tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76626796136160189842024-02-06T18:11:49.572-08:00Kaimahi KahaFor workers' power and international socialismInternational Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comBlogger72125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-8070792354714751392012-10-24T19:35:00.001-07:002012-10-24T19:35:11.022-07:00An updated, improved website<br />
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We have updated and improved our website, and, over the rest of the year, will be merging our blog pieces into this new site: <a href="http://www.iso.org.nz/">www.iso.org.nz</a> <br />
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Please go to this site for regular political analysis and commentary from the International Socialist Organisation.<br />
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We will be closing this blog towards the end of the year. All the material from here will be available at the <a href="http://www.iso.org.nz/">new site</a>.<br />
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International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-89564052259221141022012-10-20T01:24:00.001-07:002012-10-20T01:24:30.559-07:00Southland women need access to abortion services<br />
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To Invercargill Abortion Clinic Staff,<u></u><u></u></div>
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This is a letter of support for the essential service that you provide. We were disgusted to find out about the threats you have received. These abhorrent messages as well as the protests against the clinic are the acts of cowards and bigots.<u></u><u></u></div>
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We fully support the opening and running of abortion clinics. We understand the necessity of such a service for women’s reproductive health and general well-being.<u></u><u></u></div>
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Such services should be made more accessible by establishing clinics in all areas, not just major cities and by making the service free for all women.<u></u><u></u></div>
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Our struggle against anti-choice bigotry must start to extend beyond defensive acts. <b>Abortion needs to come out of the Crimes Act.</b> For even though women in New Zealand now can get access to abortion services, the hoops which have to be jumped through and the stigma placed on women by society is not even close to acceptable.<u></u><u></u></div>
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We say no guilt, no shame for those who get abortion and those who provide the service. Your work is important.<u></u><u></u></div>
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In Solidarity<u></u><u></u></div>
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Rowan McArthur </div>
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(International Socialist Organisation)</div>
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[Find out more about the campaign to defend abortion services in Southland by going to the Abortion Law Reform Association <a href="http://www.alranz.org/">website</a>. Alison McCulloch from ALRANZ <a href="http://tvnz.co.nz/close-up/2012-10-16-video-5136397">debated</a> an anti-choice spokesperson on television earlier this week.]</div>
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</span>International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-66695723235316039842012-10-17T13:07:00.000-07:002012-10-17T13:07:06.626-07:00Film Review: American Radical: the Trials of Norman Finkelstein<br />
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Film review by Andrew Tait</span><span style="color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br />
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<span style="background: white;">"Every single member of my family on both
sides was exterminated. Both of my parents were in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
And it is precisely and exactly because of the lessons my parents taught me and
my two siblings that I will not be silent when Israel commits its crimes
against the Palestinians."</span><br />
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<span style="background: white;">It is a tragedy to be born out of your time,
when keeping faith with your past means breaking radically with the present.
This documentary about radical Jewish American academic Norman Finkelstein is
more gripping and tragic than any documentary about an academic should be.</span><br />
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<span style="background: white;">If Israel had a public enemy list for
intellectuals, Norman Finkelstein would be number one. He is a figure held up
for derision and hate for Zionists for two reasons: He is the foremost and most
fearless critic of the Israel's racist theory and increasingly barbaric
practice and worse, he is a Jew whose parents survived Hitler's concentration
camps. This last is the worst crime in a critic of Israel. For a state based on
Jewish identity Finkestein's Jewishness is galling but his direct link with
survivors of Hitler's attempted genocide is unforgivable.</span><br />
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<span style="background: white;">His parents loom large in this documentary.</span><br />
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<span style="background: white;">They are ever-present points of reference for
Finkelstein, who grew up in the long shadows cast by the watchtowers of
Auschwitz.</span><br />
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<span style="background: white;">He says of his mother that she was always
reflecting on the camps, on the smallest events as if they revealed the secret
of human nature.</span><br />
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<span style="background: white;">His father, who became a factory worker in New
York after the war, spoke little of the camps, or anything else.</span><br />
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<span style="background: white;">The horrors of the Holocaust meant the
Finkelsteins were unusual parents. When they said the simplest things, like
share your things or don't waste food, simple lessons that all parents pass on
to their children, Norman's parents were deadly serious because in the camps
the basics of human decency were not a luxury but the only thing left to cling
to give life any meaning at all.</span><br />
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<span style="background: white;">On war, specifically the American war in
Vietnam, Finkelstein's mother was almost hysterical in her opposition, he said
- “why would people do such things? How could they?”</span><br />
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<span style="background: white;">Finkelstein was animated from his high school
days by a horror of injustice and cruelty, so anyway said a former classmate
who now lives in Tel Aviv. Everyone was against the war in Vietnam but Norman
was serious about it. He was passionate.</span><br />
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<span style="background: white;">When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, Norman's
opposition to war collided with the increasingly brutal trajectory of the
“Jewish” state.</span><br />
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<span style="background: white;">Israel bases its right to existence on the
supposed eternal hostility of non-Jews to the Jewish people, who depend on the
security a nation state brings. Israel bases its right to mete out violence and
destruction on the enormous violence meted out to European Jews by the Nazis.
How can the bombing of Lebanon and Gaza be compared to the death camps, to the
annihilation Hitler sought to bring upon the Jews? The Holocaust Industry (the
title of one of Finkelstein's books) exists, he argues, to use the legacy of
that time to justify the state of Israel. The Holocaust is like an
inexhaustible bank account of horrors that Israel can draw on – in a more
moderate, “democratic” way, more in sorrow than anger – and pay forward to the
Palestinian people.</span><br />
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<span style="background: white;">Finkelstein is a real problem, not just because
of the strength of his arguments or the depth of his historical knowledge
(which is great) but because as a child of the Holocaust he is in a way a
trustee of that legacy of genocide.</span><br />
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<span style="background: white;">His arguments and his knowledge are deeply
significant though. Isolated though he might appear to be now – Finkelstein was
driven out of his teaching positions at two US universities and has been
detained and deported from Israel – if you were to survey Jewish intellectuals
of the last 100 years it would be the Zionists, not Finkelstein, who would be
in the minority. Socialism in one form or another was the mainstream political
ideology of European Jews up until the Holocaust.</span><br />
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<span style="background: white;">Finkelstein's mentor, Noam Chomsky, is a great
example of this progressive anti-capitalist tradition that Finkelstein also
represents.</span><br />
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<span style="background: white;">Nonetheless, the times are against him and he is
a lonely figure. In some ways, this is self-inflicted. Finkelstein could have
kept his radical politics and his condemnation of Israel as a sideline to, say,
rebutting the Holocaust denier David Irving or US imperialism. Instead he has
chosen the more difficult path, to make what is closest to his heart his life's
work. He is a passionate public intellectual. He is a prophet.</span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-58519598743101133792012-10-16T17:48:00.003-07:002012-10-16T17:48:50.066-07:00A wave of anti-US protests in Okinawa<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6QJhNA8Z2lehphZKgfqzMJ_LqadJ50uhb_1MpZVmXqcP9i5dQ8u3t8Tinlla3YSoP-yBqfTZe4Dvjui01LPZ4vyDW5klH9BrsU0Xc221OR6c0mm5K8hY5i-jpcKtFeaKLkHBlURelbdhI/s1600/USPlane.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6QJhNA8Z2lehphZKgfqzMJ_LqadJ50uhb_1MpZVmXqcP9i5dQ8u3t8Tinlla3YSoP-yBqfTZe4Dvjui01LPZ4vyDW5klH9BrsU0Xc221OR6c0mm5K8hY5i-jpcKtFeaKLkHBlURelbdhI/s320/USPlane.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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[This article by <b>Khury Petersen-Smith </b>first appeared in <i><a href="http://www.socialistworker.org/">Socialist Worker</a> </i>US]<br />
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THE DECISION by the U.S. and Japanese governments to deploy the Osprey MV-22 military warplane to Okinawa, a Japanese island south of the mainland and north and east of China and Taiwan, has sparked a wave of mass protest.</div>
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The largest demonstrations to date took place in a simultaneous mobilization on September 9 when 100,000 people gathered in Okinawa, thousands of people surrounded the Diet (Japanese legislature) in Tokyo, and protests were held on Ishigaki and Miyako Islands as well as the city of Iwakuni on the mainland, where Osprey aircraft are currently stationed.</div>
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The Osprey has tilting rotors that allow it to take off and land like a helicopter, but it also has fixed wings so it can fly like an airplane. These qualities, along with the fact that it can fly four times further than the helicopters that it is replacing, give the Osprey appeal as a tactical vehicle for the U.S. military. However, the Osprey is prone to crashing--there have been two Osprey crashes so far this year, in Morocco and Florida.</div>
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The deployment of the Osprey to Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, located in the densely populated city of Ginowan on Okinawa, comes with obvious risk to the civilian population.</div>
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"We refuse to accept a deployment of Osprey that has already proven so dangerous," said Ginowan Mayor Atsushi Sakima at the September 9 protest, according to the English-language news site Japan Update. "Who is going to take responsibility if they crash onto a populated neighborhood?" In 2004, a U.S. military helicopter did crash into a building at Okinawa International University.</div>
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Kazuhisa Kawamura, principal of Ginowan's Futenma No. 2 Elementary School--which is located just 200 yards from the Marine air station--is worried about an accident involving the Osprey. "The aircraft fly right over our school every day," he said in a recent report by National Public Radio (NPR). "It's frightening."</div>
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THE CURRENT wave of demonstrations is only the latest in a history of Okinawan protest against the U.S. and Japanese governments following the Second World War--and the deployment of the Ospreys is only the latest injustice in a bitter history of crimes against the Okinawan people.</div>
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While August 1945 is generally understood in the U.S. to be the end point of the Second World War, the war did not end for Japan until April 1952 when the U.S. occupation formally ended. And when the Treaty of San Francisco re-established Japan as a sovereign country, exception was made for the southern prefecture of Okinawa, which remained formally occupied by the U.S. until 1972.</div>
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The deal under which Japan allowed Okinawa to remain under U.S. military rule is considered one of many betrayals in which Okinawa has been sacrificed by the Japanese state for Tokyo's--and now Washington's--strategic aims. Today, Okinawa bears the burden of more than half of the U.S. troop presence of 50,000 soldiers, and three-fourths of Washington's military bases in Japan. The Okinawa prefecture (similar to a state) comprises only 0.6 percent of Japan's total land area--fully 20 percent of the prefecture belongs to Washington's bases<i></i>.</div>
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Okinawa's tropical climate and location have made it ideal for training and stationing of U.S. troops there. U.S. bases in Okinawa were central to the U.S. war in Vietnam in the 1960s and '70s, played a critical role in the 1991 and 2003 invasions of Iraq and the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. The Pentagon continues to regard the Okinawa bases as strategically invaluable.</div>
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But the cost to the prefecture has been heavy. According to Closethebase.org, a website run by a coalition of peace groups called the Network for Okinawa, there were 1,434 incidents and accidents related to training exercises by U.S. forces between the end of the formal occupation and 2008. During the same period, there were 5,584 cases of U.S. military personnel committing crimes against Okinawans.</div>
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Sexual crimes, in particular, have been a disturbing and constant feature of the U.S. military presence in Okinawa. In the recent movement against the Osprey's deployment, many commentators referenced the last great wave of Okinawan protests against the U.S. military in 1995, sparked by the rape of an elementary school girl by three U.S. Marines.</div>
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This past is impossible to separate from the current protests. In the words of anti-base activist and professor at the University of the Ryukus Kosozu Abe, "Without Okinawa's history, our opposition to the Osprey wouldn't have materialized. This forced deployment is symbolic of what we have experienced in the past."</div>
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THE OTHER factor that can't be ignored in the deployment of the Ospreys is Washington's new strategic interests in the Asia-Pacific region.</div>
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The Obama administration has coined the term "pivot to Asia" to describe a whole set of steps that the U.S. government is taking to militarize the region in preparation for growing conflicts with China.</div>
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This includes deploying a majority of the U.S. Navy's fleet to the Pacific Ocean (it had been previously split evenly between the Atlantic and Pacific); stationing more U.S. troops in the region; increasing the already large U.S. military presence in Hawaii and Guam; greater military cooperation with partner states, including Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, Indonesia and Japan; and the introduction of more weapons.</div>
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The U.S. deployment is designed to help ensure that Washington shapes the economics and politics of Asia for the foreseeable future. In a November 2011 article in <i>Foreign Policy</i> magazine, titled "America's Pacific Century," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote, "From opening new markets for American businesses to curbing nuclear proliferation to keeping the sea lanes free for commerce and navigation, our work [in Asia] holds the key to our prosperity and security at home."</div>
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U.S. officials are very explicit about preparing for a military conflict with China in the future. The U.S. is anticipating this confrontation because of China's rise as a world power, but it is also <i>ensuring</i> it by threatening China with its escalation of weapons and forces to the region.</div>
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The horrible prospect of a future war with China, however, shouldn't stop us from seeing the violence of Washington's "pivot" as it is unfolding right now. The deployment of Ospreys and the more forceful U.S. presence in Japan have already had negative consequences for ordinary Japanese.</div>
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For example, when a U.S. serviceman stationed at the Atsugi Naval Air Facility in Kanagawa Prefecture raped a local Japanese woman in July, police were prevented from arresting him by the Japanese government. According to the magazine <i>Shukan Bunshun</i>, supervisors at the local police station were told: "Because of the problems with deployment of the Ospreys, an incident involving the U.S. military might have repercussions, and is undesirable"--and therefore, they weren't allowed to issue a warrant for the serviceman's arrest.</div>
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With this latest chapter of Washington's violent history in Japan unfolding, the outpouring of Okinawan protest is very hopeful.</div>
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The movement has been building for some time throughout the prefecture. In the Yanbaru Jungle, home of the largest base in Okinawa--the Pentagon's Jungle Warfare Training Center--residents have sustained a five-year long sit-in to stop the construction of new helipads, which is where the Ospreys would land if they are ever built.</div>
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Opposition to the Ospreys is uniting Okinawan society, including peace groups, trade unions and elected officials from across the political spectrum. As Australian Okinawa solidarity scholar and activist Gavin McCormack wrote in a September op-ed in <i>Ryuku Shimpo</i>, "This is no longer an opposition movement, but a prefecture in resistance, saying 'No.' Japanese history has no precedent for this."</div>
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Takeshi Onaga, the mayor of Okinawa's capital, Naha and member of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, described the situation this way in the <i>New York Times</i>: "Anger has been building up like hot magma beneath the surface, and the Osprey could be what finally causes an eruption. If they force the Osprey onto us, this could lead to a collapse of the U.S.-Japan alliance."</div>
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On October 9, Okinawa's governor Hirokazu Nakaima and Ginowan Mayor Atsushi Sakima met with Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to urge the removal of the Ospreys.</div>
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As more plans for the Osprey come to light, the demonstrations are spreading. While the U.S. and Japanese governments have kept the routes for the Ospreys' training flights a secret, an Osprey sighting last week revealed that the routes extend over cities in Kochi Prefecture, leading to protests there.</div>
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Elsewhere in Asia, Korean peace activists in Gangjeong Village are waging an heroic struggle against the construction of a base on Jeju Island. The base, which South Korea's government insists is for Korean purposes only and won't be used by the U.S. is nevertheless understood by activists as another local aspect of the U.S. plan in the region. But the Korean, Japanese, and U.S. governments are vulnerable to these social movements, which represent an alternative to another century of war in Asia.</div>
International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-24693930681305590102012-10-11T20:14:00.000-07:002012-10-13T02:21:28.326-07:00"Overpopulation" is not to blame for the ecological crisis<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR8t2Ad5vp0j2LyiHvCmJV_GiR1fvmjUjPlovt-GqKjnYI8SYFOmVcsAkMDvK8HLGKHwxVZ_C9ZEh9l44iYmI5SPIbBIRc6QrLDRwsbc9DGKPT0HKjnrXV45GfLujMadK8TpGBbjF-FL0w/s1600/climatechange.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR8t2Ad5vp0j2LyiHvCmJV_GiR1fvmjUjPlovt-GqKjnYI8SYFOmVcsAkMDvK8HLGKHwxVZ_C9ZEh9l44iYmI5SPIbBIRc6QrLDRwsbc9DGKPT0HKjnrXV45GfLujMadK8TpGBbjF-FL0w/s1600/climatechange.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Overpopulation is a
common theme when discussing the ecological crisis. It’s undoubtedly true that
since the 1960s an ecological crisis has emerged causing loss of biodiversity,
plunging fish stocks, deforestation, </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">and
dangerous </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">climate
change</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">. Coincidentally since this
time the global population has doubled. It might seem logical therefore
to link the two.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The idea that 'overpopulation' is to blame for present
destruction of the natural world is ridiculous when we understand that
capitalism destroys the environment, whilst creating poverty and
starvation. <wbr></wbr> <wbr></wbr> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As John Bellamy Foster notes “it</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> i</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">s not the areas of the world that have the highest rate of
population growth, but the areas of the world which have the highest
accumulation of capital, where economic and ecological waste has become a
way of life that constitute the greatest danger''. Consequently, the richest 7%
of the world’s population are responsible for 50% of global carbon emissions,
whilst the poorest 50% are responsible for 7%</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The rate of global population <i>growth</i> peaked in the 1960s and has declined ever since. Population
levels, rather than permanently growing, will rise slowly during this century,
peaking at 9 billion by 2050. Declining fertility rates could mean that
populations could level off as low as 7.5 billion by 2040.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Enough food</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> is </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">produced </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">currently </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">to meet the needs of everyone on the
planet. In 2008 when the global food crisis once again raised fears of too few
resources to too many people, enough food was produced to feed every human with
2,800 calories per day. By 2030 the estimated population will be 8.3
billion and enough food will be produced to feed everyone with 3050 calories
per day according to the UN.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The origins of the overpopulation argument lie with that of 18<sup>th</sup><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>century thinker Thomas Malthus.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Malthus's argument was that food production would grow
arithmetically at a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. rate, whist population would expand
geometrically at a 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 rate. Malthus came to his conclusions
with very little in the way of scientific data and present food production has
outgrown population size.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Worse still, Malthus's
argued to cut all social services to the poor for fear that they would
encourage them to breed faster. Checks to population such as starvation,
disease, low wages and the tightening of England's poor laws were recommended
to ensure a 'stable' working population!</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Unsurprisingly Marx
criticized Malthus in <i>Grundrisse</i>. To
quote Marx, Malthus picked the idea that the earth can support a set number of
humans ''out of thin air'' whilst arguing that overpopulation ''is likewise a
historically determined relation, in no way determined by abstract numbers or
by the absolute limit of productivity of the necessaries of life, but the
rather specific conditions of production...how small did the numbers which
meant overpopulation for the Athenian's appear to us”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">We must reject the argument that environmental destruction can
be blamed on ordinary people. Instead the blame must be placed on a system
where enough food is produced to feed all, and yet a billion starve and a
billion more survive on less than $2 a day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Even within an ecologically sustainable system of organic
agriculture more than enough food could be produced to meet human need.
