Showing posts with label CTU. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CTU. Show all posts
Union Busting : Real leadership for Postal Workers
NZ Posties in the Postal Workers Federation are engaged in industrial action to force NZ Post to negotiate a new collective with better pay and conditions. NZ Post is resisting a new Collective Agreement claiming the old one has expired and that PWF posties have to negotiate individual agreements or join a new union! 90% of PWF Posties have voted to take industrial action. This arrogant union busting attitude of the bosses is made easier by the fact that the EPMU also covers posties. The EPMU does not have a good record in negotiating alongside other unions. We look at the pitfalls of having the workforce split into two unions and ways of dealing with this.
Negotiate together
The Council of Trade Unions (CTU) head, Ross Wilson has shepherded the Postal Workers Federation and EPMU into joint negotiations with NZ Post. What are the dangers for union members in this situation?
Settlement of a deal for both unions would be voted on separately, but what happens if one union votes to accept a deal and the other union votes to reject it?
Recent history gives us an example: The EPMU recently got into this situation with the Aviation & Marine Engineers Association, over the deal they proposed with Air NZ. In October 2005, Air New Zealand announced plans to cut 600 jobs from heavy maintenance engineering. The EPMU effectively set up a deal to ‘save 300 jobs’ but to sell out conditions (rostered shifts) of Christchurch based engineers. In effect, the EPMU wanted a smaller union to take a loss in order to save jobs. The Christchurch Engineers rejected the deal (and saved their conditions) but were subject to abuse and ridicule by the EMPU for rejecting the conditions, and making the whole deal fall over. That was considerable pressure on the smaller union to agree to the deal.
That’s why the smaller union must be organised on the shop floor and ready to support its claims with action. Negotiations are only as successful as the organization of workers is strong.
Organise action separately
The EPMU is likely to lead workers into negotiations and offer little other than a legal path. The EPMU delegates’ forums are few and far between. There is little opportunity for delegates to raise issues from the shop floor. The EMPU organisers are expected by their management to run the meetings according to their agenda, so these meetings become top-down rather than democratic.
The Postal Workers Federation can be a real leadership representing the rank and file members, and that would show up the bureaucratic methods of the EPMU officials. PWF delegates can raise issues from the shop floor in more democratic union meetings. The communication back to members about what is being done is important to demonstrate effective union leadership. However organising in the workplace is most important.
Actions such as not signing off “round profiles” shows real leadership over the conditions that matter on the ground. Members and delegates need to be discussing how to implement work-to-rule.
What we can do to prepare to take direct action to support claims?
Communication among union members is essential in order to take united action. Swapping phone numbers and using email and internet are ways to stay in touch. Setting up a telephone tree is a way to call meetings, and letting members know essential information quickly. How else can members be prepared to take action if a union member is victimized by and employer? (eg. suspended or dismissed). Only the solidarity of union members in support of delegates can protect other workers against victimization.
Taking the lead on the shop-floor would force the EPMU members to question their officials and to also put pressure on for real action to support their claims. The potential for united action remains.
Having two unions in the workplace means that ordinary workers are questioning the union leaderships. An effective union leadership will carry the interests of members into all of it’s actions. We would hope that the best leadership would gain the most members and recruit the membership of the other union, which could then fade into deserved irrelevance. At this time the Postal Workers Federation is showing the best leadership by far.
Rank and File Control of the Union!
Put union dues into fighting funds (i.e. strike wages)
For democratic fighting unions!
A Class Struggle Leaflet
From Class Struggle 67 June/July 2006
Stagecoach - Bus drivers Fightback
In the latest battle for the driver’s seat of Auckland Public Transport Services, the union has made good progress compared with previous strikes. Drivers have so far refused to settle for any of the deals made between union officials and Stagecoach. But they need to do more to win. Drivers have to ‘own’ this dispute!
A Strike Committee made up of rank and file delegates must take over the negotiations. These delegates must be held to their mandate or be replaced. The Strike Committee must build mass pickets, get other unions involved, and negotiate from strength! A fightback based on mass unity, militancy and solidarity is the only way to win!
Picketline Solidarity
The combined unions have built effective pickets – on this strike there were no Stagecoach buses at all on the road –compared with other strikes when the Yellow Bus Co was able to get some drivers scabbing. This time Stagecoach couldn’t organise scabs. Workers were united and no scabs were brave enough to run the picket line! The solidarity was high and there were drivers of many nationalities on the picket line fighting together against the multinational company Stagecoach.
National solidarity
Wellington Stagecoach workers and other Tramways members pledged solidarity and offered financial support. Public support was overwhelmingly high despite the disruption to travel for several days. But this level of solidarity has not yet been enough to win what the drivers want.
The Next Step
Strike committee
All up meetings must elect strike committees to run the struggle, between the all up meetings. Every member must have the right to speak at all-up meetings.
The strike committee must report back to the all-up meetings – and committee members that are not doing what members want, should be recalled from the strike committee. Negotiators must report back to the all-up meetings and provide time for workers to use the open mike to question the progress in negotiations.
All up meetings
It is difficult to organise when workers are so rarely together at the depot. The driver’s work is an individual role driving on the roads. All up meetings of members are vital to plan and organise the fightback. The all-up meeting must be the highest democratic decision making body of the union membership to which delegates and officials are answerable.
“Combined Unions”
As a consequence of past defeated struggles the Tramways union was split. The majority of workers stayed with Tramways while others went to BEES (Bus Employees Enterprise Society), Akarana Drivers Association, and some to the Engineers Union.
Breakaway unions weakened the workers ability to fight.
The BEES tried to find a legal solution without success. Akarana scabbed on previous strikes years ago. Akarana had signed a new contract without referring to the majority of drivers in the union – undermining the Tramways union’s ability to negotiate, and to win a strike. An injury to one is an injury to all – scabbing is an injury to all of the working class. Scabbing divides the strength of workers.
These groups are now re-united for negotiations as well as on the picket line and striking together. But is this unity one of strength or has it just poured polyfiller into the splits between workers? All drivers should be members of the Tramways Union! Those who are not should join now!
Rebuild the union as a fighting, democratic union!
Demand Tramways Union opens the books and declares how much their officials are paid. Officials pay should be on the same scale as workers. We know these officials have political affiliations, including to the Labour party. Opening the books will make all political donations transparent.
Demand all donations are voted on at the all-up meetings.
Build a new union on a new constitution based on:
Open books, recallable officials, a standing delegates committee, and regular all-up members meetings.
