Commentary- We need a fighting union movement

Commentary- Joe Carolan

Over one hundred delegates, organisers and activists in Auckland's union movement gathered on Wednesday 28th July at UNite on Campus's Fightback Rally, to plan a response to the National Party government's proposed attacks on workers and unions. A triumvirate of private sector unions- EPMU, NDU and Unite, pledged that there would be direct action and a militant fightback on the worksites and on the streets of the city in months to come. Unions would be joined in this campaign by community groups, left wing parties and organisations for the unemployed.

The answer to low wages and attacks on union organisation is not to appeal to the Government for partnership. The answer is to recruit thousands of un-unionised workers into the movement before these law changes come in. The answer is to make sure any site where a worker is unjustly dismissed using the 90 Day Law is blockaded, picketed and occupied. 60 activists have already signed up for the first UTU squad, which will support vulnerable and unorganised workers who will be most affected by these attacks.

The answer is to build mass demonstrations in the major cities of New Zealand, through a proper build up of all out delegate meetings, wall to wall postering, mass leafletting and national advertising. There are over 350,000 union members organised by the Council of Trade Unions- we should try to mobilise them all.

The rallies planned for August 21st will not achieve this. At best, they will have a thousand or so in each centre. The amateur approach needs to stop- we don't need another pathetic Mayday parade of union officials as witnessed in Auckland this year- we need a Mining March for the Working Class. Late October, when the proposed laws are to be introduced, would give us a much better timeframe.

The movement also needs to respect a diversity of tactics and political viewpoints within the workers movement. Each union and organisation has their own culture. Some unions will take the fight to the bosses doorsteps. The Labour Party needs to realise that the modern union movement in the private sector is not a One Party State.

Video of the rally to follow this weekend.

Commentary- New Zealand needs an Australian style award system

Unionists rally during an Easter 2009 lockout of Auckland market researchers getting paid about half of what the company Synovate was paying its Australian market researchers.

COMMENTARY- Omar Hamed, Socialist Aotearoa (Wellington)

Closing the wage gap between New Zealand and Australia was a key plank of National’s election campaign in 2008. The problem for John Key however is that under his management the Tasman wage gap has grown significantly. Getting grilled by 3News Key went on the attack blaming Labour for the recession and the wage gap and claiming he had a “plan”.

The facts are unmistakeably obvious – under the Nat’s the gap between the New Zealand and Australian average wage grew from “$540 a week in December 2008 to $580 in March this year”.

In the courts, on the picket lines and in Parliament this week the calls to close the gap have again been heard. Yet absent however from all the debate about the widening pay gap is one key word: awards.

The main difference between Australian pay and New Zealand pay is that in Australia minimum pay rates for industries and occupations are set by the Australian industrial relations body Fair Work Australia. There are still union negotiated collective agreements and individual employment agreements but they can’t make the employee worse off than they would be under their industry or occupation award.

The modern awards are a set of 200 or so documents that set most employment conditions from minimum pay rates, hours of work, overtime rates and allowances. These awards are set by an independent panel that hears submissions from union and employer representatives.

Comparing Australia’s fast food industry award to what a McDonald’s worker in New Zealand receives shows how the award system benefits low paid workers and raises living standards.

Australian fast food workers receive a $6.25 per week laundry allowance for cleaning their uniforms. Kiwi workers receive no allowance. Australian workers must have their hours and days of work specified in writing at the start of their employment. These hours can only be varied by written agreement. In New Zealand many fast food workers have their hours and days of work varied from week to week. Many workers have their hours reduced as punishment for asking for rest breaks, sick leave or as one worker put it to me once, “Not kissing the bosses ass”.

Australian fast food workers have an Aus $15.00hr min wage where NZ McDonald’s workers are mostly on $12.75 to $13.25. Aussie fast food workers receive a 9% employer contribution superannuation, NZ fast food workers just 2% contribution to Kiwisaver. Australian McDonald’s workers must get a 10% loading for work after 9pm and a 15% loading for work after 12am. Some McDonald’s owners in New Zealand pay their employees an extra $5 per graveyard shift. The Aussies also get a 25% loading on Saturdays and a 50% loading on Sundays. Kiwi workers of course get no such weekend rates.