It’s clear that if we ended the system based of profit, the environmental
footprint on a planet with 9 billion could be far less than one with 7
billion. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Being a Marxist means fighting alongside millions of workers
around the world against a system responsible for the destruction of nature and
the condemnation of millions to starvation. This means fighting for a fair and
equal distribution of nature’s bounty to all regardless of population limits!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #1c2a47; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Johnny Fersterer-Gawith</span></b><b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-17977036233420160202012-10-10T18:40:00.001-07:002012-10-10T18:42:06.330-07:00The Rena Disaster: One Year On<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj66FjBi0CUKh8BN_2L_Gz2GPVWR_D96OGe_kh2hQY_vZuCy6N8d_XNppSUMhWnivFZ97gRhc963_9JVwa5XFckUGqBmtM6kNMA9YCCKVzzV2Ef2x1yEhM639Et7Gb-K9BQBNWXCkh28VAW/s1600/Rena.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj66FjBi0CUKh8BN_2L_Gz2GPVWR_D96OGe_kh2hQY_vZuCy6N8d_XNppSUMhWnivFZ97gRhc963_9JVwa5XFckUGqBmtM6kNMA9YCCKVzzV2Ef2x1yEhM639Et7Gb-K9BQBNWXCkh28VAW/s1600/Rena.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Friday the 5<sup>th</sup> of October
marked one year since the container ship MV Rena struck an artificial reef off
the coast of Tauranga as it headed into port, triggering New Zealand’s worst
ever environmental disaster. The clean-up that followed took months, and is
still not complete: the Rena remains grounded on the Astrolabe Reef and oil
from the ship still occasionally washes up on Bay of Plenty beaches.
Media attention for much of the past year has vilified the ship's captains and
whipped up racism aimed at the Filipino crew. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Such scapegoating only serves to obscure the
real causes of the disastrous "accident". <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">A combination of lax
environmental, labour and maritime regulation combined to produce the perfect
conditions for the grounding. In accordance with New Zealand maritime
law, the crew of the Libyan flagged Rena were not allocated the same rights
as other workers in Aotearoa. They worked long periods at sea for little
pay. In court, the Rena's captain was described as being "obsessed
with reaching port by 3 am", leading him to take unnecessary risk. But
that's little wonder he was due for a period of shore leave and hadn't been
home to see his family in one and a half years. Meanwhile, the company
responsible for the Rena is under no obligation to pay for the clean-up.
Under New Zealand's flagship environmental law the Resource Management Act,
liability is limited to only $600,000. Maritime laws also put limits on the
ship owners' liability. Meanwhile the estimated cost of the disaster is as much
as $47 million. Without adequate regulation and penalties that amount to
a mere slap on the wrist, an environment was created where corporations run
rampant with little regard for the consequences of their actions.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">In spite of having to foot for as much as a
$20 million shortfall in funds for the clean-up, the National government has no
plans to do anything about the situation. For National, the interests of
business trump the interests of the environment. "As a country that
significantly requires shipping into our ports, for our economy to survive, we
just have to wear this one" Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee told the
media on Tuesday the 2<sup>nd</sup> of October. In other words, penalties
that could hit importers in the pocket are out of the question. Furthermore,
even the limited provisions of the RMA are under attack as the government seeks
exemptions for industrial projects of "local significance" in
addition to the many exemptions already in place. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">But they haven't got everything their own way.
The tactics of protest and direct action that made New Zealand nuclear free in
the 1980s are being resurrected. Protests by Te-Whanau-a-Apanui in the Rakamura
Basin succeeded in forcing out oil prospectors. They've shown what can be
achieved. We must organise to defend the environment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Cory Anderson</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-8853266065197655742012-10-09T20:24:00.002-07:002012-10-09T20:24:33.463-07:00Review: The Significance of the 1912 Waihi Strike<br />
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Review:
<i>The Significance of the 1912 Waihi Strike</i></span></b><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Martin Gregory<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">International Socialist
Organisation, 2012<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">ISBN: 978-0-473-22214-7<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">$5</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Reviewed
by Andrew Cooper </span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">On Monday a force of thugs
and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strikebreaker">scabs</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence">attacked</a> the union hall
under the gaze of the police with a hail of missiles. A plug of gelignite was
thrown, exploding just outside the <a href="http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/photo/waihi-workers-union-hall">hall</a>
entrance. The windows were smashed. The attackers broke in to besiege a group
of unionists in the committee room. After a while the police called the
violence off and the unionists made their escape, only one being caught and
beaten up. On <a href="http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/politics/black-tuesday/the-1912-waihi-strike">Black
Tuesday</a>… the police and <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1904/01/the-scab/306194/?single_page=true">scabs</a>
attacked. The unionists were not able to bolt the door in time. There were gun
shots as thugs and police broke in and the unionists fled through the back way.
The scabs and a notorious thug fell upon the stricken union man (pp. 33-4).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">These <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waihi_miners%27_strike">events</a> didn’t
happen in some far-off country but in the small town of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waihi">Waihi</a> one hundred years ago. The
victim was <a href="http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/3e10/1">Frederick</a>
<a href="http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/people/fred-evans">Evans</a>. His <a href="http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=MW19121122.2.54&e=-------10--1----0--">death</a>
was the first of a New Zealand worker on the picket line (and the only one
until <a href="http://www.labournet.net/docks2/0001/lyttel1.htm">Christine
Clarke</a> was killed in 1999).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In this lively pamphlet,
Martin Gregory provides not only a fascinating description of this pivotal
event in NZ radical history, but crucially draws out its key political lesson:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 70.9pt 12pt 1cm; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The defeat of the goldfield
strike initiated a turning point of such immense political significance that
its effects echoed for decades after. The lessons to be drawn from the strike
are profound and are still vitally relevant to the working class movement today…
Setbacks are an unavoidable part of the working class’s experience, and there
is no escaping the fact that Waihi was a crushing defeat. The significance of
the Waihi Strike lies in the conclusions that were drawn from the intervention
of the state. They were to greatly affect the future course of working class
organisation and the history of New Zealand. The strike marks a real turning
point (pp. 4, 35).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In 1894 the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Liberal_Government_of_New_Zealand">Liberal
Party Government</a> had <a href="http://www.nzlii.org/nz/legis/hist_act/icaaa1894382/">passed</a> the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Conciliation_and_Arbitration_Act">Arbitration
Act</a>, giving registered unions official recognition but also binding them to
the Arbitration Court’s decisions as well as forcing workers to fight employers
in the courts where the employers and state were at their strongest. Strikes
were outlawed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20031112111413/http:/www.iso.org.nz/sr/12/arbitration.htm">Arbitration</a>
was initially popular with workers as it led to improvements in pay and
conditions, but inevitably over the long term it favoured employers. The first
serious challenge to Arbitration came with the successful <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackball,_New_Zealand">Blackball</a> <a href="http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/west-coast-region/7/3">miners</a>‘ <a href="http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/strikes-and-labour-disputes/4">strike</a> in
1908, leading to the formation of the Federation of Mineworkers, the forerunner
of the “Red” Federation of Labour or FOL.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The Waihi miners worked
under a competitive contract system that set miner against fellow miner. It was
said that a miner had a useful working life of about fifteen years - but it was
a hugely profitable life for the mine owners.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In early 1911, the </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-NZ; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: A030-Reg;">powerful Waihi Workers’ Union (</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">WWU) achieved
the absolute majority it needed to escape Compulsory Arbitration by cancelling
its registration under the system. As a direct result the miners’ working conditions
greatly improved - but these gains could all be lost if a rival union was
registered under the Arbitration system: If just fifteen members could be found
it would become the officially recognised union - and the Arbitration Court’s
decisions would be binding on all 1,200 Waihi miners. On May 11, 1912, the
mining companies succeeded in doing just that. The following day the WWU
executive made the momentous decision to send an ultimatum to the mining companies
demanding that they disband the new union.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Many of the miners’ leaders
were influenced by “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndicalism">syndicalist</a>“
ideas, particularly <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World_philosophy_and_tactics#Anarcho-syndicalism">those</a>
of the American Industrial Workers of the World (the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World">IWW</a> or “Wobblies”).
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism">Syndicalism</a>
emphasised the key role of the strike and a “whole class” outlook as opposed to
that of the narrower craft unions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The FOL was closely linked
to the supposedly revolutionary <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Socialist_Party">NZ Socialist
Party</a>. As Martin correctly points out in his pamphlet, understanding the
politics of this organisation is key to understanding the politics and tactics
of the strike itself - and its outcome.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The party was split into
several political currents, expressing a range of both revolutionary and
reformist positions - though in practice it was the parliamentary arena to which
the Socialist Party’s leaders devoted most attention. This factionalism led to
increasing dissatisfaction within the party, with some leaving to join the
Wobblies. Although the Socialist Party’s leaders espoused revolutionary
socialist positions, <i>in practice</i> they
avoided strikes where possible, seeing them as a threat to the party’s growth.
During 1912 the party was unable to offer revolutionary leadership and its
members would instead look to the IWW for leadership and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World_philosophy_and_tactics">ideas</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS68-MmDud9MGqGBBSl12ZaJD0Ndz9Uwnm69lqeRjdgo3y9sfVknokH7915F4aqns64I3GwidC1imqmR0zteQO1iOjq31o0nLUUKTNTBNd4sx2fYQdNDzfJm_Xq0hBO2l_GE8qQBkdygjY/s1600/MinersOutsideUnionHall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS68-MmDud9MGqGBBSl12ZaJD0Ndz9Uwnm69lqeRjdgo3y9sfVknokH7915F4aqns64I3GwidC1imqmR0zteQO1iOjq31o0nLUUKTNTBNd4sx2fYQdNDzfJm_Xq0hBO2l_GE8qQBkdygjY/s320/MinersOutsideUnionHall.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Along with the NZ Socialist
Party there was also the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Labour_Party_(New_Zealand)">United
Labour Party</a>, constituting the formally more <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformism">moderate</a> wing of the labour movement
at the time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Meanwhile the Federation of
Labour leadership equivocated in its support for the Waihi miners. After they
failed in negotiations with the mining companies, pressure from members led to a
new constitution modelled on the IWW’s being adopted: “including the rhetorical
gesture that was the splendid revolutionary syndicalist IWW <a href="http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=MW19120607.2.25.7&e=-------10--1----0--">preamble</a>“
(p. 23).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">With the militants’ call
for a general strike defeated and the leadership majority’s position
essentially one of inaction, the Federation merely agreed to a 10% weekly levy
on members’ wages to support the strikers:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 70.9pt 12pt 1cm; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Both the majority position
of inaction and the IWW fetishist demand for an immediate general strike were
faulty. The working class is not a stage army. A general strike cannot be
conjured up without a broad-based head of steam for action. The call for an
immediate general strike from the Federation conference was unrealistic even
for Federation unions, let alone the unaffiliated (p. 24).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The Federation had missed
an opportunity to broaden the strike beginning with other mine workers, and
while the mining companies had no intention of letting legal niceties get in the
way of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_busting">defeating</a> the
miners, there was uneven support for the mine workers, with the “moderate” ULP
actively opposing the strike and even helping to organise scab labour. As
Socialist Party member and future Labour leader <a href="http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/3h32/1">Harry</a> <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/holland-henry-edmund-harry-6708">Holland</a>
put it: “Thus the Federation of Labour was fighting directly the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_mining">Gold</a>-<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_New_Zealand#Gold">mine</a> Owners’
Association and the Employers’ Federation, and secondly the scabs, the press,
ruling class law and its Massey Government, and the United Labour Party” (p. 27).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Between the strike’s
beginning in May 1912 and August that year, attempts to alternately starve then
divide the workers had failed. In August the companies began recruiting
strikebreakers and the following month police stepped up confrontation with the
miners. Strikers were jailed, gaining more widespread working class support. A
scab union was formed with the intention of forcibly reopening the mine. The
editor of the United Labour Party’s newspaper went to Waihi to help organise
the scab union.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">On the back foot, the
Federation of Labour called a general strike in October. It failed to win
support beyond the miners due to the FOL’s inept handling of earlier disputes.
