Poverty is the Crime

The Governments Ministry of Social Development recently published its Report “New Zealand Living Standards 2004” revealed increased rates of poverty among solo parent families on benefits, especially Maori and Pacific Island families. A number of responses have all fixed upon poverty as the result of the wrong policy rather than the wrong social system. This is like reinventing the wheel and putting your finger in the spokes. Poverty and crime are endemic under capitalism because it requires a surplus population driven by starvation wages to keep wages down. Those who cannot live by wages alone steal the bread. Poverty does not cause crime. Poverty is the real crime. Here’s a communist view of capitalist crime.

The link between poverty and crime has been obvious for hundreds of years. When Engels wrote his famous book on "The Conditions of the Working Class in England" in 1845, he made it clear poverty was not caused by low wages, but by capitalists exploiting the labour-power of the workers.

Since then, however, the labour movement has been dominated by reformists who thought that poverty could be eliminated by taxing the bosses’ profits to boost wages. Uncle Joe Savage the first Labour PM in NZ called this "Christian Socialism".

This is still the prevailing view. It means that workers are treated as voters who elect governments to raise taxes on employers and so eliminate poverty and crime. It is a view shared by Labourites, Stalinists and most of the union bureaucracy who are paid to make workers more productive for the bosses.

The NDU wages war on crime

“There is a direct link between a Ministry of Development standard of living report and a treasury report showing the increasing cost of crime, says the National Distribution Union. National Secretary Laila Harre says that reducing poverty through a decent standard of living for beneficiaries and low-paid workers is one of the most important forms of crime prevention. “Poverty and under-employment are root causes of crime,” says Ms Harre. “The higher the standard of living and the more people feel they have a stake in society, the less crime they commit. Companies, who marginalise workers through low wages, casualisation, or unequal treatment because of age, contribute to the problem and everyone pays.”

Her alternative is to make companies pay more and at the same time save the taxpayer the cost of jailing criminals. This sounds OK but really it is an appeal to the bosses couched in neo-liberal language of the benefits of tax cuts. Pay workers more and get a tax cut. “Rather than seeing the cost per prisoner increasing beyond $58,604 a year, we should be seeing a significant increase in the annual earnings of minimum wage workers up from $21,320 and $10,660 for beneficiaries.”

No doubt this would be a good thing if it could work. But after over 100 years of experience of capitalism the results are in: the gap between rich and poor is growing world wide. A hundred Sir Bob Geldofs surfing the ozone naming and shaming the corporations and the ‘West’ will not change that.

Geldof names and shames NZ

Geldof flew in recently for a concert and a gig for ‘Make Poverty History’. As we have said before, MPH is a fraud perpetrated on the poor by middle class do-gooders who think that recycling some of their record royalties or taking a tour through Africa like Brad Pitt can make history. But it doesn’t make history is just makes the news and profits for the advertisers.

The poverty gap exists not because of any lack of effort to redistribute incomes, but despite it. The evidence that reforms can reverse this fact is almost non-existent. Imperialism is a giant machine that sucks out the wealth of the impoverished semi-colonial world, leaving a bit for the local bosses to get fat on, and squeezing the living standards of the masses to the point of starvation. (See article on the Bolivian landless). The poor can only get an increased share in exceptional circumstances where imperialism does not own or control the wealth and dictate prices and terms. Hugo Chavez can pay for reforms because the imperialists are hooked on Venezuelan oil which they do not directly own or control.

One fact stands out though. Reforms do not come from celebrities’ guilt-tripping around trying to make us ‘own’ a poor or dying child. While a few children may be saved, the rest continue to die at a growing rate because the world’s resources are pocketed by the bosses as accumulated profits and this behaviour is mimicked by the grasping middle classes.

Reforms are won only by massive organised pressure from below that break out of the controls imposed on the working class. The bosses will open their pockets if they fear losing their wallets. But mostly they keep their pockets crammed and workers lose their lives.

The Alliance blames poverty on Labour

Alliance co-leader Len Richards in a recent press release stated:

“The Alliance Party says that a living standards report showing that 8% of New Zealanders are suffering severe hardship is a brutal reminder of the reality of life for the poor in New Zealand. The incidence of hardship in beneficiary families has increased by almost 50% between 2000 and 2004.The report shows a decline in the real income of beneficiary families with children had contributed to a rise to 8 per cent in the number of people experiencing severe hardship in 2004. That compared with 5 per cent in 2000.”

