Socialist media project based in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia
Fortnightly Tuesdays 6pm @ Auckland Trades Hall 147 Great
North Road:
April 1 The global economy – how deep is the slump?
April 15: US elections: choosing the best face for
imperialism
1968 + 40 series
April 29 1968 – the year that rocked the world
May 13 The French general strike
May 27 What is Situationism?
Download leaflet in pdf format here
Nelson Davila, Venezuelan charge d’affaires for Australasia, will be speaking at two public forums in Christchurch next week:
Sunday March 16
2pm, Workers Educational Association,
59 Gloucester St
Monday March 17
12 noon, University of Canterbury Students Association,
International Room
Organised by Venezuela Aotearoa Solidarity Team (VAST) and Socialist Worker
Supported by the Workers Party
For more info contact David: colyer(at)pl.net | 021 0462011
UC Workers Party on Campus Public Forum
Wednesday 12 March 5pm
International Room, 1st floor UCSA building
University of Canterbury
Israel and Palestine are never far from the news and 2008 is the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel and the dispossession of the Palestinian people. With the recent visit of George W. Bush to the region, a renewal of peace talks at Annapolis, the lock-down of the Gaza Strip and, most recently, the dramatic breaching of the border between Gaza and Egypt, what does the future hold for the people of the region and what approach is most likely to bring a lasting peace?
Once again, whole departments and their staff (academic and general) and students are under attack at Canterbury – and other universities. The attempt by Canterbury management to abolish American Studies and Film and Theatre Studies, while also wielding the axe against Classics and Art History is an attack on jobs, knowledge and students.
Universities in New Zealand are being turned increasingly into businesses. Just like a sausage factory produces and sells commodities called sausages, universities are being transformed into businesses which sell commodities called ‘degrees’.
The university as a business means charging students more in fees, crowding more students into classes, dumbing down courses for sale as commodities, increasing and intensifying the working hours of staff, holding down wages and eroding work conditions in general and cutting courses and departments which may be socially useful but don’t generate large amounts of money – all this in order to maximise profits.
The education system in universities is coming to more and more resemble factory-line production.
Why is this happening?
In November last year the Australian Labor Party was elected to office on a tidal wave of opposition to the previous Howard government’s industrial reforms, which had threatened to scrap award conditions as well as undermine collective bargaining rights.
However, just like the New Zealand Labour Government’s introduction of the Employment Relations Act shortly after their election in 1999, the ALP’s proposed new industrial legislation actually promises to change very little for workers, as the following report from the Socialist Party of Australia makes clear.
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