As can be seen from the evidence above the award system is the crucial difference in ensuring better wages and conditions for fast food workers. This comparison can be drawn across any number of occupations especially retail, cleaning, call centre and other traditionally un-unionised occupations and industries. The picture is clear. In order to close the growing wage gap New Zealand will need to establish a similar set of awards for our own industries.

From 1894 to 1991 New Zealand also had an award based remuneration system, where unions and employers made submissions to an arbitration board that would set the terms in each industry or occupation. Under awards New Zealand wages were able to keep pace with Australias. The National Party and the Employment Contracts Act of 1991 destroyed that system and the drop in real wages and the opening up of the wage gap from that time is well documented. If New Zealand workers, unions and the politicians that purport to represent them are serious about closing the gap then the legislative gap will have to be closed and the award based system reintroduced in New Zealand.

FIGHTBACK!

The National Party government has announced major attacks on workers rights and on Unions ability to represent them. Any worker can now be fired in the first 90 Days of employment without reason. A worker must now be able to provide official proof if they are sick for one day off work. Union organisers will not be able to visit unionised sites without the premission of employers. Minister for Employment Kate Wilkinson said sh...e wants to return more "control" to the employer.

This coming Wednesday, there will be a major rally in Auckland University to launch a campaign of resistance against these cuts. Matt McCarten, General Secretary of Unite, will be joined by Sue Bradford- fighter for the rights of the unemployed, Karl Andersen, Assistant General Secretary of the NDU, and Chris Trotter- Political Commentator and author of No Left Turn.

The rally will bring together union delegates and members, Left wing activists and students, and will plan a series of direct action responses to the bosses and the Government.

This is the Employment Contracts Act of our Generation.
We won't be defeated.

hosted by Unite on Campus (Auckland)

7pm Weds 28th July
Lecture Theatre B28,
Library Basement,
University of Auckland

Facebook event HERE

Commentary: This means Class War!

This is the text of a speech given by Socialist Aotearoa activist Derwin Smith in Dunedin last week.

There can be no mistake - the laws being proposed by the government are the biggest attack on working people in 20 years. The last time something like this happened was in 1991 with the Employment Contracts Act. The Unions at the time didn’t fight... and it has put us in the position we are in today – with weak unions, massive inequality, poverty, social isolation and a general feeling of apathy among the working class. Sadly this time round may not be all that different – the complete lack of militant leadership of the CTU will hinder us at every turn. There is no doubt that they will try to convert this campaign into an electioneering exercise for the labour party.

However this government is not untouchable! The anti-mining campaign has shown us that concerted campaigning including massive street protests can make the national party back off.

As revolutionaries we must be very clear. Our enemies are the employing class... and their lackeys in parliament. The employers as a class have been pushing for these reactionary reforms and by building the power of workers on the job we can stop them.

If we are to win this battle then we must continue building resistance in the community but most importantly – at work. This is where the working class have the most power. The one thing that will most effectively stop the employing class in its tracks is strike action... as Lenin once said “one good strike is worth 1000 elections!”

In concrete terms this means that we need to be out building for protests as much as we can with leaflets and posters and building on worksites through our union contacts and at our own workplaces.

If we do not win this campaign – which is likely – we must use it to continue building an independent and democratic workers movement that is controlled by the rank and file themselves... the anti-thesis to the labour controlled union bureaucracy.

What I would like to see is a rank and file network within the unions develop that is organised independently of the right wing bureaucracy to counteract their inept leadership and eventually put the unions under workers control. We also need to help every new person we meet that is interested in class politics organise their workplace.

As we have seen in Unite Unions petition campaign for a $15 dollar minimum wage – even though we didn’t get the numbers – a nationwide network of class warriors was born – it is a slow process but it will be worth it in the end.

By solid work building the campaign against these laws the revolutionary left can not only grow in numbers – but form organisations that have discipline and cohesion needed to make a difference in the class struggle.

