Picket against new “Fire-at-Will” law in Christchurch

February 26, 2009 by

dalek

Press Release: Workers Rights Campaign

Canterbury’s newly-formed Workers Rights Campaign is planning a symbolic picket at the offices of Government M.P. Nicola Wagner to protest at the new “fire-at-will” provisions of New Zealand’s industrial law.

Campaign spokesman Paul Piesse said today that the justification for the new law, which allows employers to sack workers within the first three months of their employment without giving any reason at all, let alone any justification, is a hypocritical sham.

The big lie, Mr Piesse said, is the deceit that the law would encourage employers to take on people they otherwise would not. Employers, he said, only ever employ people when they really need them. Their objective is to maximise their profits – they don’t function as a social service to the unemployed.

Neither do they engage the least appealing applicant; and nor will they because of the new law.

The Workers Rights Campaign says that the law is a breach of civil rights, in that it discriminates against a specific group of citizens – job applicants – distinguishing them from those already employed.

Mr Piesse added that the law is aimed at the most vulnerable: the young; casual and part time workers; those made redundant from their previous employment – likely to be a rapidly increasing number of New Zealanders; anyone changing jobs; and older workers.
The Workers Rights Campaign will picket the premises of any employer availing him/herself of this contemptible new law when it is brought to its attention.

Mr Piesse said that the new law was just the start of an employer-Government campaign to make working people pay the price of the inevitable and cyclic crisis of the capitalist system.

The picket at Wagner’s office, 189 Montreal St Christchurch, will take place on Friday 27th February at 1 p.m.

Filed Under: Industrial Relations Legislation, National Party, Workers in Struggle Tagged With:

Bolivia fights back against imperialism

February 24, 2009 by

-Tim Bowron

On January 25 Bolivians voted by a large majority to approve a new constitution designed to give greater control over the country’s natural resources to the indigenous majority of the Andean nation.Evo Morales

The constitution, which was championed by Bolivian President Evo Morales (a former Aymara peasant activist and leader of the left nationalist Movimiento al Socialismo/MAS), was the culmination of nearly two decades of struggle by the indigenous majority to wrest back control of their lands from the blanco elites and their friends the foreign multinationals. During the 1990s Bolivia saw a succession of governments embark on an unprecedented campaign of privatisation including the full or partial sale of the state-owned oil, gas, electricity and telecommunications industries. In 2000 the then-President (and former military dictator) Hugo Banzer signed a contract with a consortium led by US company Bechtel to give it exclusive rights over the supply of water and sanitation services in the city of Cochabamba, with local residents forbidden from collecting their own water through rainwater tanks or other natural methods.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: South America

Will the Council of Trade Unions put workers first?

February 23, 2009 by

-Don Franks

For some weeks now, top union leaders have been muttering about a possible National government attack on unions’ access to worksites. The present law allows union representatives to enter workplaces to visit existing union members and recruit new members. Union officials must produce identification, tell the employer the purpose of their visit and not take up too much time, or enter at very busy times.

These rights were denied by National’s Employment Contracts Act and restored by the last Labour government. Restoration of right of entry was the one big concession Labour made to the union movement. Now, it is increasingly being rumoured, John Key’s lot will remove unions’ right of entry again.

The rumours came out in the open in Council of Trade Unions President Helen Kelly’s Dominion Post column of February 23rd. There, in an article headlined; Will Government put the country first? Kelly claimed:

“National still intends to reduce worker’s rights by making union access to a workplace dependant on employer approval.”

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Union movement, Workers in Struggle

Making the state sector more profitable

February 22, 2009 by

One area of reform proposed by post-neo-liberals such as Skilling and Weldon which has the potential to involve some serious upheaval is the state sector.

A problem for capitalism is that all kinds of activities – some standard industrial and commercial activities as well as ‘public good’ activities like health and education – require a significant state-owned sector within the economy.  In New Zealand, the state has been a major player since capitalism first arrived here in the nineteenth century.  Without the state, little of the infrastructure would have been built, for instance.  The inability of private capital alone to create a modern capitalist economy, complete with infrastructure (from banking to railways to mass communications), meant the state had to pick up the slack.  The state could do this because it had access to chunks of surplus-value through direct and indirect taxation, could borrow on a massive scale and did not need to make a quick and substantial profit.  The state could, in fact, produce goods and services outside the operation of the law of value – in other words, it could produce and provide goods and services without profit being built into the price; in fact often goods and services were produced and provided below cost.  Private capital could make use of these goods and services without paying a price which reflected their actual value.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Economics

Raising the minimum wage

February 21, 2009 by

Unite Union is spearheading a new campaign for a decent hike in the minimum wage. The campaign will take to the streets, with a petition for a referendum being the main tool used by activists to start discussions with workers about how we can raise wages and win control in our workplaces.

 The petition calls for the minimum wage to be raised to $15 immediately, and then in steps over the next three years until it reaches two-thirds of the average wage.

 “These steps will increase purchasing power in the economy by directing help to those who need it most,” says Unite’s Mike Treen. “The economic crisis facing the world is the toxic product of insatiable greed at the top and the free-market policies of governments that removed all controls. The end result is a skewing of income and wealth so that the rich got richer and the poor fell off the edge.”

 Look out for the campaign coming soon to a neighbourhood near you!

Filed Under: Workers in Struggle
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