Richards goes on to blame the Labour Party as ‘scandalous’ for not living up to its ideals:

“…this is a result of the mean-minded social welfare policies of a Labour Government that targets help towards the 'deserving' working poor. He says that on the 90th birthday of the Labour Party, it is disturbing that the Labour Government is trying to play down the figures. What would the founders of the Labour Party say if they were alive today? They would not recognize these complacent careerists. It is a scandal that Labour leaves so many of them suffering on the margins of society.”

Richards recognises that both Labour and National follow policies that drive down benefits and wages for the profits of the rich:

"Those on benefits are left to suffer hardship as a goad to force them into some form of paid employment. These people are forced to accept paid work at any wage offered, which tends to keep down the wage rates of those in work. Labour and National are competing to see who can build the most jails for the next generation of young people who have already been written off by the "political puppets of the rich".

But instead of drawing the conclusion that reformist policies have failed to get rid of poverty, the Alliance concludes that it is the Labour Party’s betrayal that is the problem.

The solution is to elect an Alliance government that will

“raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, ensure genuine full employment with public works, raise benefit levels, embark on a massive upgrade of state housing stock, and ensure access to all in a free public health and education system. The first $10 000 of income would be taxfree, with a rise in income tax for the wealthy, and GST would be abolished, starting with food.”

It’s true that both Labour and National are running policies that force people to work or face poverty. But these are the conditions imposed by international capitalism on a weak, dependent semi-colonial economy like NZ’s. No government, including an Alliance government, can significantly change these conditions while continuing to rule on behalf of the bosses.

Only working class organisations such as those of beneficiaries, homeless, landless and unemployed linked up to the labor movement can do anything positive about the ‘conditions of the poor’. Maori land rights movements are one such development. Another self-help measure is the ‘clustering’ together of the poor to pool their incomes so that they can at least survive. However, this self-help measure is now being vigorously attacked by the rightwing as undermining economic self-reliance and the values of family life.

‘Clustering’: a self-help answer to poverty

Clustering came to light as a side issue of the Kahui killings (see article). There were eight adults and a larger number of children living on benefits in one house. Sharing the rent and expenses is a way of surviving economic hardship when families cannot survive on income tested benefits. But because of the confined space it creats problems of overcrowding and conflicts among those living there. Clearly this form of ‘clustering’ is a measure of desperation and not a solution to poverty.

But rather than seeing it as a survival mechanism, the political right has labelled clustering ‘dysfunctional’ because it does not conform to the traditional patriarchal family. The Maxim Institute says that this ‘dysfunction’ undermines self-reliance because it deters adults from having to go to work. It creates moral problems too as overcrowding does not allow ‘normal’ parental authority over children to develop. At worst it creates an environment where child abuse can lead to deaths.

As if to prove themselves more right than the right, new, new right Blairite, John Tamahere, and the ‘Nation’s Kaumatua’ Peter Sharples publicly intervene to force those in ‘dysfunctional’ families to become ‘normal’. This means a return to the wider whanau where self-annointed patriachal chiefs will dictate family life. Tamahere will take charge of the budgets and privatise welfare into Maori Trusts, while Sharples will take charge of the whanaus’ moral guidance.

But the answer is not to condemn clustering. It’s a rational collective response to terrible conditions to share resources and to meet needs. The extreme negative side of clustering is the jail where people live in a totally controlled institution. But there is a positive side. Clustering should be extended out of isolated state houses and broken down communities on the model of land rights movements, such as that of Parihaka which took in political and economic refugees from all over the country and created a model self-sufficient, cooperative community, labelled by the racist settlers as “communistic”. The history of these movements could become a positive model for building working class communes today.

What to do? Communes everywhere!

The NDU wants companies to pay better wages. But this will only happen if workers get organised to win their demands. Individuals workers cannot persuade bosses to pay them more to keep them out of jail. And striking as a militant labour movement is a sure way to go to jail. The bosses are always prepared to pay for this kind of ‘clustering’. Against the bosses’ clusters, workers need to recreate their own communities where they can solve their problems collectively. To get the resources to do this they must fight for workers control of the means of production.

The first step is to organise collectively on the job to defend jobs, wages and conditions. If workers gang up on the job to get what they need, this will prove that capitalists must cut jobs, wages and conditions to raise their profits, and that as an organised labour force they have a common class interest to fight for workers control of production and to overthrow capitalism.