Elect all officials at all-up meetings on a show of hands.
Turn mass sympathy into mass support!
Build Strike support
Invite all workers along to support the pickets, especially workers in struggle (nurses, bank workers, Gilmores etc). When we build a mass picket we mean the majority of a working class community coming out to defend the picketline – like the Australian working class did for the Maritime Union in its struggle with Patricks in 1998. Working class communities can unite around defense of picket lines. Other workers will contribute food and cash as acts of solidarity and drivers need to be open and ready for donations.
Mass Pickets
Through a telephone tree the strike committee can organise mobile pickets prepared to strengthen or set up a picket at short notice in case of any threat to the picket lines. They can also use the mass media to organise – radio stations can be used to send messages around the community, broadcasting a need to strengthen a picket at short notice.
Strike Funds
A task of the strike committee is to distribute a ‘strike wage’ and donations according to workers need. Build a strike committee with support funds, paying a strike wage to workers and organizing real relief within the striking workers. Organise receipt books on the picket lines to account for donations and help distribute them fairly. For a strike committee centre at each depot picketline, and in between strike action and pickets, at the union office.
CTU role
Council of Trade Unions’ president Ross Wilson volunteered to support the struggle by playing a support role in negotiations. This is the job of the strike committee, not a top official committed to building partnerships with the bosses! The CTU should build mass pickets of all union members! Lets see some real support! If striking drivers got regular donations into their strike funds collected from 30,000 CTU members at only $1 each per week – that would make a strike fund! That would be the real sort of practical support that could assist workers to win this fight. Let us see money & muscle, not the mouth coming from the CTU!
International Solidarity
Put the Tramways union website under the control of the union rank and file and use it to make links with the international working class. Stagecoach is an international company. Workers in Sweden and Scotland have also fought the Stagecoach company. Build international links with the unions of these branches. Link your websites and use the International Transport workers’ Federation to make the links. The Public Services International also covers public sector transport workers.
Public Ownership
Taken back under worker’ control, transport planning can end the daily commuting grind. Return the buses to public ownership! No compensation for stagecoach! No subsidies to local, national or international capitalists! For workers councils to run the transport system and organise bus routes and timetables.
Barriers to overcome are:
Labour Government
In the run up to the election, the Labour party will want to keep a lid on workers struggles. That will mean that union officials who are Labour party members will be prone to selling out, and may need throwing out. Demand that all negotiators are up-front about their party memberships. Be prepared to replace Labour party members in the negotiation team.
Defend workers taking industrial action
When workers take any form of industrial action (eg. refusing to cash in) and are sacked for taking that action, the rest of the workforce must demand any individual victimised is re-instated. Do not abandon individual workers to the processes of industrial law or mediation. The legal road is the bosses road. In Auckland there is a history of individual drivers being sacked and failing to get reinstated along the legal road.
An Injury to One is an Injury to All! When a worker is isolated from other workers they are vulnerable to being picked off by the bosses. Don’t accept any sackings without a workers’ controlled review committee – don’t accept workers being labelled “trouble-makers” by bosses or their lackeys. Do not abandon your workmates, be prepared to strike until victimised workers are reinstated.
Strike Support
Drivers need to organise a community strike support committee. Working class communities can rally around in defence of our fellow workers and public services – a recent example was the support committees at the fire stations, when the fire fighters were in struggle. A weakness of striking workers has been the type of go-it-alone “staunch unionism” that is not ready for support and help from other workers.
Workers strength is other workers, we need to communicate with one other.
Ritchies' drivers
The NDU covers Ritchies' workers, however this group of workers has already settled for a lower rate (see box). This divides Auckland’s bus drivers and weakens the fight against Stagecoach (and the council funders). Drivers’ needed to communicate so as not to undermine each other. The Labour law gives opportunity for Multi-Employer and Multi-Union Collective Agreements (MECA’s and MUCA’s). Workers need to unite in one driver’s union – under one banner.
Drivers Unite to Fight For
- A Strike Committee, Mass pickets, A strike wage, Regular donations into strike funds
- A community led strike support committee - Unite to fight!
- A living wage! No broken shifts: workers control of shifts and rosters!
- A 4 day (32 hour) working week. Social wages – free & quality education and healthcare. Return buses to public ownership, without compensation, and under workers control.
MayDay! Workers of the World Unite!
May 1 is International Workers’ Day! All around the world we are seeing those who are exploited and oppressed by capitalism and imperialism engaged in resistance struggles. In Aotearoa/New Zealand we need to rebuild a labour movement that can act in solidarity with this global resistance. We need to build unions that are democratic, independent, militant, and internationalist, as 'schools for socialism'!
Workers commemorate past struggles and act in solidarity with present struggles. We remember the historic struggles of the Paris Commune of 1870, the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the heroic colonial revolutions such as the Chinese and Vietnamese. In NZ we celebrate the class battles of 1890, 1912-13 and 1951. These are the major milestones in the making of our class into that revolutionary force that has the power to overthrow capitalism and build socialism.
Workers resistance on the rise
Today the workers movement is weak and defensive. Years of defeat have pushed workers into retreat. But while capitalism can drive back workers struggles it cannot destroy the only class that creates its wealth. Around the world there are signs that workers are once again on the move. Imperialism is in deep crisis and can only survive that crisis by robbing workers and peasants of their resources, driving down their wages and making their lives miserable.
International resistance to imperialist rule is mounting. But the organisation of that resistance is still at a rudimentary level. Because of the weakness of the organised workers movement worldwide, resistance to oppression is taking forms that cut across working class solidarity and hold back the rise of international labour solidarity.
In Palestine and Iraq, the invaders have smashed working class organisations and are forcing workers into the arms of the bosses and Islamic clerics. Young workers are being driven to futile suicidal attacks against high-tech invading armies. Isolated and outgunned these ‘intifada’ can be smashed as in Palestine and Afghanistan.
Al Qaeda, the terrorist organisation funded by wealthy Saudis, is bombing and maiming Western workers to drive imperialism out of the Middle East, not to liberate Muslims but to make rich Arabs bosses even richer.
What we have to learn from all these struggles of oppressed peoples against imperialism is two things: first, the working class is the only class that can unite all the oppressed and defeat imperialism, and second, that the working class must be united internationally and led by a revolutionary party.
Why the working class?
The leadership of the national struggles against imperialism must come from the working class. Only the organised armed workers can turn resistance on the part of peasant and tribal fighters into a victorious defeat of imperialism. All other classes have an interest in doing deals with imperialism for a share of the wealth created by workers and peasants.
