Photos: Hikoi and meatworkers solidarity

April 29, 2012 by

The hikoi is showing that tangata whenua are in the forefront of the struggle against asset sales and privatisation. One aspect of the hikoi is the unity between the locked-out meatworkers (employed by Talleys-AFFCO) and others who are opposed to asset-sales and privatisation. This was apparent in the north, where workers employed at the Moerewa plant joined in large numbers. Then again in the Waikato workers from the Horotiu plant have played an important role and received support and acknowledgement from the hikoi. The Talleys-AFFCO workers are now in the ninth week of the lockout.

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29/04/12 MWU members rallying

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28/04/12 Frankton market the day before the hikoi got to Hamilton. Our mate from a locked-out family, Gareth from Mighty River People’s Power (and MANA), and Becky Broad, Workers Party national organiser (and MANA).

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29/04/12 Collecting the koha.

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29/04/12 Meatworkers presence at Garden Place, Hamilton.

Filed Under: Workers in Struggle

Fundraising for locked out AFFCO workers

April 15, 2012 by

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As the struggle between the meatworkers and the AFFCO Meatworks company passes its seventh week the nature of the financial support for the 943 locked out workers is becoming more apparent. $11,000 per week is coming in from other meatworkers around the country, in the last two weeks, $12,000 in street donations have been collected and $80,000 has come from the various union fighting funds. It’s estimated that $100,000 a week is needed to keep the workers income at something close to their at work pay. In Wellington just over $2000 was collected in three hours at the Newtown markets and on Manners St. Regular collections are being organised in the major city centres and protest marches have been called all across the country.

 

 

 

You can make a donation to the lockout fund by calling 0900 LOCKOUT

Filed Under: Workers in Struggle Tagged With: ,

The dialectical relationship between work and mental health – Part 4

April 12, 2012 by

This is the final instalment of a four-part series by Polly Peek

From a Marxist perspective, the low pay rates of jobs with low psycho-social quality is related to the concept of exploitation – the necessity for wages to be worth less than the value created by the worker’s labour, in order to continue to make a profit. A further component of employment’s potential detriment to mental health, well-being and recovery which is not covered in the research carried out by Butterworth and other (see part 3), is workers’ experiences of alienation. In his book which looks at work and sickness, Paul Bellaby discusses the way in which jobs can accentuate certain qualities of the body and mind, but can also depreciate others. A participant from one of the qualitative interviews quoted in this book talks about alienation with great clarity, as well as its impact on well-being as a worker undertaking solitary tasks.

You hardly talk to anyone. You have no idea what is happening around you – and you lose touch with what is happening in the world. After a while it gets so that you have no conversation, and when you go out socially you do not know what to say – eventually you lose all your self-confidence. (Bellaby) [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mental health, Workplace Health and Safety

Support locked out meatworkers (Wellington event tomorrow)

April 11, 2012 by

Support Locked Out Meatworkers: Public Meeting

A public meeting is being called to organise solidarity and support for the locked out meatworkers. There are still over 800 workers locked out and everyday they stay strong requires more than just a physical presence outside their work sites. We need thousands of dollars to help feed their families and keep roofs over their heads.
But more than that, we need to do everything we can do to help them WIN.

7pm Thursday 11th April

Filed Under: Workers in Struggle

Green Left Weekly: Wharfies beat lockout

April 2, 2012 by

This article by Workers Party member Joel Cosgrove originally appeared in Green Left Weekly.

In what has been described as New Zealand’s most high-profile and bitter industrial dispute since the early 1990s, waterside workers went back to work, after a four-week strike. Auckland’s port company agreed to end its lockout of 235 workers on March 30, and pay workers a week’s wages for being illegally locked out.

The New Zealand Herald reported that Maritime Union president Garry Parsloe told a huge workers’ meeting: “You’ll all go back to your jobs and until you go back you’ll all get paid.

“Everything we have done has fallen into place, thanks to your solidarity.” [Read more…]

Filed Under: Ports of Auckland, Workers in Struggle
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