May issue of The Spark online

May 1, 2012 by

As we go to press the ‘Aotearoa is not Sale’ Hikoi has left Auckland and will reach parliament on May 4. Two days later, thousands are expected to turn out at a Christchurch protest calling for mid-term elections and the resignation of the City Council CEO. These events follow after demonstrations against state housing demolition in Glen Innes, a significant labour struggle at the ports of Auckland (see page 7) and protests demanding the reinstating of a rail link in Gisborne (see page 9).

In this issue we cover the Mana Movement AGM and catch up with the various Occupy New Zealand groups to find out what they are doing now that the campsites are gone. Many people who were radicalised by the Occupy movement are involved in the aforementioned mentioned protests. It seems to be the case that ‘You can’t evict an idea’. An article in our previous issue looking at why women have left the Occupy movement attracted a number of responses that are printed on page 11.

Elsewhere in this issue you’ll find articles looking at copyright, transgender oppression, and the privatisation of electricity. We also reprint at article looking at the history of international workers day – May 1st.

May Spark pdf

Filed Under: Print edition PDFs

The story of May Day

May 1, 2012 by

In this article originally published by the Socialist Workers Party (USA) Elizabeth Schulte tells the history of May Day, a socialist holiday founded to honor the Haymarket Martyrs and celebrate international workers’ solidarity.

“THERE WILL be a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.” Those were the last words of August Spies, one of four innocent men executed for an explosion at Chicago’s Haymarket Square in May 1886.

The real “crime” for which Spies and his comrades were condemned was being labor militants fighting for workers’ rights and the eight-hour day. The national strike for the eight-hour day that they organized was called for May 1, 1886–it was the first May Day.
Their struggle, and the struggle of thousands alongside them, convinced a generation of labor militants and radicals to devote their lives for the fight for workers’ rights and for socialism.

Still, although May Day was founded to honor a U.S. labor struggle, few workers in this country typically know its origin, because the history is largely untold. This has changed, however–since the mass immigrant workers’ May Day marches that began in 2006. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Labour history, United States

Wellington event: VUW Not For Sale

April 30, 2012 by

The Aotearoa Not for Sale hikoi is arriving in Wellington on May 4th and we’re going to meet up on campus and after a few speeches, march down as VUW students to join with the hikoi as a whole.
BRING POTS AND PANS/NOISEMAKERS.

11:30am May 4th, Hunter Courtyard

Filed Under: Privatisation

Copyright as theft

April 29, 2012 by

1980s campaign against home-taping

In the March issue of The Spark an article about Kim Dotcom (available online at http://bit.ly/x2nFKF) ended with the words “Discussing ways in which content creators can be remunerated fairly for their work, and also about how the boundaries between creative work and other forms of labour can be broken down are beyond the scope of this article, but they are discussions worth having.” This article by Joel Cosgrove takes a look at some of those issues. For further background reading see ‘Copyright – A Marxist perspective’ at http://bit.ly/jh9MhU or in the June 2011 issue of The Spark.

Copyright is a cultural battleground. While there is something new in the scale and the breadth of this “issue” at its heart it is just a continuation of a struggle between capitalists and consumers that has extended from sheet music, radio, to records, VHS tapes, CDs and the humble MP3.

Part of the problem is that within capitalism, property and possessions are framed around what people can purchase as opposed to what people actually need. We are all familiar with this situation, most of the time, most people knowingly unknow this. We see things in front of us and for a number of reasons find it easier to put it aside than face the consequences of calling out the emperors’ new clothes. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Intellectual property

Workers Party leaflet: Aotearoa Not For Sale – to local or foreign capitalists!

April 27, 2012 by

Workers Party members are actively supporting the “Aotearoa is not for sale” hīkoi. Indeed, we believe we need to go further than just keeping assets in public hands, we want to push forward for workers’ and users’ control of those assets.

Whilst a number of political parties have pledged their support for the campaign, we must be on guard that the campaign does not become side tracked by an excessively Parliamentary focus. The ongoing struggle of the Auckland wharfies against casualisation (the first step towards privatisation) shows the most effective way to oppose the government’s asset sales plan. The last thing capitalist investors want to deal with is a bolshy workforce. The campaign by Glen Innes residents against state housing sell-offs is another inspiring example.

We must also guard against the strong element of xenophobia around “foreign ownership”, particularly against Chinese ownership of NZ assets. We in the Workers Party are socialists and internationalists, and regard the arguments about “foreign ownership” as a dangerous distraction that threatens to undermine our struggle against privatisation. The problem is private capitalist ownership of public utilities, whether those capitalists are New Zealanders or “foreigners”.

Furthermore, there is a particularly nasty history of anti-Chinese racism in New Zealand, which dates to the development of immigration controls in this country. Immigration controls originated from a “White New Zealand Policy” that was initially concerned with keeping out Chinese people.

(For more information, see our pamphlet on Open Borders)

We support the actions of Ngāti Rereahu who occupied one of the Crafar farms in February, demanding the return of their ancestral whenua. But we would have supported the action regardless whether the land was in NZ private, “foreign” or Crown ownership.

Aotearoa+Not+for+Sale+leaflet

Filed Under: Privatisation
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