To put it bluntly – this is only one battle in the class war. Our action as activists in this campaign needs to be focused. At the end of it we want not only our organisation to be stronger but we want the whole workers movement to be stronger – but from the bottom up. Then even with these reactionary laws – we will be in a better position to build and fight.

Our task is clear – we need to build a fighting workers movement. This is a task of decades not months.

As part of this fighting movement we need to lay the foundations for a mass workers party so when the time comes – there will be the political clarity and militant leadership needed for the working class to overthrow capitalism and institute a truly free society – one democratically controlled by the workers.

Photo credit: John Darroch

The Locals: Public transport in Auckland

In the first part of our series on local body elections we took a look at housing, libraries and water issues. In this second part of our season on the haunted house of local governance we turn the spotlight on another important issue - public transport.

The only place you’ll find more out of control cars than Kiwi horror The Locals are the streets of the nation’s largest metropolitan centre- Auckland. Local government politicians are like McDonald’s advertisements, both profess to promote healthy alternatives but in reality all they do is clog up arteries and arterial routes.

Big business have done all they can to ensure that Auckland has a public transport that is ridiculed across the world. Visiting Canadian economist Jim Stanford would write in one of his county's major papers a column that deserves wide republishing around Aotearoa,

City planners impose various pseudo-quantitative performance indicators on the contractors, such as sophisticated GPS systems to monitor on-time performance. But even this minimal nod to public accountability produces unintended consequences. Bus companies fear being fined for missing schedule targets, but are driven by the profit motive to ruthlessly minimize outlays on equipment and staff. The resulting pressure is intense on drivers (some of whom don’t even get paid overtime) to meet unrealistic timetables – a media exposé last year showed this often requires breaking the speed limit. Several times, we’ve watched an awaited bus race by without stopping, the driver shrugging helplessly and pointing at his watch.

That anecdote sums up perfectly the system’s irrationality. The top priority becomes ensuring that a private company reaches profit targets, not picking up people who need a ride.

Yet Aucklanders still pay for transit – three times over. Once through taxes – subsidies to private transit consume half of all property taxes collected by the regional government. Then again at the fare box. And finally a third time through inconvenience. No wonder Aucklanders take transit one-quarter as often as Torontonians.

So before you get carried away with enthusiasm for the inherent efficiency of the private sector, visit Auckland. It’s beautiful. But you’ll need to rent a car.

A disaster all right, public transport run down and privatised in the interests of corporate vultures. As Chris Trotter summed it up in a post on his blog,

The Auckland we’ve ended up with is a city of individuals who travel by car. It’s a city based on the tried and true formula: "real-estate equals roads – roads equal real-estate". This is what I call the "Auckland Racket", and it underpins the city’s speculative economy, its nouveau-riche property-developers’ culture and, most importantly, its far-right neoliberal politics.

If anyone has any doubt that selling the country’s rail network to the robber barons of the ‘80s and ‘ 90s like Michael Fay and David Richwhite was a bad idea they need only read the short history of the deregulation of railways provided by the Campaign for Better Transport,

The new owners began massive “rationalisation”, which meant sacking thousands of staff, closing stations & depots, cutting passenger services & some branch lines. The “human presence” of railways vanished as the workforce necessary to market, manage, load & operate the system were laid off. Soon less staff meant less business & less profit. This neglect of customer’s needs was quickly catered for by hungry truckers who soon captured the freight market from smaller business in the provinces.

Tomorrow the Green Party will rally its supporters of public transport for the launch of a campaign- Fast-Track the CBD Rail Loop. Under the slogan “A Super Rail Network for a Super City” the Greens aims to put pressure on Government policy makers for a “greater sense of urgency”. The facebook event has just 11 attendees suggesting that Aucklanders themselves aren’t all that bothered about the rail network. Yet a 2003 survey showed that poor public transport was the second most common complaint about living in the Auckland region (traffic congestion was number one).

