Secret ballots? Workers should decide

November 18, 2010 by

Back in April The Spark carried an article sounding the alarm at National MP Tau Henare’s Private Member’s bill to require unions to run secret ballots for strike action. While the Council of Trade Unions gave its “support in principle” to the bill at the time, we warned that workers could become ensnared in pedantic legal challenges by employers trying to undermine strikes. No Right Turn blog had also given its backing to bill as “a bit of a no-brainer.”

Predictably, the moderate-sounding wording of the original has been amended by the select committee, so now employers could challenge strike ballots with injunctions. Now the CTU and their mates in the Labour Party are crying foul over the bill. Didn’t the 90 day “sack at will” law brought in by Henare’s party give them a clue about what were the government’s intentions with regard to employment laws? Are they really surprised that a bill proposing further restrictions on unions wouldn’t also include the right of employers to challenge the process? [Read more…]

Filed Under: National Party, Workers in Struggle

Luis Jalandoni – radio interview

November 16, 2010 by

Luis Jalandoni and Coni Ledesma, two leaders from the Philippines liberation movement have finished a nationwide speaking tour.

During their tour they gathered signatures and support from socialists, human rights and peace advocates including members of parliament, Maori activists, trade unionists, clergy and community leaders calling for the Aquino government to resume formal peace talks without preconditions, and to put an end to the wave of extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances and illegal detention of political activists in the Philippines.

Hear more in Luis Jalandoni’s Interview With Chris Laidlaw, Radio NZ National, 14/11/10

Luis Jalandoni – Peace in the Phillipines (duration: 17′37″)

One of the most longstanding conflicts in the world is the war that has been fought, on and off, between national liberationists and the ruling authorities in the Phillipines. Luis Jalandoni has been at the centre of the conflict since the 1970s, as chair of the National Democratic Front of the Phillipines negotiating panel for peace talks with the government.
Audio from Sunday Morning on 14 Nov 2010

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Housing protest in Mana

November 12, 2010 by

Activists from Matt McCarten’s by-election campaign in Mana have been involved in a symbolic protest to highlight the crisis in housing faced by working class people in the area and New Zealand as a whole. 3 News reported that the vacant state house in Cannon’s Creek had been occupied by protestors in order for a family currently living in a garage to move in. Shortly after the news item was aired, police arrived at the house and arrested four people, including two Workers Party members who were visiting the house to provide their campaign comrades with food. The police demanded that the four signed non-association orders as a condition of bail. The activists face court on Tuesday at 9am.

The campaign will be hosting a block party outside the property in Calliope Crescent this Saturday from 12-3pm. Matt McCarten has commented that: “The State will let working class people wait on housing lists for seven years. Occupy an empty house and they’ll arrest you in seven minutes.”

The Workers Party demand the charges against the activists are dropped immediately, and that the anti-democratic non-association orders are quashed.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Thousands across Europe resist austerity attacks

November 7, 2010 by

John Edmundson The Spark November 2010

Europe has seen a massive upsurge in worker resistance to planned implementation of continent-wide austerity measures. The size and militancy of the demonstrations and strikes should serve as an inspiration to workers in this part of the world, where class consciousness is at an all time low and union leadership has been sorely lacking and misdirected. In New Zealand, the CTU’s national day of action against the proposed extension to the 90 Day Act and other attacks on workers’ rights was morphed into a Labour Party election rally and Christchurch, where job losses due to earthquake related business closures, and earthquake recovery projects will mean workers there will be more exposed than most to the provisions of the 90 Day Act, the CTU decided in its wisdom that “for obvious reasons,” there would not even be a rally.

Compare this with the situation developing across Europe and the contrast could hardly be starker. The Spark has already given some coverage to the massive demonstrations that struck Greece, but huge worker rallies have taken place across many European cities and industrial action has hit several countries, most notable Spain and France. While it would be wrong to read too much into the potential of these actions, they do represent a significant positive development given the relative quiescence of the working class movement. [Read more…]

Filed Under: France, Greece, Uncategorized, Union movement, Workers in Struggle

India behind the Games

November 7, 2010 by

Philip Ferguson The Spark November 2010

In the lead-up to the Commonwealth Games the media was full of criticisms of India.  All these, however, revolved around whether the Games’ facilities would be finished and good enough, what the quality of the athletes’ village was and whether athletes would be safe from the supposed dangers represented by Islamic fundamentalists.

What was never touched upon in any serious way was the position of the mass of Indians themselves.  Indeed, the media continues to promote the number one global myth about India: that it’s the world’s biggest democracy.  In point of fact, India is a country marked by lack of democracy, by vicious state repression and huge inequalities of wealth and power. [Read more…]

Filed Under: India
«Previous Page
Next Page»