Workers, in opposing the system that exploits and oppresses them, have a class interest not only to defeat imperialism. They also have an interest to overthrow the national capitalist class and its hired politicians - including those who pose as friends of the workers like Arafat, Chavez or Lula. And workers have the means to do this as they can strike to close down the economy, arm themselves, win over sections of the military and take state power.
But even where workers are highly organised as they are in Bolivia, they have been cheated of power by class traitors in their own ranks. Armed peasants and miners led by militant trade unions have several times in the last decades been capable of taking power, only to be betrayed by leaders who do deals with imperialism to share the expropriated labour of workers and peasants.
To avoid repeating these defeats, we have to keep alive the lessons of the past as guides to action today. In Russia in 1917, the armed workers were led by a revolutionary party that defeated the treacherous sellout elements in their ranks and helped the struggle for national liberation to become a victorious socialist revolution. The difference between Russia in 1917, and the failed or incomplete revolutions in Germany 1919, Bolivia 1952, Cuba 1959, and Chile 1973, was the existence of a revolutionary party.
The second lesson is, that a victorious national liberation movements against imperialism cannot survive as independent workers’ state without the class solidarity of the workers in the imperialist countries, including their rich client states like New Zealand.
This is because these ‘Western’ workers are the only class that has the strength to shut down the imperialist economies and bring the war machine to a halt.
For example, it was the German workers who went on strike and the soldiers and sailors who mutinied in 1918 stopping the European imperialist powers from overwhelming and smashing the Russian Revolution at its birth. The workers in the imperialist countries are the only force with the power to stop their own bosses from invading, occupying and destroying other countries, by defeating the 'main enemy' at home.
The labour ‘aristocracy’
But there is a problem in building support for liberation struggles in the Western working class. Many workers are ‘bought off’ with high wages and back their bosses in imperialist wars. They are members of the labour ‘aristocracy’ whose wages are partly paid by the cheap labour of the ‘developing’ countries. Their unions are led by bureaucrats that manage labour relations within the law of the bosses’ state. They vote for reformist parties that claim to manage capitalism in the interests of ‘all classes’.
For example in the US, the main union organisation, the AFL-CIO, is proud of its ‘patriotism’ in supporting the ‘war on terror’, including the use of the Patriot Act to attack labor rights at home. Why? Because this war defends the interests of US workers whose jobs and wages depend on the strength of US imperialism. The AFL-CIO calls for votes for the Democratic Party, as the more union-friendly party of the US bosses, to deliver these jobs and wages.
This is why the vast majority of those millions of workers who opposed the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003, did little more than demonstrate in the streets or pray for peace. They thought that war was the wrong policy. And their pacifism is catching. When Bush abolished the labour rights of public employees after 9-11, there was no strike in response. Even the West Coast Longshoremen, traditionally one of the most militant US unions, loudly proclaimed their unrivalled patriotism and backed off an industrial dispute last year when Bush threatened to lock them up under the Patriot Act.
NZ workers sign up for imperialism
In NZ the CTU official stand on the ‘war on terror’ was to endorse the UN resolutions. While the Auckland CTU leadership took a more principled stand against a UN invasion of Iraq, the union movement in NZ has not taken any industrial action against the SAS being sent to Afghanistan or the Engineers to Iraq. NZ workers too are dominated by a union bureaucracy that banks its career paths on 'lesser evil' Labour governments or an alternative future Alliance/Green coalition managing a 'peaceful and just' capitalism.
Why? Because in NZ the most privileged workers in unions affiliated to the Labour Party and the 'left' parties, benefit from NZ’s military alliance with Australian and US imperialism. For example the Maritime Union 'cabotage' campaign appeals to NZ bosses to join forces with Australian imperialist bosses to keep ‘foreign’ workers on lower wages off local ships. And the EPMU is begging the Aussie military to contract out maintenance on its frigates to the Whangarei shipyard that helped to build these ANZAC frigates to police the Pacific on behalf of US and Australian imperialism’s interests.
Pacifism means sucking up to bosses
Thus the most privileged layers of Western workers depend for their jobs and incomes on direct or indirect benefits from imperialist military expenditure. Or on wars for oil, gas, copper, diamonds, fish etc whose proceeds trickle down into their jobs and pay packets. These unions are bureaucratic, pacifist, dependent on the state and form racist national fronts with their bosses to protect their jobs from migrants or foreigners.
The most these workers will do against war is to argue that imperialism does not need to fight wars to defend their jobs and high wages, and that the UN should manage invasions like in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. This is why the official labour movement in the imperialist countries will never go beyond pacifist posturing and never take organised strike action to stop war. For example, even when train drivers went on strike against Britain’s role in the Iraq war, they acted as individuals and not as members of their union.
Build unions of the most oppressed!
But all is not lost. While the union bureaucrats in the imperialist countries serve the interests of the bosses and the labour aristocracies, they do not represent the vast layers of other workers who are highly exploited and oppressed.
These are the migrant workers and/or low paid service workers who are mainly women, ethnic minorities and youth. They are typically casualised workers, not unionised and on the worst pay and conditions. They do not benefit from imperialism and form an oppressed layer of cheap labour in the imperialist heartlands. They have the class interest to form strong links with other workers across borders in the oppressed world and take direct action against their own military machine.
It is to these workers that we must look to form new class struggle unions based on rank and file democracy. They can be organised independently of the state, reformist parties and the bosses. Like the Latino janitors unionised in Los Angeles, they can take militant strike action to fight for better wages and conditions in the heart of the imperialist machine. They can act in international solidarity with the anti-imperialist resistance around the world.
Organise the casualised worker!
In NZ, the large majority of workers in the casualised mainly private service sector are not unionised. They are predominantly young, female, migrant workers. They work for multinational hotels like Sheraton, fast food outlets like Burger King, petrol stations like Mobil, and supermarkets, multinational call centres and commercial cleaners.
They need to be unionised so they can join forces with the workers who are employed by these same global corporates in other countries to fight together to win rights and better pay and conditions.
They can also link up globally with unionised workers in oil companies like Shell, banks like Citigroup, and military contractors like Halliburton, and other war profiteers, to blockade these companies and demand that they get off 'corporate welfare' and free up billions for health, education and housing for the poor.
The can unite with unionised workers in the export industries such as fishing and forestry to oppose anti-worker practices and the destruction of fish and timber stocks. They can fight to keep the foreshore and seabed from being sold-off to the expanding multinational aquaculture corporations. They can demand the nationalisation of all these companies under workers’ control with no compensation to the bosses!