According to the giddy McCarthyites of the Act Party, public transport advocates are, “scared of cars because automobiles allow individuals to make their own decisions. Car drivers can turn left or right, they can travel for miles or stay in the city, they can live out and commute in or live in and commute out. Planners and politicians can’t control them.”

Riiiggghhttt. I mean how many car turns can a car make when it is stuck in gridlock? The hilarious reality is that Auckland’s traffic jams and low public transport use are the direct result of the privatisation shock doctrine that the new right darlings brought about in Auckland in the early 1990s: “bus boardings declined from 42 million per year in 1990 to 31 million in 1994 – a drop which is not correlated with urban density or dispersed employment, as neither of these factors changed substantially over the period”

We don’t even have to look very far back to realise that this current crop of local body politicians hate sensible transport. Take the November ’08 announcements in John Bank’s “Christmas Grinch budget” where he slashed public transport in order to fund more roads and the Rugby World Cup piss-up. Socialist Aotearoa at the time said, “The $345 million dollar Eastern Highway will mean we can keep on driving till the icecaps melt and the oil wells run dry. Just don’t worry about what we’ll do after the oil runs out because this Council plans to cut footpath, cycleways and walkways spending by $66 million, public transport spending by $20.8 million and new park-and-ride facilities will be slashed by $5 million. So say hello to Smog City, a city where Banks can drive his Bently down the freeway while we all eat dust.”

2010 and not a lot has changed for Auckland. The Auckland Regional Council’s regional growth strategy makes for alarming reading,

• Car use is growing by around 4% pa.
• Congestion is perceived by the public to be one of the region’s most significant problems.
• Vehicle use , especially under congested conditions, is a major source of pollution.
• Total cost of congestion to the region is estimated in the order of $750 million pa including loss of production and costs of delay in moving goods.

Both of Auckland’s mayoral frontrunners profess support for further development of Auckland’s public transport system but cynics might say there proposals for integrated ticketing and upgrading ferry and rail networks are simply- too little, too late. Aucklanders who seriously want to unfuck the public transport system will need to do more than vote to end local Government inaction. Getting active in community campaigns for free and frequent public transport and against further roading spending is the first step. Fighting for public ownership of transport companies and free and frequent public transport as well as a massive investment in the innercity loop, rail link with the airport and a cycle lane on the bridge won't be easy. Direct action like the GetAcross Harbour Bridge protest or the anti-SH20 protests will no doubt become more common, but Aucklanders have to keep fighting for these improvements and more if they want a liveable, sustainable, free flowing and connected worldclass city in the future.

In the next post of The Locals series, we'll shine a spotlight at public transport issues around Aotearoa.

Our future best and brightest or New Zealand's version of Hitler Youth?

Watch the full Maori TV feature on the Young Nats or the short Youtube clip and then decide!


hat tip: thestandard.org.nz

Kopu Bridge - A bridge too far for Key's mining ambitions

"Is this the kind of tyre kicking John had in mind?"

Let it be remembered that once again Coromandel Watchdog have stopped the mining trucks in their tracks. The battle began in August 2009 with the Government's announcement of a stocktake of the resources under conservation land and ended with the humiliating Tuesday surrender as "Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee .. confirmed the Government's complete retreat from proposals to allow mineral exploration on 7068ha of protected conservation land on Great Barrier Island, the Coromandel Peninsula, and Paparoa National Park, because of strong public opposition."

The 11 month struggle over some of New Zealand's most iconic conservation land was undoubtedly a victory for people power. Coromandel Watchdog society spokesperson Denis Tegg said, "Twice now we have squared off with not only the government, but also the powerful mining industry lobby and have won both times. Over 3,500 submissions were initiated through our website, many with heart-felt personal comments. Countless thousands of written submissions were also sent in by our supporters. In coalition with Greenpeace, Forest and Bird and other NGO's, we galvanised the largest protest march in decades, and mounted an impressive media campaign which kept the issue front and centre stage for weeks."

"The good news is that the government's review has re-energised our group. We now have thousands of committed supporters who will staunchly oppose any mining activity on the Coromandel Peninsula, whether it is on Schedule 4 land or other conservation land."

