Make the pay freeze a dead letter
On Wednesday 5 May, the government announced a pay freeze for public sector workers. Pay, already frozen in 2020 to June this year, will continue to be frozen for another three years. Staff earning over $100,000 will not receive a pay rise at all over this period. For workers earning between $60,000 and $100,000 the […]
Tramways Union Threatens Wellington Bus Strike
On 14 April Tramways Union members working for NZ Bus in Wellington voted 204 to 2 for industrial action. Action could be called any time soon, but under the anti-worker Employment Relations Act the union must give the employer 24 hours’ notice, thus giving a little time for NZ Bus to organise to limit disruption, […]
Political Attempts to Redirect Protest Energy
The first School Strike 4 Climate marches of 2021 were a fantastic show by young people that they are still angry, and that they recognise politicians have not moved anywhere near far enough to address climate change. Led by high school students, 13 marches were organised across New Zealand on 9th April, giving thousands of […]
Wellington Pride 2021
On Saturday morning 27 March 2021, as the Wellington clouds rolled back and the morning drizzle cleared, about 500 of Wellington’s LGBTQIA+ community gathered at Frank Kitts Park for the Pride Hīkoi. This community event was the culmination of a two-week Wellington Pride Festival, a community-led celebration of rainbow identity. According to the Festival website, […]
Labour’s 23 March Housing Announcement
The housing crisis is without doubt the most grievous of Labour’s failings. Super-inflated rents and mortgages are claiming ever greater portions of incomes. Inequality is worsened as workers are bled dry by landlords and the banks. Every day the media carry news items on the crisis. To deflect responsibility falling on her government, Ardern claims […]
What Karl Marx learned from the Paris Commune
Well before the Paris Commune, in the German Ideology and “Theses on Feuerbach”, both written in the mid-1840s, Karl Marx and his collaborator Frederick Engels argued that it was only through struggle that the mass of workers and oppressed could come to see their own power, throw off the ideas of capitalism and become capable of founding […]
Celebrating the Paris Commune of 1871
“The workers of Paris, amidst the failures and treasons of the ruling classes, have understood that the hour has struck for them to save the situation by taking into their own hands the direction of public affairs … They have understood that it is their imperious duty, and their absolute right, to render themselves masters […]
A Short History of Uighur Resistance
In a by now familiar pattern, Grayzone has taken up the cause of a powerful and oppressive state against a weaker enemy using a geopolitical litmus test. Since the USA has invaded and occupied dozens of Third World countries for over two hundred years, there’s no point in taking the side of any oppressed nationality […]
Ōtepoti Protest against Myanmar Coup
Mandalay demonstration “Free! Free! Free our leaders! Free! Free! Free all activists!” Around 60 people, including Myanmar nationals, their friends and families, peace activists and socialists, marched from Ōtepoti/Dunedin’s train station to the Octagon, where organisers took to the stage to speak to the crowd. One woman spoke of this as her first protest action […]
International Women’s Day: Marxism, Gender Oppression, and Liberation
The tone of International Women’s Day on 8 March is generally celebratory. Many organisations from educational institutions, to trade unions to business circles now mark IWD to celebrate and acknowledge the work and leadership that women offer, whether that be in the home or outside. The first IWD was not simply about celebrating. Of even […]