For Rank-and-file control of unions
To be effective these unions must be run by their rank and file members. They must struggle to be independent of any political bureaucracy, of the reformist parties who suck them into parliament and the bosses’ state, and able to unite with other unions in militant strike action.
With this organisational strength, these unions can be what Leon Trotsky called ‘schools for revolution’. They can take up the fight for the most immediate bread and butter demands, and when the bosses refuse to meet them, they can take the fight all the way to win workers’ control of industry and state power.
They can take action on wages which become stands on war. They can defend their jobs yet refuse to build or repair frigates. They can demand that the CTU takes strike action against NZ’s military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. When the CTU refuses they can replace it with their own rank and file leadership.
They can impose boycotts and bans on Israel. They can mount solidarity campaigns in defence of migrant workers, so-called illegal workers, refugees like the jailed Algerian Ahmed Zaoui. They can fight for the rights of foreign workers in NZ ships, and build support for the independent trades unions and women’s’ organisations of Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.
These unions must be democratic, independent, militant and internationalist! They can train and empower the working class fighters who will unite with workers globally and create a new political leadership that can bring an end to capitalism and build a world socialist society!
Workers have no country!
No to cabotage, frigates and theft of the foreshore!
Strike to stop imperialist war at home!
Support the resistance in Iraq and Palestine!
Support the workers and peasants revolution in Bolivia!
No to the treacherous leaders of the WSF - Lula, Chavez and Castro!
For a new World Party of Revolution!
From Class Struggle 55 April-May 2004
Aotearoa: New Employment Relations Reforms
ERA weak
The Government is making some minor changes to the Employment Relations Act (ERA) to strengthen the role of unions. The ERA was designed to restore a balance to industrial relations after the ECA had almost destroyed the unions. Labour’s Blairite approach is to make the unions ‘partners’ with business so as to regulate the labour force and encourage increased labour productivity. But to do that unions have to first get coverage of workers. The ERA failed to give the unions sufficient strength to significantly increase their bargaining power with business. Bosses could refuse to agree to collective agreements and workers did not see the advantages of joining unions. After 3 years, union membership has recovered slightly from being around 18% of the workforce to about 20%. But today only 12% of workers in private industry are unionised compared with 50% in the public sector.
The CTU lobbied Government to improve conditions for unions. They wanted to make it harder for bosses to avoid participating in MECAS (multi-employer collective agreements), to promote collective bargaining, to make the good faith requirements stronger so bosses could not ignore them, to protect vulnerable workers when businesses are sold and to stop free-loading by non-members. The Government took these issues on board:
The Changes
- Fines up to $10,000 if employers do not act in ‘good faith’
- Vulnerable workers get more protections when businesses are sold
- Employers could be fined if they pass union-negotiated wages and conditions to non-union workers
- If MECAS (Multi employer agreements) are sought, employers must attend at least one meeting
- A new system of non-binding 3rd party facilitation when parties can't reach a settlement,
- If the facilitation fails and a collective agreement can't be reached, a settlement could be imposed by the Employment Relations Authority
- Labour Dept inspectors investigate complaints over equal pay
Bosses’ offensive
The employers are objecting to the changes in the Bill. While Labour Minister Margaret Wilson says that stronger unions will actually contribute to economic growth in the whole country, bosses want weaker unions and more control over their worksites. They strongly opposed the ERA when it was first promoted in 2000 and Labour made concessions to them. Even Roger Kerr of the Business Round Table admits that the original ERA was “watered down” and “remained enterprise focused”. Despite Kerr’s plain talking, most capitalists running businesses and employing workers, still hate the ERA and don’t want a bar of the new Bill. They miss the freedom of the ECA to hire and fire at will. So they are running a scare campaign to frighten Labour into submission.
The bosses’ offensive against the Bill has been coordinated by the New Zealand Herald. The ‘business section’ of NZH has run a campaign against the Bill. It reported 3 surveys they conducted of small, medium and large businesses on their negative reactions to the Bill. The alarmist reactions are captured in the headlines in the series of anti-worker stories called ‘Working to Rules’. One headline said ‘More rights, less work’, another ‘Recipe for Ruin’ and another ‘Businesses must rise in Protest”.
For bosses, the most unpopular aspect of the reforms is strengthening the provisions for MECAS. They say that large groups of organised workers across several enterprises is a move back towards national awards and a restriction to right of each employer to hire and fire. They also object to the provisions which protect workers when businesses are sold or transferred. Neither do bosses like the restrictions on freeloading. They claim mediation is not working for them. They object to being forced into an Agreement by the Employment Relations Authority.
Prominent critic Simon Carlaw of Business New Zealand says the Bill is anti-enterprise and anti-growth. The penalty for breaching good faith is too draconian and signals a return to compulsory arbitration and loss of freedom for bosses. Transfer of provisions is yet another compliance cost. Stopping bosses advising workers not to join unions restricts their freedom of speech! Kerr ups the anti, claiming the new Bill aims to return to compulsory unionism, to compulsory arbitration and that multi employer contracts will create class warfare, which will be news to that rabid socialist Margaret Wilson.
Trade unions respond
Trade union leaders predicted businesses would complain and generate panic like they did over the original ERA. So how are unionists reacting to the hysteria? Although the Bill refers to the “inherent inequality of power” in the workplace the unions are treading softly on this argument. Instead, unionists are appealing to the ‘good business sense’ of the bosses. Bill Andersen, president of the National Distribution Union, in an article headlined “Only bad bosses need fear law change”, claimed that if a business was run on a sound investment plan, was informed by market research and had good labour relations, then the new law would be great for them. This echoes former union leader Ken Douglas who stated some years back that the bosses need unions to get the most productivity from workers! That’s presumably why on retirement from the union job Douglas offered his services to business.
Margaret Wilson defended her Bill by restating her philosophy that workers and bosses have interests in common - suggesting that good profits and improved working conditions go together. She appeals to bosses by arguing that the Bill will benefit business. She sees that improved working conditions for workers will be good for business and anyway, good employers are already practicing good faith in their dealings with their workers. She points out that the Bill brings NZ in line with the working conditions in most OECD countries. One lone CEO responding to a NZH survey thought the negative reactions to the Bill were alarmist, and said the worker protections matched those in OECD countries.
Carol Beaumont, CTU secretary, echoes Wilson's arguments, claiming “good employers won’t worry”. According to CTU president Ross Wilson, the CTU position is that unions will work with businesses to manage the economy by helping plan and organise work, to increase productivity and develop economic strategies. The Douglas line lives!
