Defeat the Bill! The struggle against the Employment Contracts Bill, 1991

February 23, 2016 by

Stop Contracts Billby Dougal McNeill

 

‘We’ll need to go on strike, an ongoing strike.’  That’s how Jane Otuafi, a delegate in the Engineers’ Union, responded in March 1991 to the recently elected National government’s plan for an Employment Contracts Act. [1] ‘A general strike is the only answer,’ job delegate Sa Leutele of the Northern Distribution Union agreed. ‘I’ve had several meetings to explain to the boys that the only way we can fight is to stick together. Otherwise nobody will survive after the Bill.’ [2]

Leutele’s words were prophetic. The Employment Contracts Act, once it passed, had a devastating effect on workers’ rights and living standards in New Zealand. It dealt a body blow to the trade union movement, one from which we’ve never recovered. Union membership almost halved between 1991 and 1995, with union density going from 41.5% to 21.7%, and has staggered in the private sector ever since. Workers’ organisation and confidence – expressed in working days ‘lost’ to strike activity – has been hit harder, with historic low levels of industrial struggle through the 1990s and 2000s. ‘The ECA,’ as Brian Roper puts it, ‘effectively deunionised and casualised large sectors of the workforce.’ [3] The viciously unequal New Zealand we live in now is shaped by the legacy of the ECA: 10% of the population owning 52% of the wealth; casualization and low pay the norm across the service industries; homeless families living in cars a ‘new reality’; and racialized poverty resulting in a Māori unemployment rate twice the national average. [4] The union movement, a basic line of defence for working people, held this back. It’s no wonder, then, that National set out to destroy the unions as effective fighting tools. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Class Struggle, In-Depth and Historical, Uncategorized, Unions, Workers Struggles

After the Elections: Political Perspectives in Japan

March 10, 2015 by

No Nukes

In-depth post-election perspectives from Japanese socialist Tsutomu Teramoto. Teramoto is a member of the Japan Revolutionary Communist League. 

As expected, the general election of December 14, 2014 gave an absolute majority of the seats again to the ruling coalition of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Komei Party. LDP got 291 seats and Komei Party got 35 seats out of the total of 475 seats. The biggest opposition, Democratic Party (DP) got only 73 seats. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Asia-Pacific, In-Depth and Historical, Japan, Our perspectives

Sexual Assault and the Police

November 13, 2014 by

nz policeLast week’s decision by the New Zealand police not to press charges against the so-called “Roast Busters” confirmed for many that the police are incapable of taking rape or sexual violence seriously.

For survivors, the close to one-yearlong investigation Operation Clover was a slap in the face. The whole thing seemed faulty even before the investigation began. Despite videos of young men boasting online for having what amounted to non-consensual sex  – rape –  police initially said that their hands were tied because no one was “brave enough” to come forward to lay a formal complaint. It was revealed days later that someone had laid a formal complaint with the police … two years previously.

Compare this inaction to the police’s proactive stance when it comes to author Nicky Hager. After the publication of Dirty Politics in August revealing the sordid relationship between the National party, rightwing blogger Cameron Slater, lobby groups, and big business, police were knocking on Hager’s door with a search warrant by October. [Read more…]

Filed Under: All Posts, Liberation from oppression, More Topics, Revolution not Reformism, Women's Liberation

If you didn’t vote you can still complain

October 1, 2014 by

Vote Sept 20The day after National’s resounding electoral victory, social media was awash with people blaming nonvoters for National’s victory. News feeds expressing sentiments like, “What’s wrong with you people?” came quick and fast.

Martyn Bradbury from the Daily Blog epitomizes this,

“I was wrong, horribly, horribly, horribly wrong. I honestly believed that the resources, the media attention, the vile toxic politics exposed by Dirty Politics and the mass surveillance lies would have seen NZers turn against Key.  I thought 250 000 children in poverty, the lack of economic strategy beyond rebuilding from an earthquake and crony capitalism would sink Key.

It didn’t, people rallied around him and gave John Key his largest victory ever. I am speechless. I thought New Zealanders would react angrily at seeing the real Key, they didn’t.”

As if people voting needed Bradbury’s tick of approval! [Read more…]

Filed Under: All Posts, More Topics

Prison reform on the path to prison abolition

September 15, 2014 by

corrections[Activist Olive McRae submitted this article to Socialist Review, and we were happy to print it in our latest issue. National’s announcement last week of more plans for ‘working prisons’ gives the article an added relevance and urgency. You can subscribe to Socialist Review here.]

“Those of us that identify as prison abolitionists as opposed to prison reformers, make the point that often reforms create situations where mass incarceration becomes even more entrenched and so therefore we have to think about what in the long run will produce decarceration, fewer people behind bars, and hopefully eventually in the future the possibility of imagining a landscape without prisons, where other means are used to address issues of harm. Where social problems such as illiteracy and poverty do not lead vast numbers of people along a trajectory that leads to prison.

In 1971  when the Attica rebellion took place, it was a really important moment in the history of mass incarceration, the history of the prison in this country. The prisoners who were the spokespeople for the uprising indicated that they were struggling for a world without prison. During the 1970s the notion of prison abolition became very important, in fact public intellectuals, judges, journalists, took it very seriously and began to think about alternatives.

However in the 1980s, with the dismantling of social services, structural adjustments and the rise of global capitalism, we began to see prison emerging as a major institution to address the problems that were produced by industrialization, lack of jobs, less funding in education, lack of education, the closure of systems designed to assist people who had mental and emotional problems, and now of course the prison system is also a psychiatric facility.