By early November there were over a hundred strikebreakers working the Waihi
mines, and police violence against the strikers increased. The author gives a
vivid account of the events of Black Tuesday and their aftermath. Nine thousand
would attend Evans’ <a href="http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=MW19121122.2.53&e=-------10--1----0--">funeral</a>
in Auckland.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2_g10q5I3y7hk4UXxIXcBCiQ6fvNAbbjr_TEwHb8WDRS0d9U20dUERqFaA9eYrsmKDM69FmTGLE1k7q3EskDpthXzAeZsEL4RDSCND1h_XITrHZk4NC-3foxFC430E9nxMnWA62KtMrRo/s1600/StrikingMiners.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2_g10q5I3y7hk4UXxIXcBCiQ6fvNAbbjr_TEwHb8WDRS0d9U20dUERqFaA9eYrsmKDM69FmTGLE1k7q3EskDpthXzAeZsEL4RDSCND1h_XITrHZk4NC-3foxFC430E9nxMnWA62KtMrRo/s320/StrikingMiners.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Strike leaders were run out
of town. The strike was now effectively over, though not officially called off
until the end of November. By the end of the year the competitive contract
system was reinstated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Violence against the
strikers and the government’s failure to hold an official inquiry caused
outrage amongst the working class. Much of the ULP membership shifted to the
left, repudiating strikebreaking. However the main lesson drawn by the
Federation of Labour’s executive was that the government had to be fought
politically (i.e. through elections) rather than by direct action. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The events of 1912 and the
following year’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1913_Great_Strike">Great
Strike</a> would ruthlessly expose the IWW’s weaknesses too. Its “fetishisation”
of the general strike ignored the role of the capitalist state: the idea that
industrial action alone could force parliament to enact reforms ignored the
fact that the ruling class could also use force in the form of its army and
police forces:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 70.9pt 12pt 1cm; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The real tragedy of the
Waihi Strike is that a generation of revolutionary socialists rebounded from
the industrial defeat to retreat into reformism. The significance of the
eclipse of the Socialist Party is incalculable for what might have been. What
is certain is that reformist politics was strengthened immensely by the liquidation
of its revolutionary rival. Reformism gained a cohort of activists with
enormous authority within the working class and the standing of the leftist
leaders would grow. These and other former revolutionaries became leaders of
the Labour Party. Compared to today’s Labour careerists they were giants, but
they became shadows of their former revolutionary selves, Red Feds, once feared
by the <a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/index.htm">capitalist</a>
class (pp. 43-4).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The reformists’ fear of “scaring
off” supporters by being “too militant”, and their focus on parliamentary
elections rather than direct struggle will no doubt sound familiar to any
activist today. The negative lessons drawn by reformist union and political leaders
- that workers couldn’t win against the superior repressive powers of the state
and its police force, that militancy would scare away most workers and
supporters, and most of all that elections and parliament are the most
effective arenas to bring about change - had a disastrous impact on the
subsequent development of NZ radical politics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">What might have been had
subsequent struggles been led by a workers’ organisation with clear
revolutionary politics? What if the <a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1991/trotsky3/index.html">Stalinist</a>
leadership of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Council_of_Trade_Unions">CTU</a>
(who gave up the struggle against the Employment Contracts <a href="http://legislation.knowledge-basket.co.nz/gpacts/public/text/1991/an/022.html">Act</a>
before it had begun) had been seriously challenged from below in 1991?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Or if the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20040116143105/http:/www.iso.org.nz/sr/15/fees_fightback.htm">struggles</a>
around university fees and the loans scheme during the 1990s had been led by
activists with revolutionary politics rather than career-minded reformist
student officials (who for most of that decade told us to put our faith in
university management and vote for an “education-friendly” government).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Much the same criticism
could be made about reformist leadership in dozens of other struggles over the
last century. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">This pamphlet is precisely
what we need: more in-depth analyses of our hidden radical history, more
writing on current politics from the International Socialist perspective. As
well as producing work like this, we should be encouraging student members and
supporters to think about writing their theses on similar topics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">On the centenary of the
Waihi strike, this pamphlet ensures that our working class history is a little
less “hidden from history”. But unfortunately as so much of NZ’s radical past <i>is</i> hidden from history, readers lacking
a detailed knowledge of this period are likely to struggle a little with the plethora
of acronyms: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World">IWW</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Socialist_Party">NZSP</a>, <a href="http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/unions-and-employee-organisations/4">FOL</a>,
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Labour_Party_(New_Zealand)">ULP</a>,
WWU, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_(New_Zealand)">SDP</a>,
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_(New_Zealand)#Unity_Conference">UFL</a>,
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/NZLabourPartyOrigins.png">etc</a>.
A helpful addition to this pamphlet might have been a glossary of these
acronyms along with a brief description of their respective organisations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Martin provides a useful
list of further reading at the end of the pamphlet, and rightly singles out
Harry Holland’s <i>The Tragic Story of the
Waihi Strike</i> as the key early resource. First published in 1913, it is now
in the public domain and is available in several free electronic versions,
including PDF, epub and Kindle (<a href="http://archive.org/details/tragicstoryofwai00holl">here</a> and <a href="http://www.forgottenbooks.org/info/The_Tragic_Story_of_the_Waihi_Strike_1000295053.php">here</a>)
along with at <a href="http://www.forgottenbooks.org/info/The_Tragic_Story_of_the_Waihi_Strike_1000295053.php">least</a>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008SHDYG4?ie=UTF8&tag=forgobooks-20">two</a>
<a href="http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9781246608021/?a_aid=addall">new</a>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tragic-Story-Waihi-Strike/dp/1246608022/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348781910&sr=1-1&keywords=9781246608021">print</a>
<a href="http://www.fishpond.co.nz/Books/Tragic-Story-of-Waihi-Strike-Ross-R-S-Ballot-Box/9781246608021">editions</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">How
to purchase</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">If you’d like to order this
pamphlet send a cheque for $5 per copy made out to “ISO Wellington” to:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">PO Box 6157<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Dunedin North<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Dunedin 9059<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Please make sure you
include your address.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Alternatively you can make
a direct credit payment to our BNZ bank account: 02-0536-0456903-00, then email
us: internationalsocialistsnz [at] gmail.com - to confirm payment and your address details.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Image Credits<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Rogers, R fl 1912. Miners outside their union hall,
during the Waihi strike. Nash, Walter :Postcards associated with Walter Nash.
Ref: PAColl-5792-05. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. <a href="http://beta.natlib.govt.nz/records/22583647">http://beta.natlib.govt.nz/records/22583647</a></span><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Waihi Arts Centre and Museum. Striking Waihi miners
leaving the union hall after a mass meeting. Waihi Arts Centre : Photographs
and lantern slides of Waihi. Ref: 1/2-116691-F. Alexander Turnbull Library,
Wellington, New Zealand. <a href="http://beta.natlib.govt.nz/records/22832745">http://beta.natlib.govt.nz/records/22832745</a></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-63326412612743272172012-10-09T00:27:00.000-07:002012-10-09T01:18:29.798-07:00Ports of Auckland signs agreement with scab union PortPro<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0XZjign3U6L-ZikREtHgO6VnXtrmkdnAkuAh4Dh6wFLJAFUdMGEki5pdBiE_hScKcZcJAIoKDeKLGBUe8GvD0sVoVPvARu_TVdUxyaKDpvWZ2CluI8ctlqHzcBBpm1lBqIpTP2jfaCqcx/s1600/MUNZProtest2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0XZjign3U6L-ZikREtHgO6VnXtrmkdnAkuAh4Dh6wFLJAFUdMGEki5pdBiE_hScKcZcJAIoKDeKLGBUe8GvD0sVoVPvARu_TVdUxyaKDpvWZ2CluI8ctlqHzcBBpm1lBqIpTP2jfaCqcx/s320/MUNZProtest2.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 10.5pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 10.5pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 10.5pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">It
has been announced that the Ports of Auckland management have signed a
collective agreement with the scab union PortPro that was established by 30
strikebreaking stevedores.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 10.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 10.5pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">This
is a setback for the Maritime Union, which has been trying to negotiate a new
collective agreement since August of 2011. Even the <i>National Business
Review</i> is <a href="http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/new-port-union-could-spell-trouble-lawyer-ca-130234"><span style="color: blue;">questioning</span></a> whether the move by the Port of
Auckland is legal or not, as it is surely aimed at undermining MUNZ's position:</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 10.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Bell Gully employment
lawyer Liz Coats says the port's move could be seen as undermining the Maritime
Union's bargaining position, which is illegal under the Employment Relations
Act.</span></i><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;"><br />
"If Maritime Union members decide they want to join PortPro, that
undermines the leverage that the Maritime Union has in its collective
bargaining because it doesn't have as much pressure on the port any more.</span></i><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;"><br />
<i>"The port is not going to be as desperate to accept whatever terms the
Maritime Union is putting on the table because it's got a workforce that is not
striking."</i></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The scab contract is similar to one
at the Port of Tauranga and will give the Port of Auckland ‘level footing’ to
compete. In other words a casualised workforce with no guaranteed hours. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;"><br />
<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 10.5pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">This
is how it is described by a Ports of Auckland <a href="http://www.voxy.co.nz/business/ports-auckland-and-portpro-sign-collective-agreement/5/136866"><span style="color: blue;">press release</span></a>:</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 10.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">The flexible shift and
roster system in the deal is similar to what has been in place successfully at
Port of Tauranga for over 20 years. If we can get a deal like this across all
the port we will be able to compete with Tauranga on level footing.</span></i><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">If the Port of Auckland succeed in
defeating MUNZ, there is no doubt safety will be put at risk. At the Port of
Tauranga, which is held up as a bastion of profitability and efficiency, there
are multiple labour companies supplying workers on short notice. There have
been three deaths in the past few years, while there have been no deaths at the
Ports of Auckland, a MUNZ stronghold. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;"><br />
<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 10.5pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">With
workers are twice as likely to die on the job in NZ compared with Australia, it
is clear a stronger union movement leads to <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/7686055/Shocking-work-death-toll-revealed-in-report"><span style="color: blue;">fewer deaths on the job </span></a>:</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 10.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">The </span></i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;"><a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/7686055/Shocking-work-death-toll-revealed-in-report"><i><span style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">number</span></i></a><i> of
people harmed at work each year in New Zealand would fill Eden Park four times,
a national discussion paper to be released today will reveal.</i></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">It is roughly twice as
dangerous to work in New Zealand as in Australia and almost four times as
dangerous as working in Britain, and that is not counting people injured while
driving in connection with work.</span></i><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 10.5pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Not
only will you earn on average 30% more in Australia but you are much less
likely to die at work– this is what a stronger trade union movement means in
real terms. We should take a lesson from Queensland construction workers who
recently <a href="http://www.sa.org.au/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=7505:queensland-construction-workers-win&Itemid=392"><span style="color: blue;">won a nine week long strike</span></a>.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Needless Tragedies:
Deaths at Port of Tauranga since December 2010</span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Walter Crosa 49 –
father</span></i><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 13.6pt; margin-bottom: 11.9pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">15 Aug 2011</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">“It was believed Mr Crosa was working for a contractor
at the port doing some roading works at the time of the accident. The
Department of Labour is investigating and the matter has been referred to the
coroner, he said. The Allied Workforce employee was working for another
contracted company when the accident happened. It is the third fatality at the
port within the past 15 months.”</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Brian Shannon 61</span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;">June 2011</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 13.6pt; margin-bottom: 11.9pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">“In June this year, two Bay companies were fined a
total of $55,000 after a forklift ran over and killed stevedore Brian Kevin
Shannon, 61, of Otumoetai at the port on June 2010. Mr. Shannon worked for
Independent Stevedoring Limited (ISL) loading and unloading cargo from ships.
ISL and on wharf logistics company C3 Limited, whose employee was driving the
forklift, were both fined over the death after pleading guilty to charges in
court.”</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 13.6pt; margin-bottom: 11.9pt;">
<i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Chinese seaman 35 (not named)</span></i><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">December 17th 2010</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">“A 35year old Chinese seaman died after falling from
the side of the logging ship Green Hope and into the water in Tauranga Harbour.
