Winstone Wallboards, a division of the Fletcher Building empire and the manufacturer of GIB plasterboards has told unions that they want to cut back their Penrose, Auckland operation from four shifts to three, resulting in redundancies. The unions issued the following statement in response:
All things bright and beautiful
September 27, 2008 by
(Wellington Central WP candidate Don Franks’ opening 5 minute address to Karori community election meeting 24/09/08)
Good evening folks, thanks for inviting me to your election meeting here in the pleasant surroundings of Karori. I was brought up in a similar nice suburb on the other side of Wellington, over in Eastbourne. There, at Sunday school, I used to love singing the children’s hymn “All things bright and beautiful”. I still recall all the words, including the closing verse: The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, He made them high and lowly and ordered their estate. I now realise that the song wasn’t really a cute child’s fancy, but a self-serving reactionary political statement.
Wellington Central candidate supports bus drivers struggle
September 24, 2008 by
– Workers Party Media Release
” Wellington bus drivers have been treated like shit” says Wellington Central Workers Party candidate Don Franks.
“Its a rotten system where hard working folks can be legally locked out for refusing poverty wages.”
“As I said to these drivers at the depot first thing this morning their cause is fully justified and deserves the support of all other workers” Mr Franks said.
“By standing up to the boss and demanding a better income the drivers are taking a stand which will benefit the whole working class.” Mr Franks concluded.
Supporting migrant workers
September 2, 2008 by
– Nick Kelly
In February 2007, management at Go Wellington introduced a new shift structure designed to reduce all bus drivers to 8-hour working days, to limit drivers’ access to overtime. At the same time, a document described by drivers as a “scab flat-rate contract” was introduced to weaken the Tramways Union at the Wellington Kilbirnie depot.
As a result of these changes, a number of drivers quit and the company faced a shortage of labour. To fill the gap they began recruiting migrant workers from Fiji. The company also recruited some drivers from agents in Fiji, who would tell applicants to avoid joining the Tramways Union if they came and worked in New Zealand. They were encouraged to join the scab contract with inferior conditions instead.
However, the migrant workers got wise to what was going on and the majority signed up to the Tramways Union.
Iranian socialist: “Capitalism is causing these wars”
September 2, 2008 by
Torab Saleth, a leading activist in the Iranian Workers Left Unity current and a prominent figure in the British-based Hands Off the People of Iran (HOPI) campaign, was recently interviewed by Philip Ferguson of the Workers Party.
Philip Ferguson: Could you tell us a bit about Workers Left Unity – how it came into existence and what work it does?
Torab Saleth: Workers Left Unity was formed in exile in the early 1990s, as one of the earliest responses to the crisis of the Iranian left (following its decimation in the early 80s at the hands of the counter-revolutionary theocratic regime). WLU is an independent organisation based on individual membership and an agreed minimum uniting all radical socialist currents cooperating towards a new regroupment of the socialist left. We come from many different traditions, principally from backgrounds in the Fedayeen minority and in Iranian Maoism and Trotskyism.
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