Anyone who attempted to make a crossing of the Kopu Bridge this summer will attest to that. The enduring symbol of the campaign will no doubt be the super-march up Queen Street but the real backbone of the campaign came from the dozens of volunteers that the Coromandel Watchdog Society and 2precious2mine coalition mobilised to leaflet the thousands of holidaymakers heading to and from the Coromandel Peninsula this summer.

Under a blazing sun when most people were on the way to the beach, their activists tirelessly strided up and down the lines of stationary cars waiting at the one lane Kopu Bridge dishing out leaflets by the dump truck load to ensure that Brownlee and Key's convoys of mining equipment wouldn't ever make the same journey. Key (or Goff) shouldn't doubt that they've created their own worst enemy in the shape of a determined environmental movement.

In the end it was massive popular education and mobilisation that won the day as Key found himself walking into the minefield of lost causes with continued support for mining. Perhaps someone reminded Key of Jenny Shipley losing the '99 election over among other issues -genetic engineering and native logging. Key probably didn't want to go the way of Shipley who in the year of the election would have public opinion turn so much against her that a “Sink the Ship” banner over the Mt Vic. tunnel to the airport in Wellington was talked about on the radio for days.

Or maybe Key was reminded of the massive eco-victory over Genetic Engineering when even though Labour put a moratorium on commercial release of GE resistance continued to flare with the destruction of 1,300 potato plants in the dead of the night in 2002 at Lincoln, by saboteurs who have never been apprehended.In 2001 a scientist undertaking GE research had his car damaged and his family threatened and in the same year Molotov cocktails were thrown at AgResearch's Ruakura Research Centre by campaigners, causing a grassfire.As the moratorium expired in 2003, Greenpeace and other activist groups continued to challenge the Government with direct action protest including a “tent city” on the lawn of Parliament in Wellington and also with protest marches on Queen Street, Auckland in 2001, 2002 and 2003. As a leading Greenpeace activist noted years later, “We still don’t have commercial release of GE crops in New Zealand. And that’s like how many years later? I think that was a successful campaign”. Losing political and popular support over an issue you can't win probably didn't appeal to Key in the way it did to Clark and the fifth Labour Government

So chalk another one up for the environmental activists of New Zealand. The Kopu Bridge leafleter can take their place in history next to the Lincoln crop puller and the banner hangers of Mt. Vic. Kopu bridge was a bridge too far for Key and Brownlee's plans to "surgically" fuck up the conservation estate. In the end the environmental movement won because it showed that it could kick more tyres in one summer than Key ever could.

The struggle continues...
Photo credit, John Darroch.

Will unions betray the fellowship at the "War Council"

When the National Affiliates Council of the Council of Trade Unions gathers in Auckland on Thursday some hard choices must be made. The Herald is reporting the gathering as a 'war council' and certainly many affiliates, especially private sector unions like Unite and the EPMU will push for a bold response to these latest attacks.

Most readers of this blog will be familiar with war councils from the first film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy when Frodo, the small but brave hobbit volunteers at the Council of Elrond in Rivendell to take the ring to Mt. Doom and throw it into the fire. He and the hobbits can't do it themselves though, they need the strength and protection of the dwarf Gimli, the elf Legolas, Boromir and the warrior king Aragorn. In the end the fellowship of nine is completed, led by the wise Gandalf.

On Thursday the unions will meet and the big public sector unions and some of the more conservative Labour Party affiliated blue-collar unions will be faced with a choice- fight these attacks and hope that union solidarity and power can defeat them or refuse to mobilise, and make just token and minor efforts to support the campaign. There are rumours that the CTU leadership and unions such as the PSA are pushing for a conservative approach to these attacks, a la the 1991 sell out. Will the bosses of the big unions turn their backs on low paid workers or rise to the occasion? As the Key Government steps up its attacks on workers and brave but small unions look to the bigger unions to support they would do well to remember the words of Gandalf to the council in Rivendell:

"Do you not understand that while we bicker amongst ourselves, Sauron's power grows?! None can escape it! You'll all be destroyed!"