Class Struggle perspective
Will these arguments change bosses minds? While Labour and the unions are taking a soft line stressing partnership and mutual benefits, business is facing an increasingly tough environment with a high dollar and uncertain world economy. The unions are weak, facing further damage in the year ahead unless we can rebuild them on the basis of a strong rank and file. On top of that National has revived its fortunes on the back of a racist anti-Maori campaign. But its new leader Don Brash has a rightwing neo-liberal economic package lined up to follow the racist campaign. We predict that the bosses’ offensive will force another backdown from Labour on the reforms in this Bill that are most helpful to workers.
We say that no labour law can protect workers, unless workers organize and defend these rights on the job. The weakness of the current ERA is that it gave unions more rights on paper – we called it a ‘charter for union bureaucrats’ when it was passed – but it could not strengthen t he rank and file base of the unions. On top of that the Bill has nasty anti-secondary strike provisions that have to be broken if any strike is going to succeed. It cannot stop employers from using scabs as the waterfront dispute in 2002 showed. We also object to union negotiators being able to sign off on deals without the members ratifying them. Workers are the union, not the union bureaucrats.
Despite its inherent failings we support rank and file union campaigns to get the Bill strengthened. So long as workers think that Labour is on their side we have to demand that they prove it. That way we show that Labour’s Blairite policies are really the old new right policies in drag. After the new right smashed the unions, the Blairites came along with a sedative. Today it’s the Labour Minister and her cronies in the union leadership that dose us with the ‘partnership’ class A drug. Let’s demand the things we know that neither Labour nor the union bureaucrats can deliver without pissing off the bosses. In doing so we prove to workers yet again that the only rights they can be sure of are the ones they fought to win and fight to defend!
For the right to strike! For secondary strikes! For national awards! For the closed shop!
From Class Struggle 54 Feb-March 04
ALL OUT TO STOP CARTER HOLT!
Carter Holt Harvey is now NZ’s No 2 company after the sale of Fletcher Energy, behind only Telecom. It is owned by International Paper one of the world’s biggest and most technologically advanced producers of pulp and paper. CHH has aggressively restructured its NZ operations over the last three years, cutting costs and streamlining operations. This has led to an improvement in its profits at the expense of jobs and working conditions. But it is now faced with a slowdown in the world economy and all time low prices for logs and a world slump in paper pulp prices. CHH has already shown itself willing to attack its workforce and now it has no option but to continue these attacks to stay competitive. Workers on guard!
From Class Struggles No 38 April-May 2001
Best practice or worst practice?
CHH was one of the first to take advantage of the ECA to defeat its powerful timber union after a 13-week strike in 1992. Most of those workers who remained at Kinleith joined the EPMU which has a philosophy of working in ‘partnership’ with employers. To stay competitive CH’s CEO Chris Liddell is a fan of new business methods based on ‘best practice’. The EPMU tries to keep pace with these best practices which in the last analysis mean increasing worker exploitation as workers deliver more ‘value for money’.
This means the company adopts the most advanced methods in production, transport and supply, speeding up production and cutting costs. This is the knowledge economy in your face. According to Liddell the most successful global companies have fewer and fewer workers. The top ten US companies are today five times as big but employ fewer workers. Best practice for profits is worst practice for work conditions and job security.
Take "flexibility". CHH has spent half a billion on new fibreboard plants in Australia and a veneer plant in Whangarei. But it closed down Mataura with 155 job losses and one shift at Kinleith with the loss 23 jobs. It upgraded its Kinleith plant during the day forcing the two remaining shifts to work nights from 4 pm and 12 pm.
After two accidents caused by fatigue, 60 workers occupied the plant and refused to work at night for 10 days before Christmas last year. When it had no work it closed the plant for a week. So "Flexibility" for CHH means workers losing their jobs and working under worse, dangerous conditions, or having week-long split shifts. This is preparation for the ultimate in ‘flexibility’ –the casualisation of work were the boss is free to dictate the terms and conditions of work.
CHH "picking winners"
Another principle favoured by CEO Liddell is "picking winners". CH has invested in eCargo a NZ company that matches the freight needs of companies with transport companies on an Internet site to drive down costs. CHH has invested in an Aussie E-commerce company called Cyberlynx which streamlines "supply chain operations’. In plain language this is an internet "just in time" delivery system reducing both delays and stockpiling of goods and services.
CHH recently introduced what it calls the i2b programme where it held a competition among workers for new ideas to make more money for the company. One winner was chosen because he was seen selling Xmas trees on the street. CHH management did hand out prizes to the 750 workers laid off for a compulsory weeks holiday on January 26 for doing much more creative things to pay their bills.
Most daring, CHH has spun off a Human Relations company called ‘Mariner7" to sell all its ideas on how to exploit workers more efficiently to other companies. One of these ideas is to create company unions to smash what remaining influence existing unions have in defending jobs and conditions. And where workers fight back it means using scab labour and company unions to enforce ‘best practice’ i.e. worst practice.
Mainland Stevedoring
Carter Holt Harvey saved its best move to contract an ‘independent’ union, Mainland Stevedoring, to load logs by using computers to pack more logs into the holds. This was a ‘best practice’ that directly challenged the WWU and threatened to casualise wharf labour practices even more than they already were. Even though this was a threat every bit as serious as in 1951, the WWU leadership has chosen to steer industrial action back into parliament. The best that the Labour-Alliance Government could offer was ‘mediation’, that old golden cow that the ‘class neutral’ state could try and negotiate a deal between CHH and WWU.
But that would have been a ‘bad practice’ for CHH since it would give in to union ‘monopoly’ and stand over tactics. The CTU President Ross Wilson chimed in saying that "we remain committed to the mediation process". He complained that peaceful pickets had been undermined by "police over-reaction and the use of confrontational tactics". Meanwhile while the CTU and the WWU appeal to the police, the government and the company to ‘be fair’, CHH gets its logs loaded on the cheap and workers lose their jobs.
CHH picking on losers?
So far CHH has been able to win what it wants by picking off sections of the workforce under separate union coverage. The occupation over night shift was a good move and succeeded in winning back a day shift. This should be the lesson – more industrial action at the point of production, to stop CHH where it hurts.
WWU has marshalled hundreds of supporters on their picket line, but no concerted union support has meant that cops and scabs got through every time. Worse, small groups and individuals were isolated and bashed by the cops. The defeat of these pickets was only because they were not mass pickets.
