It is 8 years since NZ troops joined the US led invasion of Afghanistan

November 9, 2009 by

The SPARK interviews long serving anti-imperialist activist and Workers Party secretary Daphna Whitmore

Spark: It’s been 8 years since New Zealand troops were sent to Afghanistan – why did the Labour-Alliance government send them in the first place?

It needs to be understood in the context of New Zealand’s involvement with US and British imperialism. New Zealand is a partner in this bloc, and Labour enthusiastically signed up to the so-called War on Terror. When it comes to involvement in military adventures Labour governments have been just as warmongering as National.

Daphna Whitmore

Daphna Whitmore (left)at May Day march 2009

The Alliance Party split over the issue of support for the invasion of Afghanistan, with the majority of its members rejecting the war. It highlighted the problem of being in government with an outright capitalist party like Labour.

Spark: New Zealand companies aren’t trying to make major sales in Afghanistan – why all the risk and expense over such a long period of time?

 In its last term the Labour government did scale back the involvement, recalling the SAS and sending instead “reconstruction” forces. This tended to obscure the reality – that these are military forces, participating in an occupation. It dressed it up to look like it was simply a humanitarian mission. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Afghanistan, Imperialism, NZ Imperialism, Uncategorized

Recession and Redundancy

October 11, 2009 by

The Spark October 2009
John Edmundson

As the recession has bitten, redundancies have risen and unemployment figures have begun to climb, Labour’s Darien Fenton has had her Private Member’s Bill drawn from the ballot. The Bill would enforce a minimum redundancy payout on all employers, starting at four weeks pay after one year of employment. The Labour Party of course is the party that introduced the Employment Relations Act, which does not even provide a definition of the word redundancy, let alone provide significant protection for workers. New Zealand workers actually have no legal right to redundancy compensation and very few have provision for it in their contracts.

Workers at LWR’s Wairarapa sites who were made redundant earlier this year have been told that they are unlikely to receive any more than seventy percent of their entitlement in redundancy and holiday pay. Approximately eighty percent of staff with written employment agreements (contracts) have no redundancy provisions at all according to a Massey University survey commissioned for the Department of Labour’s Restructuring and Redundancy Public Advisory Group. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Economics, Fighting Redundancies

The state of the working class

October 11, 2009 by

The Spark October 2009
Philip Ferguson

The recession has been officially declared over, thanks to 0.1% economic growth in the last quarter. The government and various economic experts agree, however, that more jobs will be lost over the next year to 18 months.

In The Spark, we’ve consistently argued that the current global recession is nothing like on a par with the Great Depression of the 1930s nor is it the worst global downturn since then. Current trends suggest we made the right call, while many on the left vastly overplayed the degree of economic crisis. However, we’ve also pointed out that it is equally important to remember that this is actually about as good as it gets under capitalism these days – short mini-booms, often in the artificial economy, followed by recessions, with workers usually ending up worse off after each recovery than they were after the previous recovery. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Economics

PFLP campaign update

October 7, 2009 by

Mike Walker and Paul Hopkinson

The Workers Party’s ongoing solidarity campaign with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is a concrete campaign through which progressive New Zealanders can support the people of Palestine and participate in the struggle against imperialism. Imperialist countries continue to seek to dominate resources in the developing world, extracting super profits at the expense of people. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Fightback News, Israel, Palestine

Christchurch Event: Revolutionary Leaders

October 5, 2009 by

Come along to this seminar presented by the Workers Party on three outstanding revolutionary figures: Che Guevara, one of the central leaders of the Cuban revolution, who also later fought in the Congo and Bolivia; George Habash, one of the founders of radical trade unions in the Arab world and the founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Seamus Costello, a legendary leader of the struggle for Irish national liberation, from his teens in the 1950s until his murder in 1977.

2-6 PM, Saturday the 10th

WEA, 59 Gloucester St (map)

There will be plenty of time for discussion after each presentation; we’ll wrap up with a meal and movie at 5pm.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Events
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