Where now for Labour and the CTU? Commentary- Sue Bradford

from Pundit website

Doing the time warp with National – can the Left do better this time round?

by Sue Bradford

In the face of National's employment law and welfare reforms, how will Labour and the unions respond?

Yesterday John Key used the National Party's annual conference to announce drastic changes to employment law.

It was a real time warp moment for me.

While inside the conference Mr Key blandly assured delegates that workers will only benefit from the extension of the 90 day trial, the removal of the right to union access and the gutting of personal grievance processes, outside hundreds of unionists mounted a staunch protest aimed at showing National these reforms won’t be taken lying down.

A sunny Sunday morning on the protest line outside (and temporarily inside) Sky City took me straight back to 19 December 1990, when the new Minister of Finance, one Ruth Richardson, announced her plans to cut benefits and bring in legislation to undermine unions and worker rights through the Employment Contracts Act.

The big question I have right now is: how will the Labour Party and the CTU respond to this new attack?

There is no doubt that John Key’s proposed industrial law reforms are as bad, if not worse, than those propagated through the ECA.

The PM is clawing back a lot of the gains made under Labour, while doing his level best to further weaken an already struggling union movement, especially in the private sector where workers are particularly vulnerable to poor employer practices and are mostly non-unionised.

At the same time, on a parallel front, Paula Bennett is pushing dangerous welfare changes that have the potential to undermine the very basis of our social security system.

I feel reasonably certain that this two pronged onslaught, so similar to the one mounted between December 1990 and July 1991, has the same goals and the same desired outcomes as back then – to increase the profits of National’s big business backers while shoring up campaign funding for the next election.

I hope that it won’t be just the CTU having a council of war this week.

The Labour Party and caucus need to be taking a serious look at their response as well.

My question to Labour is whether they have the nerve to make meaningful promises to workers and unions – and to keep those promises when next they form a Government – or whether they’ll do the same as they did last time, and only give back half of what had been taken away by National.

If they do the same again, things will move even further backwards, the gap between rich and poor will continue to widen, and Labour’s credibility with low paid workers and beneficiaries may well be fatally undermined.

I sat on the Select Committee dealing with the Employment Relations Bill in 2000 and saw firsthand how Labour caved in on some aspects of the bill under pressure from big business in the ‘winter of discontent’.

The challenge to Labour now is to find ways of convincing people like me and many others that their party does have the will to strongly support workers and beneficiaries in their current struggle against National’s industrial and welfare reforms, and that they will have the courage to follow through on this in a meaningful way once they regain the Treasury benches.

My question to the CTU and its constituent unions is whether they are going to have the resolve to actually fight what’s going down in 2010 with every means at their disposal, or whether there’s going to be another sellout like that of Ken Douglas, Angela Foulkes and their allies back in 1991.

I sincerely hope that this time around Helen Kelly, Peter Conway and their colleagues will embrace a full response to the proposed reforms, and that the CTU will be a lot more aware than it was in the 90s of the inextricable link between proposed industrial and welfare changes

The CTU cannot afford to fool itself that organising a few big rallies with dozens of sometimes rather tedious speakers and putting out a couple of leaflets will be enough to cause the Government or its allies any concern.

The unions must take their responsibility to workers seriously; they are in all honesty the last organised line of resistance, and they are going to be sorely tested.

We need a type of leadership that’s noticeably different than that offered in 1991, one that allows and nurtures a multi-layered and diverse response to National’s attacks, and which actually encourages mobilisation and direct action.

There is a risk that the union movement and Labour could tear themselves apart over this, but I truly hope that doesn’t happen. Anyone on the left knows whose interests that will serve.

We cannot afford to allow a National Government the pleasure of once again romping into the next election virtually unopposed and unimpeded, despite its increasingly radical right agenda. Let’s do a whole lot better this time around.

THE NATS ARE RATS- why we fought back!

A short film by Socialist Aotearoa's Billy Hania captures some of the anger and passion behind the clashes outside the National Party's Conference, as John Key announces drastic attacks on workers rights in Aotearoa.