Attempts to resuscitate him after he was pulled from the water by workmates
were unsuccessful.”</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">There was also a death at the port in 2003.There have
been no deaths at the Port of Auckland during this period. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">[Source: MUNZ/CTU fact sheet]</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">-----</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 13.6pt; margin-bottom: 11.9pt;">
<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Will MUNZ strike back?</span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">MUNZ
engaged in effective strike action at the end of last year and beginning of
this year that brought the bosses back to the negotiating table. However they
have also pursued a legal strategy that meant they called off action before
signing a collective agreement. This now seems like a mistake. The courts did
postpone redundancies but the management have hit back by harassing and
humiliating union members on site with new security systems etc and the deal
with the scab union is the next step to undermining MUNZ members.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">While
the strikes were on MUNZ in Auckland received solidarity from wharfies all over
the world. Most significantly however were the actions taken by union wharfies
in Wellington and Sydney ports who refused to unload ships that were loaded by
scab labour at Auckland. A further reason why the workers movement should
rely on its own power instead of the courts is that they forced MUNZ wharfies
in Wellington to <a href="http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/judge-orders-wellington-wharfies-back-work-4761172">unload
scab ships</a>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">“Bosses at Wellington's Centreport applied for
an injunction from the </span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/judge-orders-wellington-wharfies-back-work-4761172"><i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: windowtext; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Employment</span></i></a><i> Court
after a small number of staff on Friday and Saturday refused to work on a ship
that had recently arrived from Auckland.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">As it stands at the moment MUNZ is continuing
with court mediated bargaining and has organised a rally today in Tamaki Drive,
Auckland, to build support for their cause. The MUNZ website<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.munz.org.nz/2012/10/04/ports-of-auckland-workers-return-to-teal-park-with-message/">explains</a>
that:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Mr Parsloe says MUNZ has worked very hard to
settle an agreement that provides further flexibility to ensure the Port
continues to be successful for the people of Auckland.</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">“We believe it is possible to do this and have
a fair collective agreement that provides security for our members, unlike the
Port of Tauranga that POAL continues to hold up as the model.”</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">However, as far as I can see, all out strike
action or the threat of it can achieve a better deal for Aucklands union
wharfies – not simple lobbying and relying on the courts.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>If MUNZ takes strike action socialists
should strive for the maximum solidarity to help the wharfies sustain their
action until a new contract is signed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">The Port management colluding with the scab union PortPro is a
strategy to divide the workforce and introduce a Tauranga style contract, which
will just lead to speed ups, less job security, and worst of all more injuries
and deaths at the Port.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">The MUNZ workers have the power to shut down
the Ports of Auckland and if they use their power by taking all out strike
action along with solidarity from other sites they could be able to force the
Auckland City Council to sack the current anti-worker management team and get a
good contract.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">A victory
for MUNZ in which a contact with good terms and conditions are kept should not
be passed on to the scab union.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;"><b>Derwin Smith</b></span></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-76043507260724454192012-10-08T00:43:00.000-07:002012-10-08T00:43:08.585-07:00Auckland bus drivers’ spirit prevails over dead hand of union officialdom<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhQ88jLS1JqUZlEpoXE7DfamxkOvlT4yre64_T8SrK9SbmKYf2BIQfG5fDRqTu2BtDBP3y4WPRk_aWumDmTutTKYo0Y25Q4mca-WP3Ests0ijns5NIZtJ86i54u3uyGPnsUiQvzhz8AREz/s1600/buses.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhQ88jLS1JqUZlEpoXE7DfamxkOvlT4yre64_T8SrK9SbmKYf2BIQfG5fDRqTu2BtDBP3y4WPRk_aWumDmTutTKYo0Y25Q4mca-WP3Ests0ijns5NIZtJ86i54u3uyGPnsUiQvzhz8AREz/s1600/buses.jpeg" /></a></div>
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Three weeks ago this blog had a post titled <a href="http://www.isonz.blogspot.co.nz/2012/09/rebellion-of-rank-and-file.html">‘Rebellion of the Rank and File’</a>. </div>
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At a mass meeting Auckland bus drivers working for NZ Bus Ltd had thrown out a pay deal recommended to them by the First Union and the Tramways Union, and the drivers were set to strike on Monday, September 24, and every Monday thereafter. </div>
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Every socialist and trade unionist should be aware of what happened next and of the full story of the bus drivers’ dispute so far, for it shows precisely what is wrong with the union movement at the moment and where hope lies.</div>
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At the last minute, without consulting the membership, union officials called the strikes off and tried to foist the same basic deal on the bus drivers they had already rejected three weeks ago. The deal was put to a second vote, a secret ballot this time, which closed on Friday, October 5. The result was another rejection, confounding the unholy alliance of bus company and union officials. </div>
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It is not yet known what action the two unions will take now. But the story of this dispute is still unfolding.</div>
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<span class="s1">The story begins with </span>900 bus workers seeking a new collective agreement with NZ Bus Ltd to run from July 2012. The bus drivers are currently paid $18.75 an hour; and they only get paid for 8 hours of a 14-hour day when on a split shift; they get time and a quarter for working on a rostered day off. The drivers want a substantial pay increase, and no wonder. </div>
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NZ Bus is owned by the multi-national giant Infratil. Infratil can afford to pay up. Its profits rose by 6% to $127 million in the year to April and the company increased its dividend payout by 18%. This company feeds off what were once publicly owned services and utilities.</div>
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On August 23, the drivers began industrial action with a work-to-rule. On September 4, the Auckland Tramways Union and First Union announced the drivers would step up their action by striking every Monday for nine weeks, starting on September 17. Tramways Union president Gary Froggatt said the dispute was over the drivers’ claim for the company to start paying $20 an hour sooner. During bargaining, the unions asked that the $20 rate should start from July 2013, but NZ Bus would only agree to pay $20 an hour from April 2014 (the mandate given by the drivers to their officials was not limited to $20 an hour but was for an unspecified increase to a living wage.)</div>
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An Auckland bus strike would give huge power to the drivers’ bargaining position. It would cause considerable disruption. Alternative arrangements would have to be made for children to get to school. People would be late for work. It was time to call in Helen Kelly, of the Council of Trade Unions, to save capitalism from this awful prospect!</div>
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On September 12, before the first Monday strike was due, NZ Bus and Helen Kelly put out a joint press release to announce a proposed settlement that would be recommended by the unions to a ratification meeting of drivers on September 17. </div>
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<span class="s2">A press release put out later by NZ Bus is enlightening. It says that after the deal was reached </span>“The union executive even shouted the company a beer after signing the terms of settlement to celebrate reaching agreement.”<span class="s3"> </span></div>
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For union officials to be celebrating with the employers in advance of the ratification meeting is scandalous. It shows complete contempt for rank-and-file members.</div>
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The ratification meeting on Monday, September 17, rejected the joint union recommendation and voted to implement the Monday strikes. The deal was voted down 352 to 265 according to NZ Bus, admittedly an unreliable source. The deal included an increase in the rate for working on rostered days off to time and a-half (again according to NZ Bus, therefore a health warning on this information applies). The reason the drivers rejected the proposal was the delay to the $20-an-hour rate until December 2013. </div>
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The vote by the rank and file was a slap in the face to the union officials and the CTU. <i>3 News</i> reported the NZ Bus CEO saying “The president of the Council of Trade Unions had done a great job, and also spoke at that meeting in support of our offer, so … I'm at a loss." </div>
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This episode demonstrates just how far paid union officials can be out of touch with the ordinary union member. Of course, none of these union worthies would be struggling on $18.75 an hour themselves. Union leaders worth their salt would not recommend a lousy deal, but would be fully behind action for a living wage.</div>
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What followed the rank-and-file rebellion was nothing but a conspiracy by the union bureaucrats and bus company to clamp down on the drivers’ independent spirit. With the first Monday strike looming for September 24 the union officials did another deal with NZ Bus, called off the strike and put out a joint press release with the company. The excuse for calling the action off was an improvement in the pay offer so paltry as to be almost insignificant. Instead of $20 an hour from December 2013, the rate would commence from November 2013.</div>
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The worst of it though seems to have been that the officials agreed to change the ratification process at the employers’ behest. Ominously, the press release quoted the bus company spokesman saying “We are delighted that agreement has been reached and changes to the ratification process agreed.”</div>
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Unlike with the previous proposal, there wasn’t a mass meeting to discuss the barely revised deal. Instead a secret ballot was organised depot by depot. This change in the ratification process meant, of course, that there would not be a forum for any alternative viewpoint being voiced by ordinary members to the membership as a whole, and that the unity and confidence generated by a mass meeting would not occur. The arrangements were designed for voting in isolation in order to get the new version of the agreement through.</div>
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According to First Union the ballot result was 51% to 49% to reject on a high turnout. </div>
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It shows the drivers' determination that despite the demoralising antics of the union officials, the second deal was thrown out. </div>
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We have to wait and see whether the unions will re-instate the Monday strikes threat. There can be no doubt a great majority of drivers would abide by a strike call even though nearly half voted for the settlement. </div>
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The International Socialist Organisation (ISO) stands in a political tradition that recognises that paid union officialdom is separated from the daily experiences of ordinary members and that the upper reaches are paid a lot more too. This union bureaucracy plays a role politically linked to, if only informally, the Labour Party leadership. This role is to act as mediator between workers and employers; to act within the capitalist system, not against it. Compromise is the bureaucracy’s watchword. As the bus drivers’ dispute shows, the mediation role can lead to being in cahoots with the employers against union members taking action. </div>
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The ISO believes in independent, workplace-based union organisation in which representatives are elected and part of the rank and file. In practical terms that would mean in the case of the NZ Bus dispute that elected drivers themselves would conduct negotiations with the company. </div>
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Our union movement has some serious weaknesses. There is low union membership, especially in the private sector. Only a small fraction of workers are covered by a collective agreement. There is a huge unmet need for union organisation to tackle low pay, poor conditions and bully-boy management. Only a fighting union movement can inspire workers to flock into the unions. The Auckland bus drivers are showing the spirit that can take the movement forward. The dead hand of paid union officialdom is part of the problem.</div>
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<b>Martin Gregory</b></div>
International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-53712937776650069462012-10-06T01:04:00.001-07:002012-10-06T01:04:34.373-07:00Syria's Revolution: Bloodied but Unbowed<br />
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<b>With the regime of Bashar Assad desperately trying to cling to power, the death toll has risen to 30,000 fighters since Syria's revolution began. Simon Assaf argues for <i>Socialist Review</i> (UK) that the revolution remains popular, non-sectarian and led by Syrians themselves, despite the claims of some commentators</b></div>
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It is a bitter war that has engulfed Syria - one that has transformed the Arab world's most popular revolution into a struggle that can only end in the defeat of Bashar Assad's regime, or the death of the revolution, and with it any hope of change. At the heart of this revolution is the demand for an end to one-party rule, arbitrary detentions, repression, corruption and poverty. The revolution was born in the poor villages and spread to the vast working class areas of all the major cities. It has been marked by huge popular demonstrations, and the emergence of a national grassroots movement organised around Local Coordinating Committees (LCCs) and other similar bodies.</div>
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The revolution is united in the call for national unity. Its most popular slogan remains: "The Syrian people are one". It is anti-sectarian, cuts across all ethnic and religious groups, and has been driven forward by the masses of workers, students and agricultural labourers who, inspired by the Arab Spring, are demanding social justice. This is a popular revolution, its motor were the thousands of small and large protests that erupted most nights and after every Friday prayers. It carries with it an aspiration of change after 40 years of rule by the Assad clan.</div>
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<b>Bloody repression</b></div>
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However, unlike in Egypt and Tunisia, the regime of Bashar Assad was incapable of delivering even the mildest of reforms, and to the consternation of its allies, met every upsurge in popular anger with bloody repression. Assad gambled from the beginning that sheer brutality would be enough to dowse the rebellion. The few reforms he did offer were met with incredulity, designed as a sop to his supporters rather than to address any of the demands rising from the streets.</div>
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As the repression grew more intense, sections of the army mutinied and turned its weapons to the defence of the popular movement. In the face of such withering repression an armed uprising became the only option for many people. Growing numbers of revolutionaries joined the defectors to form brigades known collectively as the Free Syrian Army (FSA). There are now over 100,000 fighters engaged in daily battles with regime forces.</div>
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As the armed uprising spread, regime forces became trapped in their bases. Unable to seize back rebel areas, the regime resorted to a strategy of "massacre" - indiscriminate artillery barrages, tank rounds, warplanes, cluster bombs and the crude "TNT barrel bombs" dropped from helicopters. Alongside these are the sudden sweeps of working class neighbourhoods that leave hundreds dead (often killed in their shelters). The recent massacre of between 800 and 1,000 people in the Damascus suburb of Daraya has been the bloodiest single incident of the revolution, but it is being repeated daily on a smaller scale in dozens of cities and towns.</div>
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Tallied next to the daily lists of the dead are the names of large numbers of factory workers, farmers, students and urban poor, testifying to the class nature of the rebellion. In one incident regime forces massacred 150 in a raid on their factory, in another 15 sugar workers were killed. Such incidents are all too common. The regime has reduced large parts of Syria to ruins, destroying factories, hospitals, markets, homes, shops and infrastructure such as water supplies and electricity in its war against the people. There are hundreds of thousands of refugees, both internally displaced and those who crossed the borders. Vast parts of Syrian cities are now deserted battlegrounds.</div>
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Over the past few months fighting has spread across hundreds of fronts in all major cities, towns and villages, pushing the death toll close to 30,000. Early in the uprising many feared the loss of life would be greater than the 800 killed in the 25 January Egyptian Revolution. Some thought it could reach as high as 5,000, few expected it to reach such a dramatic total, and many are now saying that even this figure - compiled by the LCCs - is an underestimate. Over the past few months the weekly toll of officially recorded deaths is over 800, the majority of them civilians and rebels.</div>
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<b>July offensive</b></div>
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The power of the FSA has been growing steadily since January 2012, but took a dramatic turn in July when thousands of fighters took the battle to the capital's Damascus, and Aleppo, Syria's largest city and its commercial centre. The first wave of fighters that flooded into Aleppo came from the countryside, known as Reef Haleb, but students and workers soon swelled their ranks. Since then a citizen army has emerged, often formed around groups of defected soldiers and officers. Despite being outgunned, they withstood the first regime counter-offensive on the city, and have been gradually extending their control over its neighbourhoods. The tenacity and success of the rebel army in Aleppo have confounded all expectations.</div>
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The battle for Aleppo has exposed the limits of the regime's power. Short of reliable troops, and mistrustful of the conscripts, it has resorted to pressganging young men into service. Regime forces have retreated to a series of heavily defended compounds, and used indiscriminate airpower and artillery to pound rebel neighbourhoods. A similar pattern is developing elsewhere. One rebel commander estimates that the revolution now controls 80 percent of the country, but is held in check by concentrations of well-armed regime troops.</div>
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Damascus has been less fortunate. Assad's forces quickly pushed out the lightly armed rebels, and he has been taking his revenge on the capital's rebellious working class districts. Hundreds of shops have been burnt, homes bulldozed and any sign of resistance met with overwhelming force. No one has been spared, including the Palestinian camp of Yarmouk, which is being punished for giving shelter to Syrian refugees and fighters.</div>
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This war is taking its toll on the country, and has left many people, including revolutionaries, in despair. Amid the chaos and horror the heart of the revolution remains intact, but it is facing mounting challenges, not just for its survival but also for what will emerge out of the ruins of war.</div>
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There is a glimpse of a future Syria away from the front lines. In liberated areas forms of civilian control are taking root. Many of the LCCs that sprang up in the early days of the revolution have morphed into civilian authorities, in some places successfully putting local administration under popular control. These local councils are coalescing into a national network with the backing of the main rebel brigades. The formation of the councils is a sign of the deepening of the revolution, even under the most difficult circumstances. But this popular control has to confront huge problems created by the scale of destruction, growing shortages and lack of funds.</div>
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<b>Independence of the revolution</b></div>
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The often confusing picture that is emerging on the ground testifies to the perseverance and difficulties the revolution faces, but also to the fact that it is forced to take the regime apart piece by piece. The slow progress of the uprising belies the fact that the revolution has strong backers in the West and among some Arab regimes. The greatest myth about the Syrian revolution is that it is being armed and trained, and effectively working in the interests of the Western powers and its Arab allies. If this is so, then the rebels are ill served by their masters.</div>
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In one of her many reports from inside Syria Time magazine journalist Rania Abouzeid attempted to track the trail of weapons coming in from the northern border with Turkey. She writes, "What is remarkable is that this substantial strip of free Syria has been patched together in the past 18 months by military defectors, students, tradesmen, farmers and pharmacists who have not only withstood the Syrian army's withering fire but in some instances repelled it using a hodgepodge of limited, light weaponry. The feat is even more amazing when one considers the disarray among the outside powers supplying arms to the loosely allied band of rebels."</div>
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She reports that far from a coordinated strategy to arm the revolution the efforts by outside powers have been shambolic. There is little evidence of a substantial amount of weapons coming in from Turkey (apart from the black market), less from across the Jordanian border, while old stock (much of it useless) is coming from Iraqi cities such as Fallujah and Samara. Clearly very few weapons are coming in, and certainly not Western arms. There are no signs in Syria, for example, of the wire-guided anti-tank missiles that appeared near the end of the Libyan uprising. Most of the rebel weapons are crude field guns and homemade rockets, a few captured tanks, some mortars and limited anti-aircraft weapons. All of these have been seized in raids, or brought over by defectors.</div>
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A common complaint is that rebels have more volunteers than weapons. Many go into battle hoping to pick up a discarded rifle; others make near-suicidal raids on regime checkpoints to seize guns and ammunition. Rudimentary networks of weapons workshops have sprung up, but these are no match for the stockpiles of sophisticated weapons available to the regime - designed to withstand a two-year war with Israel - or the regular shipments of arms from Iran and Russia.</div>
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Attempts to set up client militias have also been met with limited success. The Telegraph newspaper reported that the Saudis spent a small fortune on one brigade consisting of only 50 men. Qatar's efforts have also been limited. Both the foreign-sponsored brigades as well as the foreign Salafi fighters represent a fraction of the rebel army. The FSA brigades have reacted with deep mistrust to any offers by outside powers to buy their loyalty, and have refused to accept the "conditions" on receiving arms even when supplies were desperately short. Loyalty to the independence of the revolution has been a dominant feature of the uprising and continues to remain a strong part of it.</div>
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Similarly, attempts by Western powers, the US in particular, to find "friendly forces" have come to little. The West has lost faith in Riad al-Asaad, the self-appointed head of the FSA that was until recently based in Turkey. Instead the West is to groom a new military hierarchy drawn from more recent high-ranking defectors.</div>
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The much-heralded launch of the Western-backed Syrian National Army (SNA), which aims to put all rebel battalions under central control, has also had limited success. Key brigades have refused to recognise the SNA command, remaining loyal to the defectors's civilian councils that emerged in the early days of the armed uprising.</div>
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<b>Sectarian civil war?</b></div>
