung up that make healthy use of this information. One, BNP Near Me, merges the information with Google Maps to show the strength (or weakness) of the BNP across the UK. The BNP member proximity search allows British users to enter their post code and then returns all BNP members in their area, with links to find their house on Google Maps.

Some high profile people are listed, including British Motorcross/Supercross star, William 'Billy' MacKenzie.

The list also includes a number of members (and former members) now living overseas, including some serving as mercenaries in Iraq, 16 people in Australia and four members in Aotearoa / New Zealand - in Auckland Central, Glenfield and Hunua in greater Auckland, and Whitby in Wellington.

Meanwhile, the New Zealand National Front had the email addresses for its 53 members/supporters leaked here on Aotearoa Indymedia.

Links: FightDemBack | Antifa UK | BNP Members list @ The Pirate Bay | BNP members MySQL database @ The Pirate Bay