By Vita Bryant (Fightback Poneke/Wellington).

As National heads into its third term of Government, almost foremost on its legislative agenda will be the implementation of the Employment Relations Amendment Bill, which has already passed its second reading.

This Bill is no more than a thinly-veiled attack on workers, unions and minimum labour standards, and contains a number of provisions that significantly undermine the employment security of the most vulnerable members of our workforce.

The first of these is the removal of an employer’s obligation to conclude collective bargaining in good faith unless there is a genuine reason not to, instead allowing employers to declare that bargaining has reached a “stalemate” and to seek a determination from the Employment Relations Authority that the bargaining has been concluded. Even Peter Dunne, United Future MP and National Party sycophant, raised concerns that such a removal will allow employers to “go through the motions” of collective bargaining without any real intention to form an agreement. This provision discourages the formation of new collective agreements, and has a very real potential to allow employers to claw back the hard won gains fought for by unions through collective bargaining.

Secondly, the Bill removes the provision that new employees are covered by any collective agreement already negotiated for their work for the first 30 days of their employment, a provision expressly designed to give new employees fewer rights than contained in the existing collective agreement, as well as making it more difficult for new employees to understand what is being offered by that collective agreement. Over time, a situation where new employees accept lesser conditions and wages than unionised employees performing the same work incentivises employers to a “race to the bottom” in terms of the wages and conditions offered to each new employee.

Furthermore, the amendments allow employers to opt-out of multi-employer collective agreements where conditions and standards are uniform across workforces (for example DHBs or franchises), removes employees’ rights to scheduled rest and meal breaks, and imposes restrictions on the right to strike, including allowing employers the ability to deduct pay for even small industrial actions. Finally, the Bill removes protections for vulnerable workers in workplaces where the employer frequently changes hands.

Contrary to the National Party’s view that the amendments merely provide ‘clarification’ and extend flexibility, the changes are in fact an effort to claw back workers’ few remaining rights. Both the Human Rights Commission Te Kahui Tika Tangata and the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi have submitted that the Bill contravenes New Zealand’s international obligations to protect minimum employment standards and promote collective bargaining, putting us in a similarly embarrassing situation as when we became an international laughing stock with the passing of the Employment Contracts Act 1991.

Such a blatant disregard for international law highlights the true agenda of the recently re-elected National Party Government – union busting and the unapologetic erosion of our most basic labour rights. At a time when collective agreement coverage is at an all-time low (just 17.3% from 2005-2010), it is not merely scare-mongering to say that our Government wants to kill collective bargaining once and for all.

Pleading or appealing to National’s conscience will not stop these attacks. The power of unions and communities lies in taking collective action. Strikes hit union-busting governments and employers the hardest, and wider community mobilisation can also support unions.

Fightback is committed to the MANA Movement, however there are differences in opinion over the nature of the Internet MANA electoral campaign. Ben Peterson (Fightback/MANA Otautahi) offers one perspective.

In the wake of the crushing election defeat, the left in Aotearoa, particularly members of the MANA movement needs to take careful lessons. The Internet Party alliance was a gamble,and it did not pay off. Being open about that is important. But recognising failures cannot be used as an excuse to withdraw into sectarian politics and practices.

The IP alliance was an attempt to share MANA’s political alternative to new layers of people. MANA’s message has a loyal following, but one that is politically isolated from much of the population. The alliance was an attempt to break out of this isolation and to build our movement for change. Unfortunately, this attempt failed. While the vote did slightly increase, and some activists did join Mana who might not have done otherwise, it was not enough. Dotcom was portrayed as a force that discredited MANA’s message. While MANA did not water down its politics, the perception was that a ‘deal’ had been done. This perception combined with the pressure of the entire political establishment combined to defeat Hone in Te Tai Tokerau, and the movement has lost its seat in parliament.

This is a bitter failure, and it is one that we need to reflect on.

But this cannot be used as an excuse to unnecessarily withdraw. Some socialists will use this as an excuse to turn back easier fields, such a small campus groups or activist niches. But this leaves us in exactly the same place as we find ourselves after this failed electoral experiment. One road was not successful in reaching new people and building our movement, the other does not even try to. Both roads will fail to build sustained and articulate movements for change.

Learning the lessons from this campaign will mean doing more, not less. It will mean building stronger and politically clearer projects of the left. The mainstream media played a central role in undermining MANA and distorting our message. We need to build our own media projects to fight the battle of ideas and build our pro people alternatives.

Our pro people message is best shown when people themselves express it. Building movements and taking to the streets articulates the strength of ordinary people. Activists will have to build stronger organisation in our unions and communities. Building larger organisations of fight engaged in struggle can help to build the audience for radical ideas.

The campaign for InternetMANA did show that this is possible. The attendance generated at the roadshows, and the increase in volunteers willing to work for the movement shows there is a basis for an alternative. In hindsight, it was naive to think that this could be translated into an electoral challenge effectively overnight.

But if we can organise and build on these seeds, organisationally and politically, it can be a stepping stone for struggles in the coming months and years. I think socialists need to collectively think about how to respond to these challenges and how we are going to work more effectively, together, going forward.

An initial reaction to the 2014 General Election results from Ian Anderson (Fightback). More analysis to come.

This election was a disaster for the left. Apparently a landslide victory for National, non-votes again matched National votes, underlining the lack of a convincing alternative.

Labour and the Greens lost votes.

The biggest tragedy was Internet MANA’s failure to win any seats as a fighting opposition. Internet MANA was an electoral alliance, designed in part to engage tau iwi and widen the party vote for MANA’s project of rangatiratanga for te pani me te rawakore (formed through betrayals by successive Labour and National governments).

However the electoral campaign was fought and lost not in the party vote campaign, but in MANA’s home turf, Hone’s electorate of Taitokerau.

The establishment parties combined forces to kick Hone out of parliament. Labour chose to run a hard campaign in Taitokerau – happily backed by the Nats, New Zealand First, the Maori Party.

This was the culmination of a  generalised establishment smear campaign against Internet Mana and everyone associated with it. The ‘Mood of the Boardroom’ was that Harawira and Harre are “dangerous radicals,” which as ISO’s Andrew Tait observed, is an endorsement from a socialist perspective. Just as in the Scottish referendum, the boardroom-aligned parties combined to strike fear and terror into voters about the dangers of an alternative which threatened their power.

Make no mistake; the establishment attacked Kim Dotcom because he threatened big studios’ business models, because he backed social democrats and an indigenous-led movement, because he led youth in chanting “Fuck John Key.”

However, the association with Dotcom was also discrediting for legitimate reasons. Dotcom is a profiteer and a misogynist, a man who pays his Filipino workers less than the minimum wage. For any tactical advantages the ‘sugar hit’ seemingly offered, it also sent signals that MANA was engaging in the same old dirty politics. On election night, Dotcom apologised for the impact of his association on MANA.

Those of us who seek to forge a transformative movement of the people have a lot of reflection to do, and a lot of work to do. It was never just about winning seats, and many who hoped for better results knew that perfectly well. Liberation was never going to come through a higher vote, but rather through a combined struggle in every sector. On election day the movement lost a fighter in parliament, but as the only MP arrested fighting for public housing, his mana does not depend on a seat.