Organisations that claim to represent workers like the NDU and the Alliance will only be able to embark on the road of collective struggle if they stop appealing to workers and bosses as individual taxpayers and voters, and start organising fighting, democratic unions grounded in working class communities that pool their resources so they can take control of their lives.


From Class Struggle 67 June/July 2006

Louise Nicholas: Support Rape Victims

The Louise Nicholas case of rape against a senior serving police officer and two former police officers failed to get a conviction. Outraged by the result, supporters of Louise Nicholas claimed that two of those acquitted were already serving a jail sentence for rape, a fact that was suppressed under NZ’s penal law. Should such information be made known at trials or are their other ways of defending rape victims from failures in the bourgeois justice system?

No More Rape Victims on Trial!

The Louise Nicholas case had disturbed many New Zealanders even before it ended with a not guilty verdict. The team of lawyers representing the three senior police officers accused of rape had effectively put Nicholas in the dock by making a series of attacks on her honesty and integrity. The jury's verdict was the final insult, because it seemed to brand Nicholas as a liar and legitimise the behaviour of the defence team.

To those who knew some of the information about two of the accused which had been kept out the case, the jury's verdict was even more frustrating. Within hours of the end of the trial the suppressed information had appeared on the internet and on leaflets distributed by protesters. Anyone who has been privy to this information will find it very difficult to believe that Louise Nicholas got a fair deal in court.

In the aftermath of the trial many people are wondering what steps can be taken to prevent a repeat of the injustice that Louise Nicholas has suffered. Some feminists have suggested that the law should be changed so that relevant previous criminal convictions of the accused can be considered by a judge and jury rather than suppressed. It is hard to see, though, how such a measure can be squared with a commitment to a fair trial and to the reform of sexual offenders. It is worth noting that the call for the consideration of previous criminal convictions is being echoed by some organisations on the far right of New Zealand politics, including the Act Party.

Other observers pin their hopes on the reform of the police to eliminate the sort of abuses that Louise Nicholas suffered. Some on the left welcomed the appointment of Annette King as Minister of Police, hoping that the presence of a female at the top would help to get rid of some of the sexism of the force. Others call for the recruitment of more female officers. Such suggestions are naive, because they rest on the belief that sexism exists in the force because of the presence of a few 'bad apples', or at worst a macho 'cowboy culture'.

A similar analysis of police racism has seen successive governments recruiting thousands of Polynesians to the force, and organising workshops on 'cultural sensitivity'. Yet the police force remains a profoundly racist institution which is disliked and distrusted by many Polynesians. The racism of the police has come to be symbolised by the slaying of Stephen Wallace in Waitara in 2000, yet the policeman who shot Wallace repeatedly in the back was Maori. The truth is that, whatever the views of their individual members, the police are institutionally racist and institutionally sexist. The police defend capitalism, which is a system which creates the oppression of women and ethnic minorities in a thousand ways every day. Efforts to reform the force by injecting a 'feminist' culture into it will fail. The police can only be transformed when society itself is radically transformed.

But society is not going to be transformed overnight, and many people are looking to take action now to help prevent a repeat of the injustice Louise Nicholas has suffered. If tinkering with the legal system and trying to reform the police are not options, what can they do? One thing that we can all do is work to strengthen the independent organisations that assist victims of sexual violence. In New Zealand, these organisations help thousands of women every year, yet they are chronically under funded and struggle to survive. 

 Sexual Abuse HELP

In Auckland, the Sexual Abuse HELP organisation does a heroic job on a very tight budget. HELP operates a twenty-four hour hotline for victims of sexual violence, provides doctors for these women, provides advisers to coach them through the stressful process of confronting the police, laying a complaint and going to court, and also provides long-term counselling to help victims transcend their suffering.

Anyone who followed the Louise Nicholas case can see how the services which HELP provides could have benefited Louise in the aftermath of the assaults she suffered. If Louise had been able to make a complaint to the police promptly and undergo a prompt examination by a sympathetic doctor, then it would have been much harder for her attackers to smear her by contesting the truthfulness of her memories, and by alleging she enjoyed the sex she had with them. Medical evidence would have shown that the sex was forcible, violent, and painful.

