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Tuesday, 20 April 2010 20:02 |
John Key said last year there would be no rise in the minimum wage. This year we won a 25c an hour rise. That is a
$52 MILLION PAYOUT
for 100,000 workers on the minimum wage
We had to ask for $15 an hour to get the rise to $12.75. If we hadn’t, chances are it would have been cut. Unite is a small fast food workers union. We were able to get more than half the 300,000 signatures needed for the referendum.
That’s means each signature netted roughly $289 and each activist won a staggering $350,000!
Just imagine what we could achieve If the Council of Trade Unions had backed the campaign. Organise at work in your union and ask for more. Unite shows how
If you don’t fight, you lose
Thousands of Dunedin people supported the campaign. Come and celebrate at the May Day rally in the Octagon at 2pm.
MAY 1 IS INTERNATIONAL WORKERS DAY |
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Wednesday, 31 March 2010 11:27 |
The Crossroads of Asia
Since the earliest times, Afghanistan has been the crossroads of the world - for trade and for war. In the 1800s, Britain and Russia clashed here for control of Asia, and the Afghan people were the pawns. From the earliest days of New Zealand's existence, troops have been sent from here to fight for imperialism - in Afghanistan in 1842.
Soviet invasion
In modern times too, Afghanistan has been used as political football. A precarious independence, balanced between the US and the USSR, ended in 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded, killing between 700,000 and 2 million civilians.The invasion brought 10 years of war upon the country. This ravaged everything Afghanistan had built up: tourism, agriculture and education. The US funded and armed Islamist warlords, including Osama Bin Laden to bleed the USSR dry. The Afghan people were the pawns in this so-called "great game". In 'The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives' former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote: "Ever since the continents started interacting politically, some 500 years ago, Eurasia has been the center of world power." The key to controlling this vast area of the world is Central Asia. "What is most important to the history of the world?" asked Brzezinski. "The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet Empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of central Europe ...?" Afghanistan, the graveyard of the Soviet empire, was abandoned to savage warlord rule. So awful were the warlords that the medievalist Taliban appeared to offer progress to many Afghans.
US invasion
But it is impossible in this interconnected world to tear a country apart and expect to walk away. On September 11, 2001, former US allies flew planes into the World Trade Center and offered the US the chance to play the great game again. The US invaded Afghanistan easily by playing off the smaller northern tribes against the Pashtun. The US installed Hamid Karzai as a president without support or any hope of surviving a US withdrawal. The US has not invaded Afghanistan to develop it but to stop the emergence of a competitor power in Eurasia. Impoverished, wartorn Afghanistan offers them the key to control. New Zealanders, to our shame, are playing a part in crushing again a crippled people.
For a brighter future
Afghanistan is not a basket case. There is much that can be done to reverse its poverty, desperation, and dominance by warlords.
1) Make Afghan opium production legal: Opiates are essential to modern medicine and are in short supply in the third world. The UK and Australia are licensed to produce opium for the pharmaceutical companies. Their licences should be revoked and given to Afghan farmers.
2) War reparations: All countries that have invaded or promoted war through arms supply - notably Russia and the USA, but including bit-players like Saudi Arabia - should pay reparations. These should be used to fund Western-level medical care for war victims and to rebuild infrastructure destroyed.
3) Open borders: Afghanistan's future is as a trading hub and borders must be opened to allow this.
4) For refugees too: Afghans must be granted the right to settle, study and work in all western countries, so they can develop their potential to the full to contribute to national reconstruction.
5) Foreign troops out! The precondition for Afghan development is Afghan liberty. The only force that can guarantee this is the international working class. By protesting the war we are playing our own, very small part, in forcing our government to pursue the path of development, not destruction. There is much more we can do if we organise. If you agree with this, then join the International Socialists. |
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Wednesday, 31 March 2010 10:19 |
The Otago Daily Times reported today that the Gardens Tavern, a popular student pub at the Botanic Garden end of Castle St, has been sold to the University of Otago. It is unlikely to continue operating as a pub.
After a decade or so of marketing itself as the "party university" and turning a blind eye to aggressive alcoholic recruitment campaigns by the beer companies, Otago has rediscovered its Calvinist roots.
Last year, it bought another popular student pub, the 'Bowler' for research and teaching space. The same is likely to happen to the Gardies, and with it, yet another recreational space will be lost to students.
We don't glorify the unhealthy drinking culture of many students but we do put them in the context of a culture that is framed by the University, the DCC, landlords and we, unlike the university have a plan to fix it.
The commercialisation of the university has degraded educational quality, and ramped up financial and time pressure on them. Students have no sense of obligation to uni management, the slumlords, or the DCC
To reverse the destructive drinking culture it is necessary for students to regain a sense of ownership and control of their university experience. The sale of Gardies is an excellent opportunity for OUSA to intervene directly into this culture. Gardies would provide a base in the heart of the student area to provide a safe venue for bands, meetings, as well as drinking. It would be a hub that great street parties could be built around. It would give students ownership of the campus area.
Given the growth in the student roll since the Clubs and Societies Building was made, it is past time for OUSA to reinvest in student recreation. The University should pass ownership of the Gardies to the student association as soon as possible. |
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Monday, 01 March 2010 10:02 |
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One hundred years ago, universities were the preserve of the rich. In the 1950s and 60s this was changed forever. To meet the demands of a modern economy universities were transformed into vast factories churning out thousands of graduates for employment in industry, health and education. This fact, with the consequent pressure to complete degrees in the allotted timeframe, to combine working and studying and to minimize the dreaded student loan, is what dominates university life today. Join the discussion - all welcome. 7.30pm Thursday March 4, Otago Room, Clubs and Societies Building, Albany St, Dunedin |
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