The question is, how does one address the needs of prisoners by instituting reforms that are not going to create a stronger prison system.” – Angela Davis (Val’s Show, 2014).

[Read more…]

Filed Under: (In)justice System, All Posts, In-Depth and Historical, More Topics, Uncategorized Tagged With: ,

Are the Greens a Left Alternative?

September 11, 2014 by

Love NZBrian S. Roper takes an in-depth look at the policies and politics of the Greens.

 

Introduction

As indicated by the major polls, support for the Green Party ranged from around 11% to 13% throughout 2014. The Green Party received 11% of the vote and 14 MPs at the 2011 general election, compared to Labour’s 27.5% and 34 seats. Yet despite having 20 fewer MPs than Labour and only six more than NZ First (6.6% of the vote and 8 seats), it has been much more effective as an opposition party within parliament than Labour. Indeed, on virtually every major issue during the Key Government’s second term, including asset sales, mining in national parks, the corruption and ‘crony capitalism’ of the Key Government, and the GCSB legislation, it has done a better job than Labour of criticizing the Government and, more importantly, has done a lot more than Labour to mobilize its members on the streets.

 

Whereas Labour is almost entirely an electoralist party, the Green Party attempts to combine a focus on winning elections with encouraging its members to get involved in flax roots activism. Many Green Party members are experienced and respected activists who have established a laudable track record of working in a non-sectarian and co-operative manner in progressive struggles and campaigns with others on the left, including the International Socialist Organisation (ISO).

[Read more…]

Filed Under: All Posts, In-Depth and Historical, More Topics, Revolution not Reformism

Women, Politics and Class: a Socialist Analysis for Aotearoa

July 23, 2013 by
Women workers: in the vanguard of Aotearoa's working class

Women workers: in the vanguard of Aotearoa’s working class

Women face a contradiction. While equal pay for women and men working for the government became the law in 1960, it wasn’t until the Equal Pay Act passed in 1972 that equal pay between the sexes across the board became legal. The Domestic Purposes Benefit, providing state support to single parents, was introduced in 1973.

Yet, four decades later, women are still paid less than men. Women’s hourly earnings are on average 12 to 15% less than men. The weekly gender pay gap is much greater because women are more likely to be in casual and part time work. Women’s average weekly pay is $879 and men’s is $1059 – a gender pay gap of 17%. The annual gender earnings gap is much wider, and this gap is widening according to Statistics NZ calculations. The recession and the earthquakes in Christchurch have all hurt women significantly more.

The Human Rights Commission wrote in their report New Zealand Census of Women’s Participation last year that “New Zealand is making, slow, incremental but unspectacular progress for women in many areas”. What they mean by unspectacular is that 22 government departments have gender pay gaps bigger than the average pay gap in the labour market; 9 government departments have more than 20% gender pay gap; women are still less than 30% of judges, less than 25% of senior academic staff; and less than 20% of top legal partnerships.

I can think of a few other adjectives than “unspectualar” to describe these damning statistics. [Read more…]

Filed Under: All Posts, In-Depth and Historical, Issues in depth, Theory and History, Women's Liberation

Hezbollah and the Syrian Revolution

May 30, 2013 by

SyriaImageHezbollah fought on the front lines against Israeli aggression against Lebanon in 2006, winning respect from Sunni and Shia in Lebanon and all opponents of Zionism. But Hezbollah fighters have now turned their fire on the rebels fighting to overthrow Assad’s regime in Syria, raising the risk of the Arab Spring becoming a sectarian war in Syria and Lebanon. Sam Campbell reports from Lebanon. [Read more…]

Filed Under: All Posts, In-Depth and Historical, International, World

Bill’s Budget is a Castle Made of Sand

May 17, 2013 by

NZH0554598044On Radio Live last night, Duncan Garner was chortling with satisfaction at Bill English’s stewardship. His business guests were even more delighted. Andrew Patterson praised Bill English’s wisdom and prudence that had finally undone all the damage of the Clark Labour Government. In a pretty disgusting metaphor, Garner said Cameron Bagrie, the ANZ chief economist, soiled his trousers in delight when he read Bill’s Budget.

The Budget’s key features include measures to reduce house prices, ACC levy cuts, privatisation of Meridian Energy, support for businesses and for research and development, more money for Christchurch’s reconstruction, and, of course, a surplus – by 2015. [Read more…]

Filed Under: More Topics

Marx and the Lassalleans

April 5, 2013 by

Lassalle2The following was presented as a talk at Marxism 2013 in Melbourne

Who today has even heard of Ferdinand Lassalle? Who cares about Marx’s battles with his followers? Lassalle’s writings are out of print, and his collections sit gathering dust in the stacks and back-rooms of libraries. Picking over these old quarrels seems, at first, like conforming to the clichéd image of the troublesome but scholastic and irrelevant Marxist, fighting not just last century’s battles but also throwing in one from the century before that for good measure.

There is, to be sure, a great distance between Lassalle’s world and our own. He was active in a time when Europe was still dominated by powerful monarchies, when the capitalist class and the old feudal and aristocratic order still battled for power over much of the continent. His was an era of absolutism, and a time when the peasantry were still a major social force. Modern Germany did not yet exist. [Read more…]

Filed Under: In-Depth and Historical, Uncategorized
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