But without an organisation like HELP to turn to, it is not surprising that the eighteen year-old Louise Nicholas felt unable to report the abuse she suffered to the police or a doctor. The huge numbers of women who turn to organisations like HELP today are proof that many sexual violence victims still find police stations and doctor’s examining rooms intimidating places. In Auckland, HELP last year received 8,000 contacts through its hotline, and guided hundreds of women through the courts and into counselling programmes.

Yet HELP and similar organisations still struggle for funding, and often exist on the edge of insolvency. Their inability to service the whole country and their inadequate advertising budgets mean that many sexual violence victims still do not know that organisations exist to help them. These women suffer the isolation of the eighteen year-old Louise Nicholas, and frequently succumb to depression, substance abuse, and even suicide. Government under funding of HELP and similar organisations is directly responsible, then, for unreported rapes and the unnecessary suffering of many women.

While the government lavishes money on the police, new prisons, and troops to fight George Bush’s war in Afghanistan, HELP is forced to appeal to private donors, because its four main public funders – Children Youth and Family, ACC, the Ministry of Development and the Auckland Health Board – invariably fail to provide it enough to operate on. Other organisations that assist victims of sexual violence complain of similar insecurities.

Two years ago HELP initiated a protest campaign to draw attention to the fact that it was on the edge of bankruptcy. After doctors and other caregivers told a large public meeting they were prepared to go on strike, the government stepped in with a one-off injection of cash. But such last minute payments are not enough: HELP and similar organisations should be assured adequate funding from a single government source, so that they can do their jobs free from constant worries about insolvency.

Everyone who is outraged by the injustice that has been done to Louise Nicholas should demand that the government respond to this injustice by massively increasingly funding for organisations that assist and represent the victims of sexual violence. Trade unions have an especially important role to play. Many of employees of HELP and similar organisations are members of trade unions, and the Service and Food Workers Union helped organise the 2004 public meeting to defend HELP. After the murder of Stephen Wallace in 2000 the National Distribution Union took up the Wallace family’s campaign for a public inquiry into the actions of the police and the broader question of police racism. Today, trade unionists should support the protests against the sexism and injustice Louise Nicholas has suffered, and also demand better funding for those who help victims of sexual violence.

From Class Struggle 66 April/May 2006

Labour Party Conference hosts UK Blairite Warmonger Peter Hain

The following is a report on a demonstration organized by Direct Antiwar Action (Dawa) against the visit of Peter Hain as guest of the NZ Labour Party last November.

Send UK warmonger Peter Hain home!

Protest Sunday 14th at 8-30 am, Bruce Mason Centre, Takapuna.

DAWA (Direct Anti-War Action) and other anti-war groups are organising a protest outside the Labour Party Conference, Sunday 8-30 am.
 
Prominent Labour Party Minister and Leader of the House in Blair's Government, Peter Hain, is due to speak at the Conference at 9 am.

Despite a record as an anti-apartheid activist and founder of the Anti-Nazi League in Britain in the 1970's Hain is now an apologist for Blair's invasion of Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein.

NZ Labour is trading on its 'liberal reputation' in only supporting the Gulf War UN sanctions during the 1990s to kill half-a-million kids, and not supporting the US-UK led invasion of 2003.

By bringing Hain to address them NZ Labour is showing that it does not care that this man supports the US-UK invasion and that its own refusal to support the invasion was unimportant. It is more interested in using Hain to provide a rationale for its 'left Blairism' in NZ.

We reject Labour's hypocrisy on the war on Iraq that is flaunted in our face by the presence of this British warmonger. Here is a quote from an interview with Hain made earlier in the year:

Peter Hain said:

I certainly stand by my reason for backing the action to get rid of Saddam Hussein. I saw clear evidence from intelligence sources about Saddam's possession of weapons of mass destruction which the UN itself set out in resolution 1441. And of course he had used chemical weapons against the Iranians and the Kurds. We will have to see the outcome of the Iraq Survey Group but its former head David Kay, whilst acknowledging that he had not discovered militarized chemical weapons, also said in statements to the US congress which were hardly if at all reported, that he was even more shocked at what he found about Saddam's WMD programs than he had expected and thought it was essential to have got rid of him.

I respect those who disagree with our action in Iraq who included relatives and friends. All I ask is that they and you accept that the government acted honestly in what we genuinely thought and still do, was the best interests of the Iraqi people, the wider region and the whole world.

