Welcome to the July 2013 issue of Fightback, publication of Fightback (Aotearoa/NZ). Fightback is a socialist organisation with branches in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch.

Labour, or work, is at the centre of a historical materialist (or Marxist) view of social relations. Ian Anderson, Fightback coordinating editor, considers the nature of unpaid labour such as ‘housework’ in relation to socialist and feminist politics.

In a continuation of on-going government attacks on both employed and unemployed workers, two bills proposed by National MPs seek to further gut union rights. Fightback member Joel Cosgrove argues the need for fighting unions that take industrial action to defend and extend rights.

Rebuilding working class solidarity and self-activity is a matter of both theory and practice. On April 29th, negotiations broke down between McDonald’s and Unite Union, with McDonald’s offering a paltry 25 cent pay increase for theirstaff. Nationwide, 85% of unionised McDonald’s workers voted to reject this offer and take action for improved pay and conditions. On page 14 Fightback covers strike actions in Wellington during this campaign.

Our struggle is global, against both capitalism and imperialism. Fightback reprints a piece by Andrew Tait, originally published by the International Socialist Organisation, on popular movements in Turkey and Brazil (p15-18); Byron Clark covers Papa New Guinea’s increasing ‘regionalism’ in moving to reject Australian and New Zealand trade dominance (p19) and finally Ian Anderson reviews Five Broken Cameras, a documentary on Palestinian resistance screened as part of Aotearoa/NZ’s first national Conference on Palestine (p20).

Fightback July 2013

Abridged from a talk given to the Fightback 2013 Conference. By Grant Brookes, Fightback member and union delegate.

This article offers the perspective of a Fightback member, however perspectives within Fightback differ. Further perspectives on workers’ and union struggles will be covered in the coming months.

Sessions at socialist conferences on “workers, unions and class struggle” usually go along much the same lines. They analyse a fairly narrow set of statistics on strikes, lockouts, wage movements, and then draw conclusions about “the state of the class struggle”.

So, for argument’s sake, what might this data suggest today?

Here are the figures for work stoppages (that’s strikes and lockouts) for the last 25 years.

Fig 1. Number of work stoppages 1986-2011.

[Read more…]

Presented by Daphne Lawless, at Fightback 2013 Wellington conference.

Daphne Lawless, Auckland Fightback member.

Preliminary feedback has just closed on the Auckland Council’s Draft Unitary Plan, a document which will have major impact on how working people in the Super City live, work and play.

When the single Auckland Council replaced Auckland’s four cities, three districts and regional council in 2010, the law stated that a new Unitary Plan be drawn up to replace all the local planning documents – covering issues such as transport, housing, and infrastructure.

There has been big debate in the Auckland media on the issue – mostly on the question of “intensification” of housing.

Mayor Len Brown’s Labour-backed administration is supporting a halt to Auckland’s suburban sprawl along the motorways north and south. Instead, many more people will live in apartments, terraced houses, and other small dwellings.

Right-wing politicians and “residents’ associations” from the leafy suburbs such as St Heliers and Milford are up in arms about these proposals. They’ve been yelling about the danger of “slums”, about how higher-density living is “not the Kiwi way”, and refusing to let “their suburbs” change.

To some degree, these are the same people who have always run Auckland. The conservative leaders in Auckland supported sprawl along the new motorway systems starting in the 1950s.

Existing working class and Pasifika communities in the inner suburbs of the city – Ponsonby, Newton and Freemans Bay – had their homes destroyed for the new motorways. They were encouraged into houses in suburbs far from the city, such as Mangere and Otara.

Auckland thus developed a form of socio-economic apartheid. The old central villas in which working people had lived for decades were taken over and done up by the upwordly mobile class.

Right-wing politicians want Auckland to expand “outwards, not upwards” – new suburbs on greenfield sites. These will be dependent on cars, clogging Auckland’s roads even further. They will also mean that working people will continue to be housed far away from the leafy suburbs – keeping their beloved property prices high.

The right-wing argument that sprawl makes housing affordable is only true if we all need 4-bedroom stand-alone houses on big sections. But increasing numbers of working people have small families or no children, and don’t need that kind of space.

Well-designed apartments and terraced houses in the central suburbs of Auckland could not only bring housing prices down significantly. By hooking into existing public transport – as well as the proposed City Rail Link – they could remove the need to own one or more cars, an expense which makes a big dent in workers’ budgets.

However, Len Brown’s plans are far from perfect. If workers’s needs aren’t taken seriously, these new apartments might be put out of workers’ reach and bought up by the same kind of middle-class professionals who now dominate Ponsonby and Grey Lynn.

John Minto’s campaign for Mayor of Auckland on behalf of the MANA movement should take this up. We shouldn’t listen to the voices who support “traditional” suburban sprawl, dependent on cars. But we have to demand that perhaps 30% of the new high-density housing should be made available for rent or sale to working families at affordable prices.

Ian Anderson, Fightback Wellington branch member.

Fightback actively supported unionised McDonalds workers as part of our 2013 winter conference. On the evening of Saturday the 1st of June, members and supporters distributed nearly 2000 leaflets across Wellington McDonalds sites; Newtown, the Basin Reserve, Courtenay Place, Taranaki Street, Lambton Quay, Manners Mall and Bunny Street (which recently took strike action).

Fightback’s leaflet explained “Why we support McDonalds workers – and why you should too.” The leaflet explained how both workers’ action and wider public solidarity are needed to overcome casualisation and low wages, at McDonalds and elsewhere.

Customers were generally receptive, with some at the Manners Mall store even taking and distributing bunches of leaflets themselves.

Coming weeks will see further actions, including demonstrations and strikes. Fightback will continue to support and, where possible, initiate these actions. We see this campaign as part of a broader struggle for working class solidarity and self-organisation.

See also:
Unite takes on McDonald’s in high stakes fight for low-paid workers