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The scale and ferocity of the uprising, and the growing dependence of the regime on the minority Alawi community have fed fears that Syria is now in the grip of a sectarian civil war. This danger must not be underestimated and remains a deep concern for many of the revolutionaries. But if this was a sectarian war it would have been over by now, as the Sunni Muslims represent 70 percent of the population.</div>
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Both the revolution and the regime draw their support from across the many religious and ethnic communities. The vast majority of Kurds support the revolution in its social objectives, but also have faith in the revolution to end the decades of discrimination. Among the Christians and the Druze the picture is more complex. The regime has played on their fear that Syria will become a Salafi-controlled state, yet neither community has been the target of the revolutionaries, and these communities are deeply divided between regime supporters and those who support the revolution. The regime still retains the loyalty of large numbers of Sunni Muslims, especially from among the middle classes and the wealthy elite.</div>
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Bashar Assad and many leading members of the regime are drawn from among the Alawi minority. Alawi towns and villages are recruiting grounds for the notorious Shabiha militia responsible for waves of massacres, and have been targeted by acts of revenge by rebels. But the situation among the Alawis is deeply contradictory. There is deep bitterness inside the community towards the Assad clan, its corruption and monopolies. Some Alawi villages and neighbourhoods have openly sided with the revolution, and many are fighting alongside other minorities in the rebel brigades. Many fear they will pay for the massacres committed by the Shabiha, and the regime has stoked fears of revenge. This has made the Alawis fearful of the revolution, and trapped into supporting the regime. However, the Syrian Revolution is not a sectarian civil war, but a popular uprising. Its demands and aims remain unchanged since its first day, and sectarianism has never been a part of it.</div>
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<b>Arab revolutions</b></div>
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Western efforts to shape the outcome and direction of the revolution face another challenge. Egypt's new president Mohamed Morsi has been attempting to form a coalition of major regional powers that rejects direct Western involvement in Syria. Morsi has allied with Turkey to invite Saudi Arabia and Iran to form a group dedicated to solving the "Syrian question". Morsi is offering Iran full diplomatic relations if it withdraws its support from Assad. His efforts have not yielded any results, but they point to the rising influence of an Egypt that no longer represents US interests in the region. Morsi's diplomatic moves point to the deepening problems faced by the West since the advent of the Arab Spring, and Syria remains an important part of this revolutionary wave.</div>
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Since its outbreak the revolution has faced many dangers: the scale of the repression and bloodletting, the fear of sectarianism, the meddling of Western powers and the collapse of the country. Yet this revolution has proved to be remarkably resilient and has maintained its independence. The revolution is far from over, but it is facing many dark days, and as winter approaches so will the problems mount.</div>
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[This article, by Simon Assaf, first appeared in <i><a href="http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=12107">Socialist Review</a></i> UK. For useful updates on politics in the Middle East from a revolutionary socialist perspective follow <a href="https://twitter.com/SWassaf">@SWAssaf </a> on Twitter]International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-27468918702797789162012-10-05T00:34:00.003-07:002012-10-08T00:26:31.037-07:00Protesting National's War on the Poor<br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Today a nationwide protest against the war on the poor and more specifically the cuts to benefits took place outside the WINZ offices in all the major centres. 70 people marched on Paula Bennett's office in Auckland, Wellington saw 50-60 people protest and Dunedin saw 150 protesters fighting against cuts to welfare benefits. Other protests occurred throughout the country. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Unemployment looks set to rise with another recession predicted. The fight for taxes on the rich, more jobs with better pay and decent benefits for people out of work or participating in unpaid work such as childcare is increasingly important.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Blaming beneficiaries for the failures of the economic system is all to easy for this right-wing government, whose tactics have changed little since the 1990s.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">In 1959 the official unemployment was 21. That’s 21 people not 21 percent. It was joked that the prime minister knew every unemployed person by name. But as the post-war boom ended, the nature of capitalism began to take hold again, the rot of recession set in, and unemployment began to rise. Since the global recession in 2008, 160,000 people are unemployed and 100,000 or more people are underemployed.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The government would have us believe that between 1959 and 2012 an epidemic of laziness swept the nation and hundreds of thousands of people became lazy bludgers, as Mike Treen, of Unite Union, puts it “some mass laziness psychosis that made us all quit our jobs and go on the dole.”</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">As unemployment began to rise in the 90s, so did the attacks on beneficiaries and workers. These included “dob-in-your-neighbour'' <wbr></wbr>adverts for beneficiary fraud and the idea of inter-generational “<wbr></wbr>bludging”. This is the same anti-working class rhetoric we hear today. It blames individuals and not the system that produces poverty and inequality. The benefit cuts in the 1990s coincided with the smashing of unions by the Employment Contracts Act, which contributed greatly to low wages and unemployment.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Official unemployment is 6.8% now. That number represents the people who in the past four weeks have been looking for work. The actual rate of unemployment is likely to be a lot higher because the unemployed who are not counted include those who have given up looking for work and those who are jobless but don’t collect the dole. Further, you are only counted as unemployed if in the survey period you didn't work at all – not even one hour, unpaid. You are not counted as unemployed if you are too ill or in training.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;">“<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">There is a broader measure of unemployment called the “jobless” that is a more accurate measure of actual unemployment in society. The Jobless number is usually nearly twice the official unemployment figure.” (Mike</span></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Treen </span></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Exposing Right Wing Lies</i></span></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">)</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">As “unofficial unemployment” steadily rises, the government is pushing people back out into the labour market for ghost jobs - there actually 2000 fewer jobs from March to June this year.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Benefit cuts are only the half of it. The war on the poor includes cuts at Housing NZ, the Family Court, and the Ministry of Social Development. Funding is being restricted to social services in a country where <span lang="en-US">hardship rates rose from 15% in 2007 to 21% in 2011.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Why cut welfare? </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>"Firstly, benefits above the barest minimum are seen as a barrier to lowering wages. The costs of welfare are also seen as a barrier to the government’s program of cutting taxes on business and the rich. Cutting social welfare and cutting taxes for the rich usually go hand in hand." </i>Mike Treen <i>Exposing Right Wing Lies.</i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Funnily enough, as predicted, National cut taxes to the rich by 3%, as we saw the formation of the Welfare Working Group. By cutting benefits and punishing people for not looking for work in an environment of decreasing levels of jobs, big business can decrease the wage rate as people accept lower wages so not to starve.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Keeping welfare high keeps people spending and less desperate for work in times of recession, thus keeping wages higher.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Fighting for the wellbeing of those on welfare is fighting for the wellbeing of all workers. This is why these battles are so important. Capitalist rhetoric, which claims workers are paying for the lazy lifestyle of beneficiaries, serves to divide the employed and unemployed. As unemployment rises and more workers are laid off, expect to see more persistent propaganda <wbr></wbr>spreading these lies. This protest is just the beginning, but to win this battle we must draw in workers and unions to support it, hitting the capitalists where it hurts the most; in their pockets.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The resistance around the world to austerity measures is growing. The Greek working class recently organised a 48-hour general strike and has been struggling against austerity in the workplace and on the streets for years. In the last week, Spain has seen mass protests against fiscal cuts and the last year's Egyptian revolution and the Arab Spring give us hope that internationally the tide may be turning in our favour.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">To win any justice for beneficiaries we must build a fight back to the system which causes unemployment in the first place. We need to look toward a militant movement of striking workers alongside organised unemployed people as a force that could seriously challenge the governments agenda. This is fair way off and at the moment we need to build the small protest movements and support workers when they are on strike like we've seen at the Ports of Auckland, Oceania Rest Homes and Affco.</span></span></span></div>
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International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-70280613712121770672012-10-02T13:14:00.002-07:002012-10-02T13:14:53.166-07:00Remembering Eric Hobsbawm<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Ian Birchall looks back on the life of Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, who has died aged 95<br />
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Eric Hobsbawm, who died on Monday of this week was one of the most remarkable historians of the 20th century.</div>
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After a childhood in Vienna, he moved with his family to Berlin. Recently he wrote a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n02/eric-hobsbawm/diary" style="color: #330033; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">vivid account</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>of his recollections of life in Germany before Hitler took over. He was already a Communist by that point, with a duplicating machine hidden under his bed.</div>
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The family moved to Britain (his father was British) and he studied at Cambridge university. But though he remained in Britain for the rest of his life, he was marked by his early experiences.</div>
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Hobsbawm wrote many years later of his experience as a refugee. He said this made him “still vaguely uneasy if I don’t possess a valid passport and enough cash to transport me to the nearest suitable country at short notice.”</div>
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He added that he could “understand the situation” of Kenyan Asian refugees in the 1970s. He felt “horrified by British immigration officials in a more profound and visceral way than those for whom the question is primarily one of equal rights and civil liberty in general”.</div>
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From 1947 Hobsbawm held a post at Birkbeck College in London. In academic terms he was a great success. He authored many books and articles with an international reputation.</div>
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But Hobsbawm was quite different from typical academic historians. They bury themselves in their specialist “period” and remain ignorant of the rest of human history (and even more ignorant of the world they live in).</div>
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The range of Hobsbawm’s work is extraordinary—from 17th century feudal society to Peruvian land occupations and secret societies in early 19th century Europe.</div>
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His four books Age of Revolution, Age of Capital, Age of Empire and Age of Extremes cover the history of the world from the storming of the Bastille to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Any reader will be rewarded with a wealth of information.</div>
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<span class="crosshead" style="font-size: 18px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Scholarly</span></div>
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Yet Hobsbawm never believed that history belonged to historians. As well as scholarly books and articles, he wrote innumerable articles for the Guardian, New Statesman, London Review of Books and other publications.</div>
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In contrast to many celebrity historians, Hobsbawm didn’t exploit his academic status to shout his mouth off over things he knew nothing.</div>
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He believed history could help us to understand the present and shape the future. So arguments based on history were relevant to an audience far wider than professional students of the subject.</div>
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Hobsbawm also had a second identity. As jazz critic Francis Newton he wrote for the New Statesman at a time when US culture was suspect in Communist circles. However—as with many of his generation—rock and roll was a bit too much for his tastes.</div>
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Eric Hobsbawm was a lifelong Communist who joined Britain’s Communist Party in 1936. He remained a member until the party’s collapse in 1991. In recent years this has been used systematically by right wing critics to discredit his historical work.</div>
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At the 2008 Tory party conference Michael Gove—now education secretary—stated that “only when Hobsbawm weeps hot tears for a life spent serving an ideology of wickedness will he ever be worth listening to”. We shall of course wait far longer than that before Gove says anything worth listening to.</div>
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Childish smears of this sort may be disregarded. But a real problem remains.</div>
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Hobsbawm’s Communist commitment and his admiration for Marx provided much that was positive in his historical work. It gave him an understanding of the economic base of society and a grasp of class relations. But his loyalty to the Stalinist current of Communism also had negative effects.</div>
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His early encounter with fascism left Hobsbawm convinced that the only strategy to fight fascism was the “popular front”—an alliance between the workers’ movement and pro-capitalist parties.</div>
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<span class="crosshead" style="font-size: 18px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Wedded</span></div>
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In France and Spain in the 1930s this strategy blocked revolutionary possibilities and opened the way for the victory of fascism. But Hobsbawm remained wedded to the popular front strategy for the rest of his life.</div>
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Sometimes this affected his work. He had a tendency to underestimate the high points of working class activity. Thus his book Age of Capital dismisses the 1871 Paris Commune—which for Karl Marx was one of the greatest achievements of the working class—in a few short paragraphs.</div>
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In 1956 Hobsbawm approved “with a heavy heart” the Russian suppression of the Hungarian revolution. While many of the Communist Party’s best known historians—EP Thompson, Christopher Hill—left the party, Hobsbawm stayed.</div>
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As late as 2006 he was still insisting, in an exchange with Chris Harman and myself in the London Review of Books, that the Hungarian workers’ councils were not a “major factor” in the revolution. That contradicted the reports of many participants and observers.</div>
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Briefly in the 1960s he seemed impressed by a new wave of radicalism. He spoke at the first Vietnam teach-in at Oxford, organised by the new revolutionary left, including Peter Binns and Tariq Ali.</div>
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In 1968 he wrote for the new revolutionary paper Black Dwarf. He described the French general strike as “marvellous and enchanting” and accused the French Communist Party of “feet dragging”. But soon he swung back to his roots.</div>
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His most important political intervention was his 1978 lecture The Forward March of Labour Halted. He argued that industrial militancy was not particularly relevant to the struggle for socialism.</div>
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“Straightforward, economist trade union consciousness may at times actually set workers against each other rather than establish wider patterns of solidarity,” he wrote.</div>
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<span class="crosshead" style="font-size: 18px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Challenged</span></div>
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Four years later he openly challenged the Marxist view of the historical role of the working class. “The manual working class, core of traditional socialist labour parties, is today contracting and not expanding.</div>
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“It has been transformed, and to some extent divided, by the decades when its standard of living reached levels undreamed of even by the well-paid in 1939.</div>
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“It can no longer be assumed that all workers are on the way to recognising that their class situation must align them behind a socialist workers party, though there are still many millions who believe this.”</div>
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Hobsbawm seemed to limit the term “working class” to one specific phase of history, without recognising the development of a new type of working class.</div>
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His argument helped to foment the dispute between open reformists (known as “Eurocommunists”) and unrepentant Stalinists that finally destroyed the Communist Party.</div>
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But the impact of his views went far beyond Communist ranks. At the 1982 Labour Party conference then leader Neil Kinnock praised Hobsbawm as “the most sagacious living Marxist”. Hobsbawm’s argument against industrial militancy suited Kinnock’s desire to shift the Labour Party to the right.</div>
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In later years Hobsbawm became more and more critical of Russian-style “socialism”. In Age of Extremes he described Russia as having had “a dead end economy and a political system for which there was nothing to be said”.</div>
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But while seeing the evils of capitalism, he seemed to have little idea of what might replace it. In 2007’s Globalisation, Democracy and Terrorism he said we were entering a new phase of history but that “we do not know where we are going”.</div>
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Yet Hobsbawm never quite lost the spirit that made him a Communist in the first place. In 2008, now far too old to bother about academic language, Hobsbawm<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/interviews/Hobsbawm_Eric.html" style="color: #330033; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">prophesied</a>that there would be more “nationalist stuff” in English history.</div>
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He added that “the whole function of history is precisely to be a pain in the arse for national myths”.</div>
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There is much to criticise in Hobsbawm’s work. But there’s also a great deal that will continue to be a “pain in the arse” for the likes of Michael Gove.</div>
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[This obituary was first published at <em><a href="http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=29690">Socialist Worker</a></em> UK]</div>
International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-33917894267485314732012-09-24T20:17:00.003-07:002012-09-24T20:17:54.668-07:00ANZUS? No going back
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlLsiu-zWr-mZRfguTMXV08wQvmxpxbNj_QEo_3dV912hiTUhtJu_9_dzbEASeyiGNCEGAYk_KihYPcXKRARiDduovBiLNgPZs-A5RvpKKLtKcWu-H23rQ0d6KL8RUbw5OxO3558IWbPQ6/s1600/ANZUS1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlLsiu-zWr-mZRfguTMXV08wQvmxpxbNj_QEo_3dV912hiTUhtJu_9_dzbEASeyiGNCEGAYk_KihYPcXKRARiDduovBiLNgPZs-A5RvpKKLtKcWu-H23rQ0d6KL8RUbw5OxO3558IWbPQ6/s320/ANZUS1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: ArialMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;">[Mass protests forced a nuclear-free policy on Lange. We need to rediscover this tradition.]</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There was a flurry of news recently
about the US and NZ building “better relations” as Leon Panetta, the US
secretary of Defence, <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/defence/news/article.cfm?c_id=32&objectid=10834177">visited
the country</a>. There hasn’t been such a visit since NZ was suspended from the
ANZUS military agreement because of the ban on nuclear warships docking in NZ
ports. Panetta wants to station US troops in NZ. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Whenever there is discussion about
‘better military relations’ we must wonder who will these relations be better
for? Will closer military relations benefit working people or will it benefit
the wealthy?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The New Zealand capitalists want closer
relations with the USA for, as I see it, two main reasons. First there is the
access to trade deals and other economic benefits from the plunder of the
Middle East and other imperial exploits. For resources such as cheap labour and
raw materials and access to markets to sell goods there is a section of the NZ
elite that supported the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. Can
anyone remember <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10336823">Don
Brash</a> or <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpIXgJ7r2vU">John Key</a>
talking about how ‘we’ should have joined the invasion of Iraq to get better
‘trade deals’. These so called ‘Free Trade’ deals, like the Trans Pacific
Partnership Agreement will mean the continued race to the bottom in terms of
wages and conditions for workers in all countries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The second reason capitalists in New
Zealand support a return to ANZUS is that it would tighten up the already
strong economic and political alliance in the pacific that is in competition
with China. Ever since the end of World War Two the USA and its allies like
Australia and New Zealand have dominated the Pacific. This is more than simply
economic exploitation to Military interventions. Troops and police have been
sent to Tonga in 2006 and the Solomons in 2003 under Helen Clark’s Labour
government <a href="http://www.iso.org.nz/socialist-review/archive/46/199-the-solomons.html">to
prop up corrupt governments</a> that protect the profits of NZ, Aus, and US
corporations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDRVomCem5xmTGQYzxfpxT3dTreG7WO7uTVjG83pQwbLC-PNIFQkvo1vxAvaYJoRngSjvF39ruOFn2OOj9Vrv3qHJeUSDAC072bDau8JyqRrYLQejrpDgKLVYzMU-_NZ0Or1NbqhAtnTB8/s1600/ANZUS3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDRVomCem5xmTGQYzxfpxT3dTreG7WO7uTVjG83pQwbLC-PNIFQkvo1vxAvaYJoRngSjvF39ruOFn2OOj9Vrv3qHJeUSDAC072bDau8JyqRrYLQejrpDgKLVYzMU-_NZ0Or1NbqhAtnTB8/s1600/ANZUS3.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">['Why, I can smile; and murder while I smile']</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">China is a growing threat to this
political bloc in the Pacific. While it is one of NZ’s, the USA, and
Australia’s biggest trading partners there is a political tension growing
between the US led countries and China. In the pacific the most glaring case of
political tension is over Fiji. However in many places, including NZ, there is
competition between Chinese investment and aid and western investment and aid –
where both groups are trying to buy influence. It is unlikely that any open
conflict in the Pacific will erupt any time soon especially since the US and
NATO forces are still continuing the predatory occupation of Afghanistan. Even
this being the case it would be a big step backwards for working people, in
China, the USA, and NZ for NZ to re – enter ANZUS.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Nuclear armed and powered warships (or
warships of any kind) can only benefit the capitalists by providing them
strategic advantage over their competitors in other countries. Working people,
students, and the oppressed should reject any appeals that say we need
‘defence’. It was ordinary people that put the pressure on the government
and business community to ban all nuclear powered or armed warships.
