Auckland event: Rally to Save Our Port
Join us to rally to Save Our Port and stand up for job security for the port workers and their families and for a publically owned sustainable and successful port.
This is an issue for all of us – casualisation is not good for workers or their families. This is a growing story of working in New Zealand – even when workers already offer a lot of flexibility, they are expected to give more, and often to give up any hope of a structured and healthy life.
Support the port workers, meet at Britomart at 4pm, Saturday 10th March. Entertainment and speeches at Teal Park to follow.
Background:
SaveOurPort.com
Interview with Maritime Union National President Garry Parsloe
Why wharfies are striking – in their own words
The Student: “Our dreams are no one’s property”
Report on the radical student movement in Chile. Reprinted from The Student Issue 4 by We Are The University (Wellington)
For close to a year now, the students of Chile have been in open revolt. Demanding free education from pre-school to tertiary level, students in Chile have organised the largest social movement the country has seen since the fall of the return to democracy two decades ago.
Mass demonstrations, nationwide general strikes, militant occupations and blockades of schools and universities, sit-ins, “kiss-ins”, mass flash-mob renditions of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’, and of course, water cannons, tear gas, running battles with carabinero militarized police; these are the hallmarks of the Chilean student movement. Its goals, though multifaceted, have been clear: greater student control over education, an end to cuts in the education sector and to private profiteering, free education for all. In the words of a popular slogan: “Fin al lucro en la educacion, nuestros sueños no les pertenecen.” Education is not for profit; our dreams are no one’s property. [Read more…]
Wellington event: 2011 Year of the Protester
2011 Year of the Protester
-Arab Spring
-Slutwalk
-Occupy
What next?
5pm Monday 12th March
SU19, Student Union Building, VUW
Spark interview: Sue Bradford on the unemployed workers’ movement
Over the weekend Auckland Action Against Poverty held a workshop to devise their next campaign. During the break Spark writer Ian Anderson sat down with Sue Bradford to discuss the history and future of the unemployed workers’ movement.
Spark: How will National’s recently announced welfare reforms affect beneficiaries?
SB: For youths of 16-17 years old it will mean the state, or private service providers, managing their income. My fear with this is that it will be extended to more beneficiaries, as the Welfare Working Group recommended.
For solo mothers it will mean work testing and harassment. In July they’ll be announcing reforms targeting people on the Sickness Benefit.
Spark: Why must all workers oppose these attacks?
SB: The worse it is for beneficiaries and the unemployed, the more competition for low paid jobs, the easier it is to drive down wages and conditions.
The capitalist system needs unemployment. Lately people have been very open about this, saying a certain amount of unemployment is good for economic growth. [Read more…]
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