The MUA struggle in Australia in 1998 showed that mass pickets have the potential to win much wider support and prevent both police and scabs from access. Similarly, despite their limits, the Kinleith occupation and the WWU pickets have put pressure on the national CTU leadership to organise its own campaign against CHH to try to settle the disputes. We welcome this initiative but expect that left to the CTU leadership it will do no more than tie workers to the ERA legal framework of the so-called ‘partnership’ between labour and capital.
Mediation and ‘partnership’
The problem with mediation as practiced by the CTU and in particular the EPMU, is that it believes, like the Labour Government, that industrial disputes can be settled by good faith and compromise. But even the NZ Herald does not believe this. In an editorial on 27 January 2001 it said "…mediation is of little use, and may well be detrimental, when fundamental principles are in conflict."
Of course the NZ Herald thinks that the principle at stake here is the right of CH to employ whatever union they like. The Herald’s owner Tony O’Reilly, like CHH, won’t compromise this principle. This is why all the negotiations between the CTU, CHH and government have failed already.
The ERA does not allow workers to stop scabs working unless agreements are being negotiated. And this Labour-Alliance Government is not going to amend the ERA to ban scab unions. That would be regarded by the bosses like Stephen Tindall of the Warehouse as an open attack on their class. After the rough ride it got on taking office, Labour will do anything to avoid upsetting the bosses again.
This means that to defend the principle of union labour against scab labour, workers have to break the law just like the Kinleith occupation and WWU picketers have done over the last weeks. But the key is to do it as a mass of thousands of workers so that workers organised might can win and become the basis of their labour right.
A Winning Workers’ Campaign
A successful campaign needs to mobilise all CHH workers to stop production. Just as CHH has deliberately streamlined its business internationally to minimise disruptions in the supply, production and marketing of logs and pulp, CHH workers need to organise internationally to interrupt this process at the most vital points.
- Stop work at the plants. Occupations are the best method since workers occupying the workplace makes it more difficult for bosses to run the plant. Kinleith workers have shown that they can take such action and win. On a larger scale which stops production completely, the boss has to make concessions. Workers in Australian and North American plants should be encouraged to take solidarity actions.
- Stop the flow of raw materials and finished products. CHH has attempted to reduce this risk by using non-contracted casualised carriers. But the organised drivers under the NDU would be able to stop the flow of logs and paper pulp. French truckies have shown that they can blockade the nation’s transport system and force Government’s to make concessions. International bans by dockers in Korea and the US played a big part in the MUA struggle.
- Mass pickets to prevent the use of scab labour. The WWU pickets have failed only because they were not supported by thousands of workers like the MUA pickets in Australia. It’s true that the MUA pickets were undermined by scab workers, but the mass pickets were not generalised because they were not under rank and file control. Any union policy that downplays pickets as publicity stunts designed to embarrass bosses or governments needs to be replaced by a policy of REAL, MASS, pickets.
- International union bans on CHH products. Because CH is a multinational, and has diversified into e-commerce operations such as eCargo, Cyberlynx and Mariner7, an important part of international solidarity with striking CHH workers is a ban on all CHH products and services. As well as providing solidarity this would have an important educational benefit as these goods and services are used to speed up production in order to increase the exploitation of workers.
The issue of ‘breaking the law’
Picketers ‘breaking the law’ has been the constant refrain from the radical right like ACT. But from a workers’ perspective any law that is used to limit their freedom to organise to defend their basic rights and conditions has to be broken. The bosses rely upon workers observing the law to get what they want. They use labour law to impose ‘mediation’ only when they know that this is on their terms. When it’s not they do not hesitate to break the law! There is only one law and that is the bosses’ law.
Strike action to be effective is illegal under the ERA. But rather than isolating and exposing a few militants to the force of the law, mass action has the potential to build workers’ power in the workplace and challenge the law. For example the MUA pickets in 1998 were technically illegal, but because they were massive, workers forced the company and the Government onto the defensive.
The SWO call for a union ban on CHH products is tactically wrong. It is a tactic that should only be used to ban the handling of products already subject to strike action. By itself it interrupts the circulation of goods but it does not stop the production process. If a union ban is called in isolation of CHH workers taking strike action, at best it would be ineffective, but at worst it would isolate unions indirectly linked to the dispute and not backed up by mass strike action, exposing them to the forces of the state.
Rebuild the Unions!
We are opposed to moves by the CTU to limit the development of industrial action to the rule of law represented by the ERA. We are opposed to promoting illusions that present the interests of workers and employers as ‘harmonious’, or in ‘partnership’. This is a partnership where one partner is getting screwed, that is the workers who create the wealth including the boss’s profits.
We are for the rebuilding of the union movement from its present low ebb where less than 20% of workers are members and even fewer are covered by collective agreements. We are for workers reclaiming the right to strike by taking action independent of the state. The right to strike is the might to strike and it can only be won by strong, organised unions.
- Build Fighting, Democratic unions based on the rank and file membership.
- For the election of delegates by the rank and file, who are accountable to the rank and file and subject to immediate recall if they vote or act contrary to their mandate.
- For all-up meetings of the rank and file to decide strategy and tactics.
- For strike committees elected by the rank and file.
- For international solidarity among unions, and the election of international strike committees in disputes against multinational companies.
CTU meeting to plan campaign against CHH
A combined meeting of the CTU and the unions associated with CHH was held in at Ngongotaha on 14 March. The unions represented included the Waterfront Workers, Engineers, NDU and Seafarers. The purpose of the meeting was to strategise a union approach to CHH moves against unions. Also present were some of the CHH site delegates from around the B.O.P/ Waikato region.
Because this correspondent was not a direct participant in the meeting and delegates were sworn to secrecy, the outcome of the meeting has yet to be verified. The promise of a short statement from the meeting did not eventuate.
Outside the conference venue was what could be loosely described as a united front action consisting mainly of SWO members and supporters. Also present were 3 members of the CWG. Both groups acting independently distributed leaflets and literature on the issue of CHH and the unions.
Of interest was the response of those participating in the meeting towards the leaflets. Because the tactics being advocated by the SWO called for union bans on CHH products, this was not taken favourably by the CHH workers who were present. They believed that bans would affect their jobs and livelihoods. It would have been better for the CHH workers themselves to decide on a course of action rather than have one imposed from the outside. "Bunch of students" was one of the comments passed on by one of the delegates during the lunch break, the only time when any indication of the mood of the meeting was made.