On the 45-minute claim, the Hutton report confirmed that this had been accurately reported in the dossier. Indeed there was nothing in the dossier that went in against the wishes of the intelligence services. The 45-minute claim played no part in the critical parliamentary debate in March last year which led to a vote authorizing the action in Iraq. It was not relied upon by the PM in his opening speech or referred to by any other MP, so for me it was not a crucial issue. As I've said already he had already used WMD on his own people and fired missiles into Kuwait and Israel so we were not dealing with some hypothetical situation. …the inquiry into the leaking of the Hutton report, which I and the rest of the government wholly condemned, is being carried out by Lord Hutton himself fully independent of government. No doubt he will report his findings in due course."

DAWA (Direct Anti-War Action) FFI ring Keith (09) 8369104

Workers against the War on Terror
Next Meeting: Sat March 5th 4-7pm
Grey Lynn Community Centre
Agenda includes:
· Building rank and file opposition to the War on Terror
· Organising solidarity with the Million Worker March against the war in Iraq on 19th March

Rank and file workers need to organize in the international labour movement to support the workers movement in Iraq to defeat the occupation and demand a Constituent Assembly. No to the WOT! No to attacks on Iran, North Korea! Cuba! Venezuela!

Report on Workers Forum held at Grey Lynn Community Centre 9th December
INTERNATIONAL WEEK OF ACTION AGAINST THE WAR ON TERROR
ORGANISING AGAINST THE WAR ON TERROR IN IRAQ AND IN NEW ZEALAND
ASYLUM FOR AHMED ZAOUI!
SUPPORT THE MOHAMMED ABDUL RAHEEM CAMPAIGN IN SOLIDARITY WITH IRAQI WORKERS!
 
The meeting was hosted by the Communist Workers Group but those present represented a wider range of political positions. This short report is an attempt to summarise the basic concerns expressed and the types of actions needed. Those present on December 9, all active rank and file unionists, or with experience in unions, including: Engineers (EPMU); Maritime and Rail; NDU (Woodies); Service and Food; UNITE! (Waitemata); Association of University Staff (AUS); Association of Staff in Tertiary Education (ASTE)

Organising rank and file workers to take industrial action against the war

IMMEDIATELY Bush was re-elected he invaded and destroyed Fallujah. He authorised the use of napalm and many badly burned bodies have been found. The US ruling class and their front man Bush will stop at no act of barbarism to recolonise Iraq and rip off its oil wealth.

There has been a muted response in the West. Where are the millions who were on the streets in February 2003? The sad fact is that many Western workers are demoralised by Bush's reelection. They put their hopes in a Vietnam warmonger Kerry to rescue them from Iraq. False hopes!

Time to organise! Begging our leaders to get out of Iraq or to put pressure on Bush and Blair is futile. European Union leaders and Howard and Clark are all sucking up to Bush to get some of the spoils of war, via free trade agreements and more US Yankee dollars. Only the workers can stop the barbarism of the War on Terror from spreading and creating more Iraqs, more Guantanamos and many more victims like Ahmed Zaoui in every country.

Yet all is not lost! In Iraq, despite the treacherous factional leaders who use the masses as cannon fodder while they compete to do deals with the invaders - like the Sunni bosses who ran away from Fallujah leaving their militants to be slaughtered in the US attack - workers are rebuilding the smashed workers organizations.

Unions are forming; workers are defending their jobs arms in hand, and striking against the invaders. They are getting support from the international working class.

In Venezuela, workers have formed an anti-imperialist front to demand that President Chavez stops selling oil to the US to use in its War on Terror military machine. In the US the Million Worker March unionists are organising a week of action against the war from December 3-11. In Aotearoa-NZ it is time that we organised in the unions to get support for the Iraqi trade unionists and in solidarity with international workers actions such as the week of December 3-11.

Communist Workers Group are hosting this forum in solidarity with the Iraqi workers, the Venezuelan anti-imperialist fighters, the US Million Worker March against the war, and workers everywhere who are organising an international workers movement to Defend Iraq and stop imperialist war.

The two main areas of concern and need for activity expressed were:

First, building solidarity in NZ unions for the rebuilding of worker organizations in Iraq including the unemployed and women’s organizations. This does not exclude un-unionised workers; in fact it would make it a priority to unionise all unpaid domestic workers, unemployed workers, beneficiaries, 'voluntary’ workers, youth, temporary or casual workers, workers forced into self-employment, migrant workers etc and to strive to rebuild the unions on the basis of rank and file democracy.

