Why have women left the Occupy movement?

April 4, 2012 by

Byron Clark, Coordinating editor of The Spark

The Occupy movement began as a movement championing the “99%” united against the 1% of the world’s population that control a disproportionate amount the worlds wealth. A possible flaw in this is that oppression is not as simple as a 99:1 ratio and exists within the working class and even within social movements. A movement that saw an even gender balance when it arrived in New Zealand last October saw the number of women involved dwindle to just a hand full. The Spark asked women currently or previously involved in the movement why they thought so many women left. Their responses are printed here. Some names have been changed for privacy reasons. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Social Movements, Women

Green Left Weekly: Wharfies beat lockout

April 2, 2012 by

This article by Workers Party member Joel Cosgrove originally appeared in Green Left Weekly.

In what has been described as New Zealand’s most high-profile and bitter industrial dispute since the early 1990s, waterside workers went back to work, after a four-week strike. Auckland’s port company agreed to end its lockout of 235 workers on March 30, and pay workers a week’s wages for being illegally locked out.

The New Zealand Herald reported that Maritime Union president Garry Parsloe told a huge workers’ meeting: “You’ll all go back to your jobs and until you go back you’ll all get paid.

“Everything we have done has fallen into place, thanks to your solidarity.” [Read more…]

Filed Under: Ports of Auckland, Workers in Struggle

Meat industry dispute reveals need to re-organise entire working class on militant basis

April 2, 2012 by

By writers for The Spark

The livelihoods of thousands of working class people in New Zealand are being attacked by Talleys Group Ltd, a New Zealand-based private company which owns AFFCO meat-processing plants and has locked out freezing workers throughout the North Island.

Background
As one of the largest meat operations in New Zealand, Talleys operates nine AFFCO freezing works plants. For decades AFFCO has been a source of employment in provincial areas and the workforce is often generational. Through generations of genuine rank-and-file unionism, freezing workers in AFFCO as well as other plants owned by other meat processing companies were able to achieve relatively strong wages and conditions by comparison to other industries.

On Febraury 29 the company locked out of over 700 workers which led to the beginning of picketing on March 2 at the Moerewa (in Northland), Wiri (in South Auckland), Horotiu (in North Waikato), Rangiuru (near Te Puke), Hawkes Bay (at Napier), and Manawatu (at Fielding), and Wairoa (in Northern Hawkes Bay) plants. On March 2 the union correctly called all members who were not locked-out into strike action. In turn the company then began locking-out strikers who were not covered by the original lockout notices, for example, a further 200 more workers were locked-out at Rangiuru. The union then called further 24-hour and 48-hour strikes including those which started on March 6, March 12, and March 22. Daily pickets are taking place at some plants. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Workers in Struggle

Green Left Weekly: New Zealand workers fight casualisation

March 31, 2012 by

Service and Food Workers Union members at Ports of Auckland rally.

This article, by Workers Party member Joel Cosgrove, originally appeared in Green Left Weekly.

A number of high-profile industrial struggles are unfolding in New Zealand.

About 1500 aged care workers, members of the Service and Food Workers Union, are taking part in rolling strikes against a 1% pay rise offer. About 750 meat workers have been locked out by their employer AFFCO and about 1250 workers are involved in rolling stoppages in solidarity. Striking Auckland waterside workers are also into their fourth week on the picket line.

What links all these struggles are pay and conditions ― especially the fight against casualisation. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Ports of Auckland, Workers in Struggle

Green Left Weekly: Atrocity in Afghanistan fuels opposition to occupation

March 31, 2012 by

This article, by Tony Iltis, originally appeared on Green Left Weekly and will be republished in the April Spark.

For the US military and the pro-war Western corporate media, the March 11 slaughter of 16 civilians, nine of them children, as they slept in their homes in the villages of Alkozai and Najeeban in Panjwai district, Kandahar province, was an aberration.

For Afghans, it was just the latest massacre.

There are differing accounts of what happened. The US maintains the killings were the work of a single “rogue” soldier. Eyewitnesses, however, insist there was more than one attacker. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Afghanistan
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