Above all it was the wharfies on the ports in NZ that forced the government’s
hand. There was a campaign of strike action that escalated to the point where
the workers would shut down the ports whenever a US warship docked. This is the
kind of power that can defend ordinary people from the horrors of war abroad
and poverty at home. We should look to building a stronger workers movement
that has international links with the workers movement in both China and the
USA/Aus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">If we want to stop the wars around the
world or any conflict between ANZUS and China in the Pacific then we must
understand that these alliances and wars are for profit. There is no benefit
for working people in military alliances of any kind as the old saying goes:
It’s the rich who start wars and the poor who die in them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <b>Derwin Smith</b><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-43649153653020607662012-09-23T21:10:00.001-07:002012-09-23T21:10:06.799-07:00In memory of Alison Stoddart<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYLjpn8vGqcY20V99hXUrGVP1ttA012x6yMJ5hp41sPfe2nUQokDalACTqjKlLFUbqqpsddqrA9Fs7ZNvjeulGgjdbQvhqfcXfPOK6yP4ymlL-wpDQWJt2E5opwKd_SYtNrt5XusNzlyno/s1600/KaimahiKaha.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYLjpn8vGqcY20V99hXUrGVP1ttA012x6yMJ5hp41sPfe2nUQokDalACTqjKlLFUbqqpsddqrA9Fs7ZNvjeulGgjdbQvhqfcXfPOK6yP4ymlL-wpDQWJt2E5opwKd_SYtNrt5XusNzlyno/s1600/KaimahiKaha.png" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">We were horrified to learn of the loss of Alison Stoddart (1980 - 2012), a fighter against injustice and oppression gone much too soon. Our thoughts are with all of her family and friends.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Alison came from a family with a long history of activism and campaigning in Dunedin. Her granny, Christina, travels to Palestine regularly in solidarity work with the Society of Friends, while her mother has worked in campaigns over everything from criminal injustice to the environment to beneficiaries’ rights.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Alison was, briefly, a member of our organization at the end of the 1990s. Political differences, and time in the UK, convinced her that she disagreed with our Leninism, but she stayed for the rest of her life a passionate supporter of socialist politics. Alison was a regular at all the major protests and demonstrations in Dunedin, and played and important part in mobilizing for the protests against the Iraq war and Israel’s invasion of Lebanon that took place during the 2000s.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Her attitude towards our organization was always comradely and intensely engaged. She had comments and criticisms on every magazine or pamphlet we produced: for a tiny group like ours, these criticisms meant a huge amount - she took our ideas seriously enough to argue with them, and to demand better from us. Her constructive engagement gestured at exactly the kind of world we hoped to build.</span></div>
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Politics were central to her life. She was arrested protesting against nuclear submarines at Faslane in Scotland during her OE; as a teenager she built demonstrations and direct action against French nuclear testing in Mururoa Atol. Two more personal memories: as school students we heckled the Tory scum Jenny Shipley when she made an unwise attempt at a walkabout in Dunedin one afternoon in 1998; my first sit-down protest was with Alison as unions responded to Max Bradford's attacks on holidays. More recently we have spent many hours over the phone debating the Mana Movement's prospects and problems.</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">For many of us Alison was a dear personal friend; for the rest of our organization she was a comrade and fellow fighter. The way she lived her life demonstrates what makes the victory of working-class politics essential: she lived a life of unsentimental solidarity, connection with the weak and oppressed, union politics, and anti-capitalist energy. Alison hated the capitalist system, and was disgusted at the lies of Paula Bennett and others slandering beneficiaries and working women.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">We honour her memory by building an organization that can fight capitalism and oppression in Aotearoa/New Zealand.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><i>Ah, how good to sense the first awakening flicker of</i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><i>muscularity in the trees' arms. Indeed, how magical they seem in the</i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><i>street lights with spring fuzz bursting all over and thinning</i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><i>to delicate twigs - scratch marks in a bland sky.</i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">(Hone Tuwhare, "Street March and Demonstration, Dunedin, 14th October 1977")</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><b>Dougal McNeill</b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><b>(for the National Committee, International Socialist Organisation NZ)</b></span></div>
International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-91233594919026342762012-09-20T13:38:00.001-07:002012-09-20T13:38:35.621-07:00The Significance of the 1912 Waihi Strike 1912 - 2012<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
This year marks the centenary of the 1912 Waihi miners' strike, one of the most important - and violently contested - strikes in New Zealand history. Frederick Evans was matyred; political ideas and organisational questions clarified; and the role and force of the state made clear. The strike offers many lessons for today.<br />
<br />
To mark the occasion, we have published a new pamphlet, <i>The Significance of the 1912 Waihi Strike</i>. This pamphlet aims to introduce the story of the strike to a new generation of unionists and activists, and to draw out its political significance.<br />
<br />
You can order copies for $5 by emailing (internationalsocialistsnz [at] gmail.com) or by writing to ISO, PO Box 6157, Dunedin.<br />
<br />
<b>Pamphlet Launch</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
We will launch the pamphlet on Tuesday 25th September at 6pm in the Student Union Building, Victoria University Wellington. The author, Martin Gregory, will speak on the significance of the Waihi Strike and there will copies available to purchase.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>The Significance of the Waihi Strike</i><br />
by Martin Gregory<br />
International Socialist Organisation<br />
<b>(ISBN <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11pt;">978-0-473-22214-7)</span></b><br />
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></b>International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-63720407928250523202012-09-19T02:57:00.001-07:002012-09-19T03:18:46.896-07:00Rebellion of the Rank and File<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-9GmziJkzG64M3p53nkbmCGLdc8P0MCmTktO4y9YJuGAdEoWm0A6chlt-7DUlW-E2quhks9TawdYZuGcfTq5WzA-dGWy_CKgaDxxFmmrAqlXSJmywPac2725xVKMKcpZfXFSgiahUMZ19/s1600/Buses.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-9GmziJkzG64M3p53nkbmCGLdc8P0MCmTktO4y9YJuGAdEoWm0A6chlt-7DUlW-E2quhks9TawdYZuGcfTq5WzA-dGWy_CKgaDxxFmmrAqlXSJmywPac2725xVKMKcpZfXFSgiahUMZ19/s320/Buses.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-NZ"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-NZ"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-NZ">On 17 September a joint-union stopwork
meeting of Auckland bus drivers voted against their union leaders’
recommendation to accept the latest NZ Bus offer. Unless a concession is made
Auckland’s 800 bus drivers will be on strike next Monday, and plan to strike
every Monday for weeks if necessary. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-NZ">NZ Bus is owned by Infratil, one of those
multinational vulture capitalist corporations that have fed off the
privatisation of formerly publicly owned services. Only a month ago Infratil
posted an annual profit of $127 million, up 6%. If they gave the Auckland
drivers a $10,000 pay rise it would only cost $8m.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-NZ">Why were the First Union and Tramways Union
leaders recommending a deal that leaves the drivers being paid under $20 an
hour, having to work 14 hour split shifts for 8 hours pay, and only getting time
and a quarter for overtime? The top union leaders have egg on their faces, the
penalty for not having more faith in the ordinary union member. It should be
mentioned that the CTU President Helen Kelly “helped” with the negotiations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-NZ">The CTU are backing the Living Wage
campaign. If the dealings with NZ Bus are anything to go by, this evidently
doesn’t mean calling on unionists to take the employers on. The Living Wage
campaign is a copycat from the UK. It’s a faith-based campaign; worthy, but of
no use. The only people that can win living wages are workers themselves,
through finding their strength in the workplace. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-NZ">In 1906 the Auckland tram drivers went on
strike illegally in defiance of the anti-strike the 1894 Industrial
Conciliation and Arbitration Act. They were the first workers to do so. It would be a delicious case of history
repeating itself if the Auckland drivers’ set the trend again by showing how to
really fight for a living wage.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-NZ"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-NZ"><b>Martin Gregory</b> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-87642741422760587842012-09-14T04:42:00.002-07:002012-09-14T04:42:52.366-07:00Hey John Key - Taihoa!<br />
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<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">The Waitangi Tribunal has told John Key to “taihoa” - to wait a little with his plans to privatise state owned electricity companies.</span><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333;">Key thought he could sell the companies after he won the election but the Maori Council has thrown a spanner in the works by putting in a claim for freshwater.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333;">A hydro dam is pretty useless without water to drive it.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333;">Even before Key suggested privatising the hydro companies, Maori had put in claims for rights to freshwater but the privatisation plans forced the Maori Council's hand.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333;">If the dams are privatised, the chance of Maori getting any acknowledgement or compensation from the private companies will disappear. The “mum and dad investors” (in other words a small minority of wealthy New Zealanders) will instead reap the benefits of the rivers.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333;">The Tribunal said Maori obviously used the lakes and rivers before colonisation, and so they have rights that are best translated into an English legal definition as ownership.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333;">“We agree that the claimants' evidence has demonstrated the customary 'indicia' of ownership and that 'full-blown' ownership of property in the English sense was the closest legal equivalent for Maori customary rights in 1840,” the Tribunal report said.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333;">This is an interim report, but the Tribunal is unlikely to change its mind on this fundamental point.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">So, is this good, bad or indifferent for working people?</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji2y_IGRKxprOz0zNT3coUNIcOkQ2FjY0x2r3i_TmcHygjot0Daqv8VT6px0R7i9Pg8AQ51VHDg0nuWqITZns-r-kq2HTjwFsitWw7ZxtAwnt2HK5siHLbpe5y6Pdur-wR35orJu6EpamM/s1600/Asset+sale+protest.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji2y_IGRKxprOz0zNT3coUNIcOkQ2FjY0x2r3i_TmcHygjot0Daqv8VT6px0R7i9Pg8AQ51VHDg0nuWqITZns-r-kq2HTjwFsitWw7ZxtAwnt2HK5siHLbpe5y6Pdur-wR35orJu6EpamM/s320/Asset+sale+protest.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333;">For a start, it has slowed down the privatisation and created debate, which is good.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">If iwi swap their opposition to privatisation for shares and a seat on the board, it will bad because it will allow privatisation to go ahead, but better than if Maori got no compensation.</span><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333;">Socialists should support the Maori struggle for justice and self-determination. We have to commit 100% to the struggle against more than a century of colonialism. This means supporting compensation for historical grievances even when it is plain to see the main winners from settlements will be iwi corporates. </span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333;">That does not mean being uncritical. The corporate strategy is just one, very risky, strategy. Most settlements are in the form of ownership – and what is owned can be sold. As the whole of NZ is finding out, our assets can be sold against our will. The same goes for iwi assets. </span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333;">Private property in the form of market commodities is not the only model. The power companies should be run in the interests of human need, not profit, by:</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333;">1) the people who actually go to work everyday to keep NZ humming.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333;">2) representatives of power consumers.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333;">3) representatives of iwi.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333;"><b>Andrew Tait</b></span></div>
International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-83118613157581572152012-09-13T14:54:00.000-07:002012-09-13T14:54:29.906-07:00National Day of Action Against Welfare Reform<br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">So Bennett/National is at it again attacking the poor, mothers, the sick and disabled. Threats of cutting benefits in half if people don't conform to bureaucratic "solutions" to child health and education... </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<br style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">But excuse me who ends up missing out when the benefit is cut in half? Why does Aotearoa have increasing poverty and social problems?</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<br style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">It's certainly not the beneficiaries who caused the world</span><div style="color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">
economic crisis and high unemployment.<br />It's not beneficiaries who created the fastest growing gap between rich and poor in the OECD.</div>
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<br />It's not beneficiaries who are pushing more and more people below the poverty line.</div>
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<br />We need to the stop government from blaming the poor and oppressed for the social problems we face today. </div>
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<br /><span style="font-size: 10pt;">We need to stop the government trying to solve these social problems by taking more resources away from the poor and oppressed.</span></div>
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We need to stand up and say No to cuts to welfare. We need to stand up for those who have no voice. </div>
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<br />Join in the National day of action for the rights of beneficiaries on the 5th of October!"</div>
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<br /></div>
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<div style="color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">
Find out details of the national day of action <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/440680239308936/">here</a>. Facebook page for the Dunedin event <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/284916358279500/285233894914413/?notif_t=plan_mall_activity">here</a>.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<div style="color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">
<b>Rowan MacArthur</b></div>
</div>
International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-74974578907361021572012-09-07T22:57:00.000-07:002012-09-07T22:57:32.053-07:00Aotearoa: the State of the Class Struggle
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<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMQtiEDuQisVMlo1EJ5jXHKdvnUGB6F4-5aOSbJqIGl0J7cTYe3im2tFl6-Ygtf9Mp0pxX9I_iu4PSYp3eGgJ_N_qzXbUULhT7kqg1AuWD57Zb0jlv0_7nM45X91KlmwvhRTRVkudOLsaQ/s1600/MUNZ.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMQtiEDuQisVMlo1EJ5jXHKdvnUGB6F4-5aOSbJqIGl0J7cTYe3im2tFl6-Ygtf9Mp0pxX9I_iu4PSYp3eGgJ_N_qzXbUULhT7kqg1AuWD57Zb0jlv0_7nM45X91KlmwvhRTRVkudOLsaQ/s1600/MUNZ.jpeg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-NZ"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-NZ"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-NZ">During the whole
of 2011 there were a mere 12 work stoppages and they involved barely 2,000
workers and only 4,850 person-days lost (to exploitation); so says the
Department of Labour. Even worse, only 9 of the 12 stoppages were actual
stoppages. The other 3 were what the DOL calls ‘partial strikes’, which are not
strikes at all but actions short of a strike, such as go-slows and overtime
bans. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-NZ">These statistics
started with 1986 when there were over 200 stoppages. Since then the strikes
trend has been steadily downwards. 2010 had 18 stoppages, but 2011 surpassed
that record low. Had the working class lost all fighting capacity? Could things
get any worse?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-NZ">We now know the
answer to these questions and that a corner has been turned; 2011 will be the
nadir. By comparison, the first months of this year saw a veritable explosion
of strike actions, involving 1,500 aged care workers, 1,300 meat workers and
300 wharf workers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-NZ">It was in the
nature of the times that these struggles were defensive; against attacks by the
employers. The outcomes are heartening. The <a href="http://www.isonz.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/nationalise-oceania.html">aged care dispute </a>was settled in
June with a 3.22 pay rise and preservation of overtime rates and other rights
that were under threat. The meat workers <a href="http://www.isonz.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/affco-workers-stand-strong-in-te-puke.html">saw off an attack</a> on the union and won
