While workers in Aotearoa/NZ strike and demonstrate for improved pay and conditions from McDonalds, this struggle also has an international dimension. This report on an industrial campaign against McDonalds in Detroit, USA, is reprinted from Socialist Worker (USA). By  Aaron Petkov, with contributions from Marie Bucks.

MANAGERS OF the Detroit McDonald’s on Gratiot Avenue, northeast of the city center, discovered at 6 a.m. on May 10 that the restaurant was being picketed by about 20 striking employees. When they called other employees to come to work for a replacement shift, the other workers started arriving…and joined the picket line. The Gratiot Avenue McDonald’s stayed closed.

That was just one of the stories from Detroit as more than 400 employees at fast-food restaurants across the city went on strike and took to the streets on May 10. Nationwide, this was the fourth such strike in the past several months–previous walkouts have taken place in New York City, Chicago and St. Louis. Since the Detroit action, workers in Milwaukee have also gone on strike.

Throughout the day, workers and their supporters rallied outside chain restaurants like McDonald’s, Popeyes, Taco Bell and Burger King, gathering at the end of the day for a climactic march in the city’s New Center area. Like similar walkouts in other cities, the main demands of the coalition, calling itself D15, were for a raise in the minimum wage to a living wage of $15 an hour and the right to form a union.

The strike was particularly significant for a city as devastated as Detroit. Over a quarter of the city’s families survive on less than $15,000 a year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Low-paying fast-food chains are among the largest employers in the city, with twice as many workers as the once historic auto industry.

“We can’t raise no child off of $7.40,” Savanah, a worker on strike at Taco Bell, said in n interview. “I can’t pay rent. I can’t pay bills. I can’t pay my phone bill or nothing. It’s ridiculous, and I think we should get paid $15 for it.”

Over 50 fast-food locations across the city were affected by the strikes. Several locations were shut down or only opened the drive-thru. Managers at several locations attempted to keep their restaurants running by calling employees in to work on their day off. However, at many locations, many replacement workers joined the strike upon their arrival. [Read more…]

Working class unity needed to defend rights and living standards

This article is adapted from an article by Jared Phillips, Fightback member. Originally published in The Socialist, magazine of the Socialist Party of Australia.

Several recent events have elevated the issue of racism in New Zealand. In one case a nationalist MP belonging to the Danish People’s Party made headlines when she made racist comments about a traditional Maori welcome.

Also Susan Devoy, who is unsympathetic to Maori political issues, was appointed as the new Race Relations Commissioner. At the same time National Party Prime Minister John Key has tried to stoke fears about South Asian refugee boats coming to New Zealand. This is despite no boats arriving so far.

To top things off a bunch of neo-Nazis staged a so-called ‘white pride’ march in Christchurch. These events vary in significance but taken together they have created increased controversy and more discussion in society about ethnicity and issues of racism.

[Read more…]

Byron Clark

“Not fit for purpose.” That was the verdict on New Zealand’s health and safety system that the Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety delivered to Labour Minister Simon Bridges at the end of April. The taskforce discovered a number of “significant weaknesses” in laws, rules and regulations which were behind the country’s poor record of deaths and injuries at work.

New Zealand has an accident rate about 20-25% higher than Australia or the UK. Among the recommendations of the taskforce are creating a new, stand-alone, well-resourced health and safety agency and enacting a new health and safety act to overhaul the one enacted in 1993, as well as changes to many other related laws.

The report mentions “poor worker engagement” on health and safety issues and advocates better worker-participation and greater protection for those who raise concerns about issues in their workplaces. This is at odds with legislation such as the 90-day trial period and other recent reforms which have given workers less protection. The taskforce itself hardly set an example for worker representation either- just one of its six members came from the labour movement, the other five from business.

The majority of workplace injuries occur in just five industries – manufacturing, construction, agriculture, forestry and fishing. Mining was also highlighted by the taskforce, with Chairman Rob Jager noting the explosion at the Pike River mine, which resulted in the deaths of twenty nine people, as an example of a “significant failure” in New Zealand’s health and safety regime.

Certain groups are more likely to be injured in the workplace than others. As might be expected, youth and workers with low literacy and numeracy skills are disproportionately at risk, as are Maori and Pacific Islanders, who often fall in the previous categories due to a young population and comparatively worse educational outcomes than Pakeha.

If the proposed changes are legislated, workers will likely come out better off,  with an estimated twenty-fiver per cent reduction in workplace injuries. However, legislation will not necessarily be followed in every workplace, and the ones that don’t comply are likely to be the deunionised firms and industries that employ the marginalised workers who are currently most likely to be injured on the job.

The best protections for workers of course will not be top-down from government but bottom up from organised workers on the ‘shop floor’. Health and safety remains one of the few areas workers can legally strike over outside a contract negotiation. Ultimately of course, the wellbeing of working people needs to be prioritised higher than profit.