Second, information and actions that can be taken up by workers against the domestic WOT in NZ in particular the series of repressive laws that restrict basic freedoms to organise politically. It was observed that the NZ government is moving in line with the US to turn the WOT against NZ workers, e.g. restructuring the military and building more jails to deal with working class resistance. 

From Class Struggle 59 January-February 2005

WORKERS CAN STOP THIS WAR!

From Class Struggle 49 March/April 2003

The following letter was written by comrade Justin to a Syd, a fellow activist in the National Distribution Union (NDU). It talks mainly about the work of the Anti-Imperialist Coalition (AIC) and the importance of organising workers against the imperialist war plans to attack Iraq. It criticises the current Council of Trade Unions (CTU) stand supporting the Labour government joining the UN-sponsored war against Iraq, and the NDU petition backing this position circulated on the February 15^th mass anti-war marches. Justin points the way forward out of this gutless subservience to Labour Government policy by calling for rank and file workers to rally on May Day this year to strike against imperialist war.

Tena KoeBrother,

A bit of history of the Anti-Imperialist Coalition.

Our United Front organisation the Anti Imperialist Coalition has been in existence since shortly after Sept 11 2001, not too long after the Carter Holt Harvey Interion strike here in Manurewa. Quite consciously different from the rest of the anti-war movement, our orientation has been trade union and worker based with a heavy emphasis on the “Rank and File.” Whilst we have no formal membership structure, workers and individuals from all of the main unions including the NDU, PPTA, ASTE, SFWU, Rail and Maritime, FINSEC, AWU, AUS, University Students etc and the “Engineers,” have made valuable contributions and continue to do so.

It became obvious from the inaugural meeting that the AIC was not going to be a “Peacenik” organisation, but one dedicated to militant struggle with workers in the vanguard. To date, our tasks have included organising the militant wing of the anti-war movement on all demos, rallies and pickets. Dissemination of non-mainstream information and politically educational material is a big part of AIC’s work. We have regular monthly solidarity actions with the PHRC (Palestinian Human Rights Campaign) and hold forums with invited speakers on all topics affecting workers. A talk late last year after the Bali bombing by a lecturer in Indonesian from Auckland University gave a valuable insight into the prejudiced perceptions being pushed by the West against Moslems and its flow down effects on all indigenous struggles including here in Aotearoa.

Our engagements with trade unions have been central to much of our activity. AIC has sent delegations along to stop-work meetings of the Watersiders and Seafarers unions to name but a few.

During the general elections last year, I and another member made two trips down to the Kinleith Timber Mill in Tokoroa as part of a fact finding tour. OK, so a big part of it consisted of getting pissed at the “Trees Tavern” in Tokoroa, but I was able to gauge the extent of the mess created by the “Engineers” – by the leadership of the Engineers’ Union. One bloke I met was so hacked off with the decision to go with the Engineers back in “91,” that he quit and became a screw at Waikeria. Politically a bad move I would have thought. I met a couple of truckies from Putaruru with the National Distribution Union Transport sector, who were worried about their jobs as a result of the Kinleith lay-offs. They must have realised that I wasn’t intimidated by a pub full of “Engineers” because they didn’t hassle me once for wearing my “Woodies” hi-viz jacket. Imperialism did come up as a topic of conversation especially after they got to read some of our material and related it to the Carter Holt Harvey’s owners, International Paper.

Our second trip to Tokoroa coincided with election night. We spent some time at local MP and Minister of Defence Mark Burton’s campaign HQ. There, we got to meet more Kinleith Workers and yet more “Engineers” – it was a very right-wing atmosphere with the local Chairman telling me that the Alliance were nuts for not backing the US War of Terrorism.

AIC/CWG’s most ambitious venture to date has been to send one of its members to Argentina to look at the revolution taking place there. We learned that the Argy Workers after being crapped on for so long took it upon themselves to occupy hundreds of factories left by their bosses. Some have even started exporting. Having turned their backs on all mainstream political parties and traditional unions especially their bureaucrats, they have organised themselves into site committees working closely with neighbourhood committees, who in turn have formed into Popular Assemblies. Many problems lie ahead for them, but they have resolved to oppose all attempts by the US and the UN to impose their rule through the World Bank, the IMF and the military. Politically they are light years ahead of us, but they point in the direction we should be headed in.