Also mentioned was the cool atmosphere between the NDU wood sector delegates and the engineers. Their cooperation was made possible only because both unions now came under the umbrella of the CTU for the common purpose of dealing with CHH.
As we predicted in our leaflet, a hint was let drop of a tripartite meeting to be held between the Government, CTU and CHH. CHH was not pleased with the CTU getting involved, but seems to have agreed that a meeting with Government was better than the spectre of militant union action.
On a positive note, the CWG leaflet "All Out to Stop Carter Holt" was welcomed. It reflected a rank and file perspective putting the initiative on the CHH workers themselves with a bit of prodding from a certain left-wing quarter. Arising out of this leaflet a CWG member was nominated for national vice president of the NDU wood sector by B.O.P/Waikato rank-and-file delegates at Kawerau on 25 March.
This at least gives recognition to the realistic program being promoted by the CWG although it is early days yet. The complete understanding of this program by the wood sector workers and others can only help to strengthen the level of consciousness among workers to take on the likes of CHH.From Class Struggles No 38 April-May 2001
SAY NO TO RACIST ATTACKS ON MIGRANT WORKERS!
If recent comments by NDU (National Distribution Union) Secretary Mike Jackson regarding police and immigration raids on work sites employing ‘illegal’ Asian workers are anything to go by, then it is time to root out such racist and nationalist flag waving attitudes that serve to reinforce chauvinist divisions through the working class.
‘Socialism in One Country’.
Former Socialist Unity Party member Jackson was recently quoted as saying that "illegal immigration is a problem for NZ industry in that it drags wages and conditions down, making it harder to develop skills which end up going across the ditch (Tasman Sea)". Such sentiments are not new. The fear of loss of jobs and conditions to ‘foreign workers’ has become a mantra trotted out by the right wing and phony left of the union movement.
The phony is left represented partly by the neo-Stalinist S.P.A. (Socialist Party of Aotearoa) whose President and second in command are NDU President Bill Andersen and Mike Jackson respectively. As adherents of the doctrine of ‘socialism in one country’ (see box below) it is hardly surprising that the non-internationalist position taken by such leaders is to the fore on the illegal immigration question.
Labour parties by their very nature try to con workers into believing that the bosses’ state can protect their jobs. The labour bureaucrats have taken a protectionist line in guarding the local conditions of workers not as a benevolent measure in the workers’ interests but as a means of putting the lid on any attempt by workers to rise up in the event of crises affecting their work conditions.
This is done first by ensuring that all key union positions are occupied by social democratically minded or phony left leaders. Their only interest is to guard their bureaucratically controlled high perches where they stand as intermediaries between bosses and workers. This union bureaucracy was called the labour lieutenants of capital by Trotsky because they control the workers as "troops" for the bosses.
The other measure which is being called for by the top union leaderships is the reintroduction of trade tariffs which amount to nothing more than a subsidy (profit top up) that goes into the bosses’ pockets and not the workers. More importantly tariffs act as barriers that stand between the workers internationally and can escalate into wars were workers are sent to fight workers to defend their bosses profits.
Rare international solidarity actions such as the MUA (Maritime Union of Australia) ban on handling military supplies to Indonesia over East Timor and the US Longshore Union support of the MUA over the struggle against scab labour on Australian wharves, are exceptions. But they were still limited by their bureaucratic leadership who continue the national chauvinism that stifles true internationalism.
‘Socialism in One Country’.
The defunct and discredited Stalinist concept of ‘socialism in one country’ bears responsibility for a large part of the current union attitude on illegal immigration. It recognises that imperialism holds predominance in the world today as it did in the days when Stalin dreamed up the whole idea after the failure of the revolution in Germany in 1923. By cutting deals with the imperialists who threatened to invade the Soviet Union, Stalin promised that socialism would not spread beyond its borders. In order to demonstrate this and appease the imperialists, he systematically eliminated all communist opposition including most of the Bolshevik central committee. Any attempt outside of the Soviet Union to organise workers was crushed. Marxist internationalism was replaced by flag waving nationalism placed under a workers banner to sell the illusion to workers that they had strength against imperialism. Many in key positions in unions today still hold to this conservative idea, particularly in the NDU and AWU (Amalgamated Workers Union) where Stalinists and their social democratic lackeys still hold sway.
A recent internal memo distributed by the Amalgamated Workers’ Union dated March 2000 continues the nationalist line. It states "Remember every illegal immigrant who takes a job is prohibiting somebody you know from working…We must continue to pursue this matter in the interests of NZ workers." The AWU’s total defence of NZ workers hinges entirely on the 1987 Immigration Act which states that employers who knowingly employ illegal workers shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding NZ$2,000.
A paltry sum says the AWU. In fact the only thing paltry is its bureaucratic credibility when it fails to realise that by subordinating the unions struggle to a statute of bourgeois law it removes any pretence of being in charge of workers’ interests. The AWU bureaucrats rely upon the bosses’ state to defend "our" jobs from illegal aliens.
But to rely on the bosses to protect jobs puts one in the camp of the class enemy. To polarise workers around nationalism only serves to lend comfort to racists and bigots whose attacks on ‘legal’ immigrants have been on the increase in recent years. Fuelled by populist politicians like Peters and Prebble and the ratings driven tabloid media, the union bureaucrats have dragged themselves and the movement into the invidious position of being bedfellows with these low life reactionaries. The chauvinist defence of jobs and wages against foreign workers which relies on alliances with national bosses ultimately leads to wars were workers are sent to kill other workers in the interests of their bosses.
Without an international perspective and without support of the so-called ‘illegals’, the chance is lost for building sympathy and solidarity with foreign workers who are now all in the same global economy being exploited by the same multinational bosses. Solidarity with ‘illegal’ Asian workers in NZ could forge important links with the Asian masses are engaged in major struggles such as in China, Korea and Indonesia.
Bosses not workers cause low wages.
On the question of ‘illegals’ taking jobs and lowering wages and conditions, the bureaucratic line needs to be studied more closely. It turns out that it is not ‘illegal’ immigrants forcing down wages, but the failure of workers to join forces to stop the boss paying low wages that is the problem. Lets take the example of the market garden workers.
A former market garden worker recalls 20 years ago while working for one of the biggest vegetable growers in the Pukekohe region of South Auckland, wages and conditions were so low that most of the garden workers could not afford to pay even the minimum market rent for housing and so were forced to stay in company owned accommodation units on the garden work sites.
