Ports of Auckland signs agreement with scab union PortPro

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.

This is a setback for the Maritime Union, which has been trying to negotiate a new collective agreement since August of 2011. Even the National Business Review is questioning whether the move by the Port of Auckland is legal or not, as it is surely aimed at undermining MUNZ's position:

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.

"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.

"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."

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. 

This is how it is described by a Ports of Auckland press release:

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.

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. 

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 fewer deaths on the job :

The number 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.

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.

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 won a nine week long strike.

Needless Tragedies: Deaths at Port of Tauranga since December 2010

Walter Crosa 49 – father

15 Aug 2011

“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.”

Brian Shannon 61

June 2011

“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.”

Chinese seaman 35 (not named)

December 17th 2010

“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.”

There was also a death at the port in 2003.There have been no deaths at the Port of Auckland during this period. 

[Source: MUNZ/CTU fact sheet]

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Will MUNZ strike back?

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.

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 unload scab ships:

“Bosses at Wellington's Centreport applied for an injunction from the Employment Court after a small number of staff on Friday and Saturday refused to work on a ship that had recently arrived from Auckland.”

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 explains that:

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.

“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.”

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. 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.

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.

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. A victory for MUNZ in which a contact with good terms and conditions are kept should not be passed on to the scab union.

Derwin Smith

Auckland bus drivers’ spirit prevails over dead hand of union officialdom

Three weeks ago this blog had a post titled ‘Rebellion of the Rank and File’. 

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. 

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.

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. 

It is not yet known what action the two unions will take now. But the story of this dispute is still unfolding.

The story begins with 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. 

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.

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.)

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!

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. 

A press release put out later by NZ Bus is enlightening. It says that after the deal was reached “The union executive even shouted the company a beer after signing the terms of settlement to celebrate reaching agreement.” 

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.

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. 

The vote by the rank and file was a slap in the face to the union officials and the CTU. 3 News 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." 

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.

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.

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.”

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.

According to First Union the ballot result was 51% to 49% to reject on a high turnout. 

It shows the drivers' determination that despite the demoralising antics of the union officials, the second deal was thrown out. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

Martin Gregory

Syria's Revolution: Bloodied but Unbowed

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 Socialist Review (UK) that the revolution remains popular, non-sectarian and led by Syrians themselves, despite the claims of some commentators

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.

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.

Bloody repression

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

July offensive

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Independence of the revolution

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sectarian civil war?

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.

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.

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.

Arab revolutions

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.

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.

[This article, by Simon Assaf, first appeared in Socialist Review UK. For useful updates on politics in the Middle East from a revolutionary socialist perspective follow @SWAssaf  on Twitter]

Protesting National's War on the Poor

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.”

As unemployment began to rise in the 90s, so did the attacks on beneficiaries and workers. These included “dob-in-your-neighbour'' adverts for beneficiary fraud and the idea of inter-generational “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.

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.

“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 Treen Exposing Right Wing Lies)

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.

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 hardship rates rose from 15% in 2007 to 21% in 2011.

Why cut welfare? 

"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." Mike Treen Exposing Right Wing Lies.

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.

Keeping welfare high keeps people spending and less desperate for work in times of recession, thus keeping wages higher.

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 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.

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.

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.

Rowan MacArthur

Remembering Eric Hobsbawm

Ian Birchall looks back on the life of Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, who has died aged 95

Eric Hobsbawm, who died on Monday of this week was one of the most remarkable historians of the 20th century.

After a childhood in Vienna, he moved with his family to Berlin. Recently he wrote a vivid account 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.

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.

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.”

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”.

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.

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).

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.

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.

Scholarly

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.

In contrast to many celebrity historians, Hobsbawm didn’t exploit his academic status to shout his mouth off over things he knew nothing.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Childish smears of this sort may be disregarded. But a real problem remains.

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.

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.

Wedded

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“Straightforward, economist trade union consciousness may at times actually set workers against each other rather than establish wider patterns of solidarity,” he wrote.

Challenged

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.

“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.

“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.”

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.

His argument helped to foment the dispute between open reformists (known as “Eurocommunists”) and unrepentant Stalinists that finally destroyed the Communist Party.

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.

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”.

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”.

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 prophesiedthat there would be more “nationalist stuff” in English history.

He added that “the whole function of history is precisely to be a pain in the arse for national myths”.

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.

[This obituary was first published at Socialist Worker UK]

ANZUS? No going back

[Mass protests forced a nuclear-free policy on Lange. We need to rediscover this tradition.]

There was a flurry of news recently about the US and NZ building “better relations” as Leon Panetta, the US secretary of Defence, visited the country. 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.

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?

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 Don Brash or John Key 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.

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 to prop up corrupt governments that protect the profits of NZ, Aus, and US corporations.

['Why, I can smile; and murder while I smile']

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.

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.

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.

 Derwin Smith