Because of AIC’s Anti-Imperialist Kaupapa, we realise that it is the Workers and their organisations who must lead the fight. So far, and it’s still early days, workers, and I include AIC, have had to tail after the: Peaceniks, Greenies, Churchies and anyone with an axe to grind. As you probably noticed on the march, Maori representation is almost non-existent. Each time that I’ve driven to an anti-war or political action, I’ve had to drive past sports fields crowded with our people indulging in organised nothingness designed by the ruling class. Don’t get me wrong, I love my rugby, but I’ve learned that my priorities aren’t what they used to be. It is important that we as Maori workers redirect that wasted energy toward the struggle. So far, the only ones happy with that status quo, are the “Bosses”, because a Maori with a rugby ball is not likely to be a “staunch politico.”AIC has organised public speaking engagements at Otara Flea Market in the past and similar venues with the idea of getting our people on board. Much interest has been shown, though this has not been greatly manifest by numbers on marches and so forth.

The so-called anti-war NDU Petition

The so called anti-war petition on Iraq being circulated by the National Distribution Union has come in for a considerable amount of flak due to its inference that war can be averted by working through the UN. The first of the six points outlined in the petition clearly states the NDU’s support for the Govt’s “consideration for military assistance” (support for war in any other lingo) against Iraq as long as it is mandated by the UN within international law. In effect the union would support the slaughter of Iraqi “workers” and their families. “International Workers Solidarity” and “Workers of the World Unite,” would become empty and meaningless. Even peace groups with pro-UN views in the past are beginning to recognise the Imperialist role of the UN and reversing their positions accordingly.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but support for Phil Goff by the NDU totally misrepresents the position taken by the anti-war movement since S11. Not only has he been burned in effigy and had reams of uncomplimentary stuff written about him, but he has gone on record as calling anti-war Green MP Keith Locke, “despicable” for opposing the US war. When I got my copy of the NDU petition in the mail the other day, I couldn’t believe it. It became the subject of an AIC meeting before the big demo and was roundly condemned. When my turn came to speak on behalf of AIC during the open mike session after the demo, I tore the bloody thing up. Unfortunately by that stage you blokes had gone. Promoting Labour Govt. foreign policy is not the job of the union.

Days later at a meeting of the Auckland CTU, a vote was taken to reject war even with UN backing, leaving the authors of the petition with egg on their faces. Stealing a march on their “Blue Collar” comrades last year, the PPTA and ASTE voted against war, UN or no UN. Again like “Springbok 81”, it is education sector unions taking the lead.

When the NDU calls on all workers to involve themselves in all anti-war activity, it should be saying that we lead them rather than become just another participant.

Without going into the finer details of the remaining points of the petition, I’d just like to say that the US has succeeded in one respect. It has focused “all” attention onto “Terrorism” and “Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs).” They have set the agenda by forcing the politically naive including the trade unions (see the Petition) to construct opinions and actions that presuppose that they are telling us the truth. Daily, they are exposed as liars trying to feed and sow paranoia that is only given legitimacy because many people put serious limits on the degree to which they would question what is going on. So far, like the mainstream mass media, the trade union movement has failed to publicly say that we are witnessing the biggest “red herring” deception in history. The anti-war movement has consistently spelled out “No war for oil” and yet the trade unions stick to the WMD and Terrorism agenda of the imperialists. We know that the war is about more than just oil. Iraq is being made an example of as a warning to any nation that dares to defy the will of the US. In other words, they shit on “Tino Rangatiratanga.” All union statements on the next stage of the US war (since we have already seen the first 12 years of it), must define clearly and loudly the real intentions of the US without kowtowing to the crap that they have been feeding us all this time. At the end of the day, the only thing standing in the way of a US Imperialist victory is the combined force of the “international working class” which is are imperialism’s arch enemy.

Let’s look briefly at the peace-loving UN.

First of all, the UN represents Govts including dictatorships and monarchies none of which are friendly to workers. It was the UN that legitimised the forced removal of Palestinian “Tangata Whenua” from their ancestral lands by recognising the racist state of Israel in 1948. A raupatu that exists to this very day. The UN forced the separation of Korea into North and South in 1950, culminating in the US-forced crisis that has continued to the brink of a US nuclear attack. The UN stepped aside in Lebanon in 1982, while the Israelis committed mass slaughter with US weaponry. In East Timor, the UN did nothing to avert the genocide being committed by Indonesian soldiers trained by the Yanks, Brits, Aussies and Kiwis over a 35-year period. Only after anti-worker US stooge Suharto was dumped from power in ‘98, did the UN take the step to “stage” a rescue. Their bulwark against the threat of a worker-led uprising was no longer in power.The Kiwi and Aussie military who helped bring Suharto to power in 1965 merely became “Blue Berets” and phoney “Peace Keepers.”