These dwellings were very often poorly maintained by the bosses whose only interest was to have a cheap workforce immediately on hand at short notice. At the time, with the exception of the boss and managerial staff, the vast majority of workers were Maori, but for the sake of argument, local. Their poor wages and conditions could hardly be blamed on ‘illegal’ immigrants. Poor wages and conditions have always existed in certain work sectors and always at the bottom end.
To fill the jobs at the bottom end bosses have historically had to rely on migrant workers who form a ‘reserve army of labour’ who are tapped into when needed and thrown on the scrap heap when surplus to requirements. 50 years ago it was Maori moving into the cities. 40 years ago it was Pacific Islanders looking for work. 20 years ago Maori working in the market gardens began to be replaced by seasonal and ‘illegal’ migrant workers. Today bosses are using ‘illegal’ migrants in the clothing and building industries because they are able to get away with paying low wages and bad conditions.
By employing workers from ‘third world’ or underdeveloped countries who do not meet the entry work requirements, bosses are able to use threats such as withholding passports to force them to work for low pay and substandard work and safety conditions. ‘Illegal’ workers are almost slaves as they have no normal rights as citizens. They are driven out of desperation to live and work under such conditions and cannot be the cause of any threat to NZ jobs, wages and conditions.
The AMU bureaucrats are right on one thing. A NZ$2000 fine is paltry compared with the large profit margins being made employing migrant workers. The bosses couldn’t care less about ‘illegal’ workers. Laws against foreign workers were enacted in the past by the bosses as part of deal with the unions where the bosses got industrial peace in return for keeping foreign workers out. This was the "White NZ" immigration policy that largely restricted official migration to skilled British workers.
Both unions and governments turned a blind eye to illegal migrants from the Pacific after World War 2 when jobs were plentiful, but when unemployment hit in the 1970’s both turned on these same migrants and labeled them ‘overstayers’. In other words the bourgeois state is forced to act on the issue of illegal migrants on pressure from the unions engineered by the union bureaucrats who play on workers fears that their jobs are under threat.
The situation got much worse under the ECA (Employment Contracts Act) of 1991 which had a huge impact on union membership driving it down to around 20% of the workforce. This has prompted a large part of what motivates the union bureaucrats drive against ‘illegals’. In order to show that it is fighting for the rights of local workers, it is running a campaign internally to encourage its members to act as eyes and ears against ‘illegals’, in the hope that the results would impress workers who are not members of unions to join up.
Work sites have been ‘targeted’ by unions who have called on their members to act as police spies reporting to immigration and police resulting in raids that have led to mass arrest of the ‘illegal’ workers, victims of the bosses. When occasionally the bosses are prosecuted this does not stop the practice. By using unionists in this way the bureaucrats are pitting local workers against foreign workers (‘illegals’) in support of the very state forces that have been, and will be again, used to crush workers struggles at home. This cynical attitude of the bureaucrats makes a mockery of the international workers slogan - "Workers of all countries unite!"
Because of its diminished support base, the union bureaucracy seeks to use its crude and underhand drive against ‘illegals’ to consolidate its position of privilege as the 'labour lieutenants' of the bosses by sacrificing the integrity of the workers’ movement. The rank and file must be made aware that what is being done in their name serves only to destroy them in the end. The NDU call last year to wage war on illegal workplaces in defence of ‘legitimate’ jobs in ‘legitimate companies’ backs the call that it supports an 'illegitimate' system.
This is part of the CTU "good boss/Bad boss" syndrome. But in reality the ‘sweatshop’ label being applied to the so-called illegal work places, should also be applied to the so-called ‘legitimate’ work places as local workers are forced to work longer hours for less pay by both NZ and foreign-owned companies. So while the bureaucrats set about looking for new definitions of legal and illegal workplaces, it is time for the rank and file to rise up and take their rightful place at the head of the workers’ struggle against the whole rotten system.
Workers answer to exploitation is international solidarity
At the dawn of a new century the rank and file must be made aware of the importance of their place in the international struggle in order to appreciate the need to support workers who have been labelled ‘illegal’ by the state and the union bureaucracy. Workers must debate among themselves the need to organise themselves into rank and file structures based on the principles of democracy and international solidarity.
This means that among the rank and file, the most lowly skilled worker has as much say during a debate or argument about union policy as the more highly skilled. This is on the clear understanding that the democratic decision arrived at on the basis of an informed vote must be accepted totally by all to ensure that the union acts as one to implement its policy.
The most fundamental groundwork of these structures has to take place on the worksite itself. Workers must organise to form a union were these do not exist and elect delegates who represent them and are held accountable to them. The delegates should be the best unionists with the ability to do the job well.
As communists we fight to get elected as delegates standing on a programme that links the unions to the struggle for socialism. This means that the site delegate must take responsibility to inform workers of the need for a revolutionary angle on all matters affecting workers' conditions, especially the world situation that for most workers don’t appear to play any part in their lives. By so doing, this raises the level of their international understanding, thus better preparing them for the task of international solidarity action in the event that should crises arise anywhere both here and abroad, the response would be immediate and automatic.
So while the delegate acts to represent the views of the rank and file, the delegate should also be prepared to act as a leader until the rank and file becomes more politically aware and eventually class conscious. The rank and file will then become actively part of the wider revolutionary movement. That is why Trotsky called the trades unions "schools for revolution".
In the meantime, the site delegate has the valuable task of making links with his or her counterpart in other worksites fighting for the rebuilding of the unions based on the principles of rank and file democracy and international solidarity. It is important to state that the rank and file movement is representative of ‘all’ workers irrespective of the industrial relations law which creates a charter for the union bureaucracy to exclude the rank and file (see article on the new Employment Relations Bill). This, and not any social democratic legislation, is the key to real workers strength in crushing the cycle of misery brought about by the capitalist system that has long outlived its use-by date.
The rank and file movement is a start to revolutionising the unions. There are signs that this has begun in Australia where some key positions in the Community and Public Sector Union (equivalent to the PSA) and the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union, have been taken over by militants. But unless this movement is led by communist delegates around a revolutionary programme, it cannot hope to gain any significant strength beyond the laws of the land that it currently yields to. Yet it is a concrete first step that workers in Aotearoa/NZ can follow and eventually begin to make links with on the road to workers of all countries uniting in a new revolutionary communist international.
Designate all worksites as sweatshops.
No! to all anti-immigrant police raids.
For solidarity with all workers designated "illegal".
No! to the bosses’ immigration laws.
Workers of all countries unite.
From Class Struggle No 32, April-May 2000
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)