a contract. The Maritime Union <a href="http://www.isonz.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/striking-back-against-casualisation-why.html">humbled</a> the Ports of Auckland Ltd to defend
direct employment and conditions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-NZ"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSWR9oP3rSsEPG2kUjwPGdKXk1HDyqLo0RPJf8-soDreuxUmHye9qnwZK8JLDTjifbDmeE__SRv0CptJgyv3YxCQXVxsk5k6AFyxiPId6gLcVetOUQ2kjuHDM43zuihEyz0Mbs9OY_ZB6b/s1600/Aged+Care+Workers.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSWR9oP3rSsEPG2kUjwPGdKXk1HDyqLo0RPJf8-soDreuxUmHye9qnwZK8JLDTjifbDmeE__SRv0CptJgyv3YxCQXVxsk5k6AFyxiPId6gLcVetOUQ2kjuHDM43zuihEyz0Mbs9OY_ZB6b/s1600/Aged+Care+Workers.jpeg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-NZ"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-NZ">When pushed too
far workers have demonstrated resilience and tenacity to resist attacks. There
can be no doubt that the employers nationally have taken note, and that what
threatened to be a general management onslaught on working conditions has been
diffused to some degree. However, the class struggle waged by the capitalists
goes on. KiwiRail’s Hillside Workshops were put up for sale in May and may be
sold by the time this article is read. Solid Energy is prettying itself up for
privatisation by sacking miners. The cutbacks taking place across the public
sector are relentless. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-NZ">A lot of the
attacks on jobs and services are hard to organise resistance around, particularly
piecemeal attacks that do not bind a lot of people together in the same boat at
the same time. Contrast with when the government launched a frontal attack with
their plan to cut teacher numbers nationwide. Hekia Parata sparked such a
reaction in the educational establishment that she <a href="http://www.isonz.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/teachers-stand-for-education.html">had to back down</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-NZ">Continuing out
theme of strike trends, the last four months have been ones of a reversion to
quietude. The question of eroding living standards is a slow burning fuse. It
is impossible to predict when the overdue workers’ pay revolt will occur, only
that it will. Hard times, unemployment, put workers on the back foot. History
teaches that a pick up in the economy often brings about a recovery of workers’
confidence and strikes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-NZ"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7L2h_XmW3sYOq7KYm53mcjuH6xqZGhJI4tXOKGM46DuL_VevDAFUyO0s8ND7app4-rPfm83R5Gag2z_YoGd1iGX6K8qcJ2Tai9WcJZlj8rQ1IfX0Tf9ATaGOoLHjLU46Bl1UIjtPPFqd7/s1600/NZMeatWorkersUnion.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7L2h_XmW3sYOq7KYm53mcjuH6xqZGhJI4tXOKGM46DuL_VevDAFUyO0s8ND7app4-rPfm83R5Gag2z_YoGd1iGX6K8qcJ2Tai9WcJZlj8rQ1IfX0Tf9ATaGOoLHjLU46Bl1UIjtPPFqd7/s1600/NZMeatWorkersUnion.jpeg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-NZ"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-NZ">The New Zealand
economy is in a bad way, but the government doesn’t admit it and the nation’s
complacent news media scarcely reports on it. Gross Domestic Product for the
year to March was up 1.7% on the year to March 2011, but this is a pretty low
figure for a recovery from the 2008-2010 recession. The weak performance has
not been enough to boost employment. Basically, the unemployment rate has not
changed since the worst of the recession. Unemployment actually increased by
4.3% over the year to June. At the last count there were 162,000 unemployed, an
unemployment rate of 6.8%. These figures would be much higher but for the
exodus of workers to Australia. There were a record 53,900 departures to
Australia in the year to July, more than offsetting total immigration. The comparatively
buoyant Australian economy is acting as a safety valve. It provides New
Zealanders with an individual solution, rather than to stand and fight
collectively. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-NZ">Part of the
problem is on the political side. The Labour Party, and the trade union bureaucracy
drawn behind it (whether formally affiliated or not), is proving unable to
inspire visions that society under a Labour government would be any better. This
is hardly surprising as Labour under David Shearer is sailing so close to National’s
politics that the difference is hard to detect. Labour will not even commit to
reversing National’s privatisations and spending cuts. Workers are not getting
any call to arms from this quarter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-NZ"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXiuQIyu-F-lnPZGeu-w9U_CjI3k8BF8PMjG1EIkofSc8tnVauuRaqebUsrjeGEoV-IuQ65gVixClS6dS5ewFu2qQ9anSsJ-aET3j-OHD6Rw1b84k9RgcdhGIXDnJwKxIRSO_NnHqQJXvT/s1600/Parata.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXiuQIyu-F-lnPZGeu-w9U_CjI3k8BF8PMjG1EIkofSc8tnVauuRaqebUsrjeGEoV-IuQ65gVixClS6dS5ewFu2qQ9anSsJ-aET3j-OHD6Rw1b84k9RgcdhGIXDnJwKxIRSO_NnHqQJXvT/s1600/Parata.jpeg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-NZ"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-NZ">In summary, the
state of the class struggle today is one characterised by a continuing lack of
confidence by workers to take collective action. The lack of confidence
continues from the political and economic setbacks from the mid-1980’s onwards,
and is currently held low by economic conditions. But (an important but), the
strikes of earlier this year demonstrate that when pushed too far workers will
fight back. The employers and the government continue to tread wearily lest
they provoke a reaction. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-49391507327085999162012-09-06T23:55:00.001-07:002012-09-06T23:55:47.874-07:00Australia: CFMEU Stands Up[The dispute between Grollo and the construction workers' union - CFMEU - in Australia is extremely important, and has lessons for unionists in New Zealand. Here Jerome Small, CFMEU member and Industrial Organiser for <a href="http://www.sa.org.au/">Socialist Alternative</a> in Australia, reports on the struggle.]<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWOndmbXflVf_ABOuFlVmrAV3hvCAKBlO_QSLqw9KRVKvh_lRPn02ooM47YDbnXnETwG_U0OvchVNs-Nan4zXhgqVLfd2-oxCkWMVK9jZ2z_fean6W7D5-rk3UXwXTHX_RYzBIY1OCsYb0/s1600/CFMEU.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWOndmbXflVf_ABOuFlVmrAV3hvCAKBlO_QSLqw9KRVKvh_lRPn02ooM47YDbnXnETwG_U0OvchVNs-Nan4zXhgqVLfd2-oxCkWMVK9jZ2z_fean6W7D5-rk3UXwXTHX_RYzBIY1OCsYb0/s320/CFMEU.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
The police are prepared for a bloodbath. Row upon row of cops stand behind a temporary fence that keeps picketers well back from the giant construction site. Behind them more police, with Alsatian dogs on leashes.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
Police horses gather on the corner of Swanston Street, prepared to charge on construction workers. There is no shortage of riot police to back them up. Early morning commuters parking in the QV Centre are startled by the sight of hundreds of riot police in the basement car park, banging batons on their shields as they work themselves into the frenzy required to batter unarmed human beings.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
Altogether, probably over a thousand police are mobilised to smash the picket line. The ambulance service has been notified, and emergency departments are on standby for the expected casualties.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
These are the scenes from central Melbourne last Friday, and repeated this morning (Tuesday). Ted Baillieu’s police force is backing-up the giant construction company Grocon in its bid to run sites without on-site union representation.</div>
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After the hysterical press campaign last week about the supposed “reign of fear” and “union thuggery” on Victoria’s construction sites, we saw clearly on Friday, and again on Tuesday, who is willing to use sickening levels of violence to enforce their will: Ted Baillieu’s police against workers standing up for their rights.</div>
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This reflects the enormously high stakes in the battle between Grocon and the main construction union, the CFMEU. The outcome of the dispute will have an impact for years to come in the construction industry.</div>
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A win for the company will mean that the biggest sites in Melbourne will proceed without any effective union presence – a massive defeat for one of the most militant and effective unions in the country. A clear win for the union will signal to the whole industry that the slow spread of shonky, non-union contractors can be brought to an end.</div>
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In fact, the implications reach far beyond that. Despite taking some hits from a series of vicious anti-union laws, the CFMEU has maintained an active presence on the vast majority of commercial construction sites in Melbourne. This puts it head and shoulder above unions in many other industries in Australia, where decades of defeat and retreat mean that full time shop stewards and active organising are a distant memory.</div>
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The capitalist press is bellowing about a return to the “bad old days” of industrial disputation in the 1970s, when workers and their unions won decent wages and conditions in a series of bruising industrial battles. This reflects a fear that the Grollo dispute will revive union fortunes not just in construction but beyond.</div>
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So it is no surprise that a conga line of right wing hacks, newspapers and employer bodies has formed, demanding blood be spilled to break the picket. The Australian Industry Group complains of “militant and unlawful” behaviour from the CFMEU, the Victorian Chamber of Commerce condemns “intimidation and harassment” from the union, while the Master Builders’ Association goes with “illegal and reckless”.</div>
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What they mean, of course, is “effective”. It is perfectly legal to join a trade union, and even to picket, so long as you aren’t effective in stopping production – one of the most serious crimes in a profit-driven society. Just last month, a NSW boss was fined just $30,000 after 15-year-old <a href="http://www.amwu.org.au/read-article/news-detail/992/$30000-fine-for-teenager%E2%80%99s-workplace-death-sends-no-message-on-safety/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #006699; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Kevin Hadfield</a> was dragged into a metal lathe, lost his arm and then died. No front page screaming from the papers and politicians about that.</div>
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In July, Toll Holdings was hit by an effective picket line at a warehouse in Somerton, Melbourne, that it operates for the supermarket giant Coles. The company was forced to give major concessions to the union. So it is no surprise to find Toll’s chief executive Brian Kruger showing his solidarity with Daniel Grollo, calling for “more significant penalties, particularly in terms of fines or potential jail time” against picketers.</div>
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Victorian Liberal premier Ted Baillieu has called for deregistration of the CFMEU, which would stop the union from negotiating legally-binding enterprise agreements. He has talked tough, threatening to rewrite the Riot Act in order to more effectively sweep pickets out of the way. And his attorney general has sought to join the contempt of court action against the CFMEU, adding to the massive legal and financial pressure being brought to bear on the union.</div>
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Federal workplace relations minister Bill Shorten has joined this chorus, declaring that “the blockade is a terrible idea, and the mob should get off the street”, and denouncing the tactic as “industrial stupidity”. Shorten’s “smart” way is to let the union be sidelined, and he openly welcomed the fact that small numbers of scabs have crossed the picket line on Friday and again on Tuesday.</div>
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Faced with this enormously powerful list of enemies, our side has only one weapon – solidarity. This dispute is shaping up as potentially the most important industrial battle since the MUA dispute of 1998.</div>
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On that occasion, mass pickets of thousands on a daily basis kept the docks shut. The thousands of rank and file construction workers who have been calling past the Grocon picket in Lonsdale Street every morning – many answering a call from their union, others just turning up – are the basis of this kind of response.</div>
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Beyond that, serious contingents from the metals construction division of the AMWU and smaller groups from the Maritime Union, the Firefighters Union, the National Union of Workers, the Australian Services Union and many others have also appeared at the picket over the last week. Many of them are workers repaying a debt of solidarity to construction unions, who have supported innumerable disputes – from the nurses to the Coles Somerton dispute – over the years.</div>
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The Victorian Building Industry Group of unions, which includes the CFMEU, the Electrical Trades Union, the Plumbers Union and the AMWU, has endorsed a state wide strike to support the picket in the event of a serious police attack.</div>
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The CFMEU strategy since Tuesday has been to avoid a physical confrontation on the picket line. A small number of scabs, mostly managers and other non-productive employees, have been able to access the site under heavy police escort.</div>
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But as of Tuesday afternoon, there has been no production on site for two weeks. The reality is that building sites need more than labour. They need a vast amount of material delivered daily, and they need concrete delivered and pumped. To do all that requires clear access for trucks to the crane bays.</div>
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It is one thing for Victoria Police to get access for a small number of scabs. It would be an even more massive and ongoing operation for them to clear the streets and keep them clear to allow access for material – especially the continuous convoy of concrete trucks necessary to pour a slab. Even the most massive police operation will have a hard time doing this on a daily basis against determined mass pickets.</div>
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Grocon boss Daniel Grollo has reportedly taken on a mountain of debt in order to buy out other family members from the family business. For the last couple of weeks, servicing that debt has looked difficult if not impossible. He has faced disruption on a number of jobs, and pretty much the only thing moving on his landmark Lonsdale Street Myer job has been the pigeons.</div>
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However, this standoff can’t last indefinitely.</div>
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Grollo has rejected out of hand the idea that his legal action and the union’s blockade could both be lifted to allow talks. This and the extraordinary police deployment, the ferocious attacks of the press, and the open proclamation of Australia’s business elite all point in the same direction. Our rulers are prepared to deploy massive force to batter a key union into submission.</div>
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Well over a thousand construction workers have, over the last week, made it part of their daily routine to call past the picket from 5am. Thousands more have made it clear they are prepared to descend on the site at a moment’s notice if the union gives the call. Outside of construction, traditions of solidarity have awoken again – especially in blue collar workforces with a union tradition.</div>
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It is these workers in their thousands and tens of thousands who can, if called into action, stop Grollo in his tracks – and strike a vital blow in turning the tide for workers and our unions in Australia. </div>
International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-82486012875913077172012-08-29T16:49:00.002-07:002012-08-29T16:49:59.852-07:00Dunedin: It's Bitter with the King<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFp3cJhQW9J6LGxAdKmP9XeXMqW-EEPnlJqs-Yon_Y9jZ3KfXdIg8xnSMrURNisw_MsroyQpG90BP82GZ99BqNhLmDMtBfmmWLY9cbblmVF8J3ktPT50Noo424wJ8kAX_50kjOnkLbNx5x/s1600/7829413656_dc5f03eb59_z.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFp3cJhQW9J6LGxAdKmP9XeXMqW-EEPnlJqs-Yon_Y9jZ3KfXdIg8xnSMrURNisw_MsroyQpG90BP82GZ99BqNhLmDMtBfmmWLY9cbblmVF8J3ktPT50Noo424wJ8kAX_50kjOnkLbNx5x/s320/7829413656_dc5f03eb59_z.jpeg" width="214" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">On Saturday the 26th of August along George Street, Dunedin, a rather important protest took place. This protest was regarding the sub-standard way that Burger King is treating its hard-working staff, something that must be analysed seriously by the citizens of any democratic nation. This includes, but is not limited to: paying Burger King staff minimum wage for years and years, regardless of if they're a supervisor, or sometimes even manager (in one case about 15 years!), paying under minimum wage under the guise of "training modules", and trying to push their workers away from Trade Unions. Every worker has the right to join a union. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Unite Union and ISO organised and performed this as Burger King staff did not want to protest personally for fear of retribution. The protest started organising itself around the Robbie Burns Statue, we jokingly placed a Unite Union flag in Robbie Burn's hand, and then we descended into George Street, finishing at the Meridian Shopping Mall, which has a Burger King on the bottom floor, making the chants and general protest very well heard by the staff, and hopefully management. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The protest was generally considered to be quite well done, as we gained a lot of public attention, spread awareness, and hopefully gained support among Dunedin workers and shoppers. People from the street even started protesting alongside us! From the Robbie Burns' statue to the Meridian shopping mall, we marched and chanted "Burger King, get stuffed! Minimum wage is not enough!" "Grill your burgers, not your workers!" "When workers' rights are under attack! STAND UP! FIGHT BACK!" "When I say Union, you say power! Union! POWER! Union! POWER!" All of this was performed in the hope that Burger King staff knows that they deserve to be treated better, and so the bosses know they can't treat their workers like punching bags full of cash. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Find out more about the campaign at <a href="http://unitenews.wordpress.com/">Unite Union news</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Jasper Auld</b></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">[Image credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/15427785@N04/with/7829413656/#photo_7829413656">Unite Union</a> flickr stream.</span>International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-29159348614327877612012-08-29T02:20:00.000-07:002012-08-29T02:20:06.061-07:00Marching for Marriage Equality<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">At least a thousand people showed out today to support a bill being introduced to parliament today, which would amend the Marriage Act to allow marriage between same sex couples. While many would argue that marriage is an institution best avoided, that doesn't change the fact that it is a right, with many associated legal benefits, denied to many couples simply because they are of the same gender. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">But there are no fundamental rights - only what we win in struggle. Equal marriage is the right to marry who you want. It matters in a million petty bureaucratic ways to the couples and it matters to everyone who is hates injustice. When bigots are beaten, everyone wins.</span><br />