To date however, the UN’s prize achievement has been the more than 1 million Iraqis who have died directly as a result of UN imposed sanctions. The weak-kneed UN General Assembly (which some misguided Social-Democrats see as a saviour) represents the overwhelming majority of Govts who have never effected any change through mass protest against the indulgences of the UN Security Council because they are kept in place by the purse strings of the imperialist US.

Workers must seek redress and solutions through their own organisations and international affiliations which account for far more people than the discredited and corrupt UN can ever hope to muster. After all, that’s what we are here for. We must force the issue of characterising the US leaders and their lackeys as international war criminals by supplying the overwhelming evidence that their actions amount to incitement to commit “massive” violence and violate every human rights protocol in existence. Their “mugs” should be plastered on international bulletin boards as the world’s “Most Wanted.” This has to be one of the key demands of all union anti-war activity. Screw the UN, let’s talk about “workers justice.” The cautious and conservative approach of the trade unions has served to undermine all efforts by the progressive Workers movement to combat the forces that we face. Like “Marae Justice” which is belittled by the mainstream, we must push these demands to the forefront of everything we do and nothing less.

Let’s join forces to organise a militant anti-war May Day

May Day will soon be upon us and with the war clouds gathering, we have the opportunity to make it like no other before it. AIC is promoting the idea of holding a May Day Saturday rally in South Auckland culminating in a festival of music with a strong anti-war theme. Of course union input together with the chance for recruitment would be paramount. If anything is going to get our Rangatahi and workers involved, it is going to be the chance to showcase their talents politically. I’m sure Jo and Roopu Kotuku would love to perform “Maa Te Reo” which has a social message to our people on stage. Think about it. It would be a coup for the NDU. The latest word I hear is that there are many young people who are starting to express their feelings about the US-led war in music etc. Over the years, we have seen political Kapa Haka and powerful messages coming from our Rangatahi with their Reggae, Hip hop, R&B and Rap. Its time to “Brown” this movement. Let’s give them a go. Let’s raise this in the NDU Maori Runanga. If any union structure is going to have a significant influence, it is going to be the Runanga.

Anti-worker laws posing as anti-terror laws

On a related subject, my home Marae of Nga Tai Erua is putting in a submission opposing the South Auckland Prison proposal at Meremere not because of Waahi Tapu or Taniwha, but because of the potential of union members or workers taking political industrial action against the state in the event of war and being incarcerated en mass. The Govt has threatened to invoke the Terrorism Suppression Act if Workers threaten a general strike or something similar that would disrupt economic infrastructure. Such a scenario already exists in the US, where purpose-built facilities are under construction. In Britain at the moment, the Fire Fighters union has threatened a general strike if Blair goes into Iraq. Blair has consequently threatened to brand them “Terrorists” and deal with them accordingly. In Aotearoa/NZ, no union has considered such a proposal in relation to Prison submissions. This is an expression of the extent to which AIC politics has had an effect.

AIC’s latest initiative is the formation of a new UF called DAWA (Direct Anti-War Action) which was created on Wed 19^th Feb at the Auckland Trades Hall. This is where we hold our regular meetings every Wednesday night 7.30pm. At the meeting there were members from GPJA (Global Peace and Justice Auckland) who organised the big demo and many unions especially the Seafarers and it was decided that direct action was necessary to deal with the looming crisis. This could include strikes, civil disobedience and directly interrupting the political and military affairs currently being conducted by both NZ and the US on NZ soil. DAWAs first action was a protest outside Whenuapai Airbase Sun 30^th at 12.00 noon.

So to conclude brother, I’d just like to say that the “X” factor necessary to give some “Kaha” to our struggle is for the “Leadership” to be taken by Maori workers with the Runanga being the starting point. If anything, it is the Runanga that has been the single most progressive element within our union or any union for that matter for a very long time, thanks to your leadership. It was the Runanga that stepped outside of the traditional economism of trade unions and took on the Steven Wallace issue, a courageous and political move that has set a precedent for all other unions and workers organisations.

Nuff said. Kia Kaha Brother. Kia ora koe ano Syd.

Justin