The ongoing attack on workers’ rights

July 6, 2013 by
Unionised Rockgas workers target Jami-Lee Ross' office.

Unionised Rockgas workers target Jami-Lee Ross’ office.

Joel Cosgrove, Fightback member.

It’s ironic that the Employment Relations (Continuity of Labour) Bill is being put forward by National backbench MP Jami-Lee Ross. The bill which allows employers to bring in temporary staff (scabs) to work when workers are on strike is  being put forward by an MP who has no history of actual work, having first been elected to the Manukau City Council at 18 in 2004 and then to the parliamentary seat of Botany at 25 in 2011. [Read more…]

Filed Under: National Party, Workers in Struggle

The Hobbit and SkyCity: Government’s priorities laid bare

March 1, 2013 by

pokie

Writers for Fightback

Information released in late February, on the Hobbit labour dispute and the SkyCity convention centre deal, lays the National government’s priorities bare. In both cases, the government prioritised the needs of business owners over all other concerns.

On February 19th, the office of the deputy auditor-general released a report on the controversial SkyCity deal. SkyCity was given the contract for an international convention centre, in exchange for a law allowing 500 more pokies in its casino.

This report placed the blame on civil servants, rather than the government per se. However, in an opinion piece published the following week, prominent bourgeois commentator Rod Oram highlighted the “whitewash” and contradictions in this report.

Oram notes that SkyCity extensively lobbied the government to reject alternative options, such as a publicly owned convention centre. Before the government opened up an Expression Of Interest (EOI) in 2010, SkyCity had already been working with the government for a year, and had met with government representatives including the Prime Minister.

Oram notes the message this sends to businesses, “If you want to build a convention centre, school, road, hospital, prison or any other form of infrastructure, don’t bother with the appropriate processes… deal directly with the prime minister.”

It’s also telling that the government neglected the option of a publicly owned convention centre, and instead prioritised gambling profiteers. While community organisations focus on helping individuals with gambling addictions, those who profit from casinos remain untouched. The only challenge to SkyCity has come from wage claims by Unite members, a struggle which must be defended and extended. [Read more…]

Filed Under: National Party

Thousands say: “John Key, you’ve got mail, Aotearoa is not for sale”

May 8, 2012 by

Ian Anderson

The Aotearoa is Not For Sale hikoi departed from Cape Reinga on April the 23rd and reached parliament on May the 4th. This march demonstrated that tangata whenua are at the forefront of struggle against privatisation, expressed widespread opposition to asset sales, and raised questions of how to move forward.

Broad kaupapa
The kaupapa was broad, and contested. Thousands were united by opposition to National’s plans of selling 49% of state-owned assets to private companies. Other issues of corporate and ‘foreign’ ownership included the AFFCO meat-works lockout, offshore drilling and the Crafar Farms sale.

In an article for Scoop, Anti-capitalism must feature at hikoi against asset sales, Valerie Morse argued the focus should be on capitalist ownership rather than foreign ownership: “A number of very well known ‘kiwi’ brands equally well meet the definition of a multinational corporation… The fight shouldn’t be about domestic or foreign ownership; the fight should be about ownership full stop.” [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mana Party, Maori Party, National Party, NZ Labour Party, Privatisation

What the Workers Party is about

December 15, 2010 by

All the registered parties got the following email a few weeks ago:

Dear Parties,
I am an 18 year old female. I would really like to be interested in politics, but I don’t know anything about it! I graduated high school 1 year ago, and for a few years political representitives have making sure I am enrolled to vote for the coming election. However no party has ever come forward to us to explain how everything works. I don’t know anyone my age who has a reasonable knowledge about politics. Probably, in the 2011 general election, most of my classmates will be making uninformed desicions about their choice of vote.

I understand that I can read your views on most of your websites but none of this makes any sense to me- there needs to some kind of 101 handbook ‘for dummies’ about what you are offering.

On Facebook, there is a tab on your profile called “Political Views”. All of my friends have things like “boring”, “what?!” or “none” written as theirs. You should be concerned!

Please explain!

Here’s what Jason Froch, a Workers Party member replied to her:

Many thanks,

I’m actually rather delighted by your e-mail, it’s good to know that I’m not alone.  I too have problems trying to make sense of that parliamentary sideshow that consists of bourgeois politics.

In 2008 we had before us:

v     An economic system which requires continued and rising levels of unemployment

v     State legislation that ensures the continuing fall of real wages derived from work, already down 25% since 1982.

v     A predatory war in Afghanistan where New Zealand soldiers assist in the slaughter of civilians, all to assure US military and economic interests

v     The continuation of an exploitative relationship with environment which will see a number of pacific islands underwater in the near future and cause massive social costs

v     Violence against women who are often unable to leave their abusers because of an inability to support themselves and their children

v     The spread of third-world diseases in our communities because of inadequate housing and an inability to afford a doctor visit

v     Not to mention disproportionate magnification of all the above if you happen to be born Maori, Pacific Islander, or are an immigrant

And yet this reality did not connect with those politicians whose happy smiles asked to be our representatives once again in 2008 (the only difference between them being marginal differences in the rate of tax cuts—43% of which have gone to the top 12% of taxpayers). [Read more…]

Filed Under: Elections, National Party, Uncategorized

The Mana By-Election experiment

November 28, 2010 by

Note that this article does not necessarily represent the views of the whole party.

Don Franks


Below the big beaming blue and red billboards it was vacuous capitalist personality politics as usual.

Labour’s candidate claiming to be “working for Mana’ was Labour Party leader Phil Goff’s press secretary.

The best National’s Hekia Parata could produce for a slogan was a bastardisation of her own name – Vote Parata- “Heck yeah!”.

In the end Labour’s Kris Faafoi won the seat with 10,397 votes to  Parata’s 9317.

National came within 1080 votes of snatching a safe Labour seat  while their party is in government. Parata shattered Labour’s previous 6000-plus majority, turning Mana from the ninth safest seat in the country and one of Labour’s strongest bastions to a marginal one for the 2011 elections. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Elections, National Party, NZ Labour Party
Next Page»