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<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The thousand who turned out today was composed not only of those who are directly affected - queer individuals and couples - but also a great many straight supporters. The message was clear - you don't need to be queer to support equal rights, and this is borne out in every poll on the issue in NZ over the last few years. Marriage equality is but the first step in a long struggle for equal rights for queer individuals, but unlike 30 years ago, when the very right to legally exist had to be fought for, tooth and nail, today the pressure is on parliament to get with the times. But that's not to say there won't be resistance. </span><br />
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The social conservatives and the religious right would have us return to the days when it was illegal to be gay, and marriage was when a wife was a chattel sold by her father to the highest bidder. No way!<div>
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This bill needs to pass, and we need to build organisations which will not only ensure that Marriage Equality becomes a reality, but also be prepared to tackle not just the next struggle for queer rights but to fight, arm in arm, straight and queer, for equality for all.</div>
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International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-35244992785004844982012-08-18T01:25:00.002-07:002012-08-18T01:25:46.756-07:00Massacre at Marikana Mine - Solidarity with Labour in South Africa!<br />
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<i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';">I, and most people in the anti-apartheid movement in
New Zealand, took part in the boycott campaigns not to simply change the colour
of the faces of those who ruled South Africa. We didn’t face batons and barbed
wire to replace race-based apartheid with economic apartheid. Our intention
wasn’t to stop the apartheid gravy train for the wealthy just long enough for a
tiny number of the black elite to jump on.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><a href="http://johnminto.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/why-i-wont-be-going/">John Minto </a>recently made public his
correspondence with the organisers of a conference happening in Wellington this
weekend celebrating NZ’s role in the struggle against apartheid. How tragically
immediate these words are! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';">Police in South Africa have massacred
over 30 striking miners in the Marikana platinum mine, one of the most violent
attacks on labour since the end of apartheid, and a horrific act reminiscent of
the Apartheid state’s brutalities at the 1960 Sharpville massacre in the
Gauteng (Transvaal).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';">Amandla</span></i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';">, a radical magazine in
South Africa, call this "a brutal tragedy that should never have happened," and <a href="http://www.amandlapublishers.co.za/home-page/1522-amandla-editorial-comment--a-brutal-tragedy-that-should-never-have-happened">editoralise</a>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 12pt;">No event since the end of Apartheid sums up the
shallowness of the transformation in this country like the Marikana massacre.
What occurred will be debated for years. It is already clear the mineworkers
will be blamed for being violent. The mineworkers will be painted as savages.
Yet, the fact is that heavily armed police with live ammunition brutally shot
and killed over 35 mineworkers. Many more are injured. Some will die of their
wounds. Another 10 workers had been killed just prior to this massacre.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 12pt;">This was not the action of rogue cops. This
massacre was a result of decisions taken at the top of the police structures.
The police had promised to respond with force and came armed with live
ammunition. They behaved no better than the Apartheid police when facing the
Sharpeville, 1976 Soweto uprisings and 1980s protests where many of our people
were killed.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 12pt;">The
aggressive and violent response to community service delivery protests by the
police have their echo and reverberation in this massacre.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 12pt;">This represents
a blood-stain on the new South Africa.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Media
coverage has stressed the complexity of the inter-union rivalries, but the
involvement of the police – and the shooting down of striking workers – makes it
clear what is involved. “</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';">The Marikana action is a strike by the poor against the state
and the haves<b>”</b></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">,
argues <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/17/marikana-action-strike-poor-state-haves">Justice Malala</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">The
old slogans from the anti-apartheid struggle have a new relevance. Once again,
we say “Solidarity with South African labour!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Amandla!
Ngawethu!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';">***<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<b><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 12pt;">Striking
South African mineworkers were gunned down by police on Thursday. Charlie
Kimber looks at events leading up to the massacre—and the business interests
behind it<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></b>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 12pt;">Police
in South Africa have opened fire at striking workers at the Marikana platinum
mine near Rustenburg, leaving at least 18 people dead. Ten people have died
over the last few days in other clashes.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 12pt;">This disgusting slaughter evoked
memories of how the police acted during apartheid. All the hope at the end of
that vile racist regime has come to this.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 12pt;">The recently appointed police chief
Mangwashi Victoria Phiyega visited the mine a few days ago and she is believed
to have coordinated Thursday’s action.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 12pt;">But the decision by the heavily armed
police to use live rounds must have been endorsed at the highest level—perhaps
even by the ANC’s President Jacob Zuma.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 12pt;">Zuma said he regretted the killings.
But disgracefully he made no reference to the handling of the situation by the
police.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 12pt;">There must be justice for the
strikers killed at Marikana—and those who ordered the deaths must pay for them...<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';">[Read the <a href="http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=29359">full background story and analysis </a>from Charlie Kimber
at <i>Socialist Worker</i>]<span style="color: #333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-66456930127163928802012-08-12T19:14:00.001-07:002012-08-12T19:14:12.727-07:00Honouring Past Struggles: Whangamata Protest 2008<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In July 2008, Hauraki M<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">āori and other community members of Whangamata occupied the proposed car park area of the Whangamata marina. What led them to this point?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-weight: normal; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Te Matatuhi (the marina site) </span></strong><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">is the ancestral name of<strong><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-weight: normal; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></strong>tangata whenua for the specific lands subject to the proposed marina. Te Matatuhi is land of particular significance to </span>Ng<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">ā</span>ti Wh<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">ā</span>naunga<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">. ‘Mata’ in both Whangamata and Matatuhi refers to the black volcanic rock obsidian. Mata has long been a principle reason for why Maori live in Whangamata, as the rock was widely sought after for its fine cutting edge. The harbour facilitated trade and many battles were fought in the area.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Various P</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">ākehā business figures had eyed up the Te Matatuhi as a place to build a marina from the mid-twentieth century, but it wasn’t until 1992 that the Whangamata Marina Society was formed and approved the district council to buy the land. In 1996 hearings began on the Whangamata Marina Proposal. </span>Te R<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">ū</span>nanga a Iwi o Ng<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">ā</span>ti Tamater<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">ā</span>, Ng<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">ā</span>ti Wh<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">ā</span>naunga, Te Kupenga o Ng<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">ā</span>ti Hako, the Whangamata Maori Komiti and other iwi groups consistent in their opposition to the marina proposal from the start and made many submissions and appeals.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The reasons for the iwi groups’ opposition to the marina were extensive, and included the following concerns: that the marina would destroy traditional fishing grounds due to significant and ongoing dredging of the channel where their kaimoana grounds are, a lack of respect of the ancestral ties to Moanaanuanu Estuary and Whangamata Harbour, destruction of wetlands which are important to bird life and the endangered moko skink, and removal of public access to the beach.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next milestone of the marina was March 2006, when the then Minister of Conservation refused consent. His decision was judicially reviewed by the marina developers and sent back to him, then passed on to the then Environment Minister in the interests of transparency. He allowed the marina to go ahead in December 2006 provided that strict conditions were met regarding containment of dredged materials during construction and monitoring of the world famous surf break at the estuary's entrance. In the first half of 2008, there were several changes to the proposal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Approximately 30 Hauraki Maori and community members occupied the proposed car park area of the marina for 18 <span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">days in July 2008 until they received assurance from Environment Minister Trevor Mallard that he would review the consent process</span>. One of the reasons they felt occupation as necessary was to raise awareness about the changes to the marina development over recent months that the community had not been privy to because they were all processed on a non-notified basis. Spokesperson Nathan Kennedy [Ng<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">ā</span>ti Wh<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">ā</span>naunga] was quoted as asking, “what happened to access for all under the Foreshore and Seabed legislation?”</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When the marina was built, Waitangi Tribunal Claim Wai 262 had not yet been completed. This is a wide-ranging claim about the management, use, and commercialisation of indigenous flora and fauna, and thus may have had impact on what happened in Whangamata.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sadly, the outcome of the occupation was that in September of 2008 the marina society began construction without all obligations being met. Several rare species were displaced or exterminated for the development, including the rare </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moko_skink" title="Moko skink"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oligosoma moco</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> skink. The marina opened in November 2009.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>Juliet Thomberson</strong></span></div>International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7662679613616018984.post-26414420880505699432012-07-24T15:07:00.000-07:002012-07-24T15:07:00.744-07:00The Revolution in Syria is rooted in popular uprising<strong>by Alex Callinicos</strong><br />
<br />
<strong>The past few days may have seen the balance of forces tilt decisively against Bashar al-Assad and his regime. Paradoxically, a significant section of the Western left seems to have tilted as decisively in their favour.</strong><br />
<br />
Take, for example, a widely circulated <a href="http://stopwar.org.uk/index.php/tariq-ali-what-is-really-happening-in-syria">interview with Tariq Ali</a>, where he claims that the struggle in Syria is part of “a new process of recolonisation”. Although I have great respect and affection for Tariq, I think this is nonsense.<br />
<br />
Undoubtedly, the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 did lead to the country’s temporary recolonisation, under a “Coalition Provisional Authority” headed by a Washington-appointed neoconservative. <br />
<br />
But the resistance to the occupation meant this project badly rebounded on its authors. The new regime created by US military power ultimately forced it to withdraw its forces from Iraq.<br />
<br />
The idea that Syria is being “recolonised” implies that it is a long-standing Western priority to remove the Assad regime. But there is no evidence of this. Under Bashar’s father Hafez, the Syrian state established itself as a brutal but reliable capitalist manager.<br />
<br />
Undoubtedly the outbreak of the Syrian revolution has encouraged the regime’s regional opponents to seize on the opportunity to replace it with something more congenial. <br />
<br />
This is particularly true of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, whose Sunni Muslim rulers dislike the Assads’ roots in what they regard as the heretical Alawi sect and Syria’s alliance with Shia Iran.<br />
<br />
There is plenty of evidence that the Gulf states have been supplying arms to some of the forces fighting the regime. And the West has stepped in to call for Assad’s removal. <br />
<br />
But the chances that the US and Britain will follow this up by sending troops to Syria, or even providing air cover to the rebels as they did in Libya, are remote.<br />
<br />
<span class="crosshead"><strong>Debacle</strong></span><br />
<br />
This is partly because they are scared of repeating the Iraq debacle. But it is also because of the support Russia is giving the Assad regime, its last ally in the Middle East.<br />
<br />
Elsewhere in the interview Tariq says that the Syrian people want neither the Western-backed Syrian National Council nor the Assad regime. I think this is probably true, at least of the majority.<br />
But where is this majority? There is considerable evidence that very large numbers of people are demonstrating against the regime, and sometimes fighting it, but don’t call for Western intervention.<br />
In recent weeks the revolution has spread to the two biggest cities, Aleppo and Damascus. Rebel fighters have tried unsuccessfully to seize the centres of both cities. <br />
<br />
Are Tariq and those who agree with him sure that these are all puppets of the US and the Gulf reactionaries? If so, they are being betrayed by their masters, since the regime's forces have been able to beat them back because they lack tanks and heavy weapons.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, the evidence is that the regime is now taking heavy casualties—and not just thanks to spectaculars such as last week’s bomb that took out several of Assad’s top cronies. <br />
<br />
The fighting bears all the hallmarks of an improvised and desperate armed rising. We can argue over whether it was wise politically for the rebels to militarise their struggle so quickly. We may regret the absence of the independent working class action that has been so important in the Egyptian revolution. <br />
But the way that its Syrian counterpart has so rapidly developed into a civil war doesn’t alter the fact that its roots lie in popular revolt.<br />
<br />
One thing the Arab revolutions have revealed is that much of the left in the region is politically dead. The best evidence is provided by those elements in the Egyptian Communist Party who backed the military candidate, Ahmed Shafiq, in the recent presidential elections. <br />
<br />
Those in the Western left who allow a reflexive and unthinking “anti-imperialism” to set them against the Syrian revolution are simply confessing their own bankruptcy.<br />
<br />
[<em><a href="http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=29191">This article first appeared in Socialist Worker UK</a>]</em>International Socialistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03727202551591973045noreply@blogger.com