Union News – Feb 2017
Lyttleton Port Strike On 28 January this website posted a report on the Lyttleton port dispute. This is a brief update. The port company’s legal challenge to the Maritime Union’s strike notice for the Waitangi Day long weekend failed clearing the way for the 3–day strike. The Maritime Union has given notice of a strike […]
Beneficiaries locked out from services
From the 13th of February, Work and Income New Zealand will now demand that you provide a community services card and a valid photo ID such as a passport or driver’s license before being allowed to enter the building. This is nothing less than an abandonment of people in need in New Zealand, preventing them […]
Lyttleton port workers strike
Pushes from the bosses for greater ‘flexibility’ – the idea that workers should be available whenever their employer pleases, without the ability to plan for family and personal time – are coming in all sorts of industries in New Zealand. Maritime Union members in Lyttleton are resisting this at their work, and their cause should […]
Know Your Class Enemy: Graeme Hart
He is New Zealand’s richest man and yet virtually no-one knows about him. Famously recluse and avoiding media attention, Graeme Hart is New Zealand’s most successful vulture capitalist. He is valued by Forbes magazine last year at $11.6 Billion. Beginning life as a high school dropout and working as a panel beater, Hart’s rags to […]
Socialist Summer Reading – the Best of 2016
We asked writers, activists and intellectuals to offer picks from their reading and watching this year for others over the summer. Laura Toailoa If Moana is the example of the commodification of Pacific cultures by a multibillion dollar multinational conglomerate, then Three Wise Cousins is in contrast, what happens when a Pacific film crew pull […]
Rallying for Syria
Around 80 people gathered in Aotea square today in Auckland representing different groups supporting the free peoples of Syria and condemning the barbaric and brutal attacks of Assad and his Russian backers. In Wellington on Friday 30 people held a rally outside the Russian Consul to protest Russia’s involvement in the bombings. The crimes in […]
Making sense of politics in 2016
Andrew Tait gave this presentation to the International Socialist Organisation Hui-a-tau in Auckland last month. 2016, in New Zealand, has not been marked by major struggles or economic disasters or booms. The Key crew, masters anyway of administering sleeping gas, have managed to avoid major scandals or divisions. On the contrary, one of the worst […]
NZ First – no party for workers
Why does anyone ever discuss NZ First as a part of the centre-left? That fact the question even needs asked shows what a sorry state we’re in. And yet it keeps coming up. The mainstream political commentators routinely speculate on Labour-NZ First deals. But more worrying is the way this association has crept into the […]
Blame the bosses – not migrants!
So this month saw the end of Planet Key. Bill English’s ascension gives us an opportunity to survey political possibilities for our movement. There is plenty for workers to feel angry about, and plenty about which the Government has nothing but the feeble excuses. From the housing situation in Auckland to the recent embarrassing back […]
Blethering Bishops’s Bigotry Blockaded
Under the second covenant Jesus died for our sins and God would no longer go around smiting people out of wrath until judgement day. Apparently nobody informed Bishop Brian Tamaki of this. His accusations that LGBT people and their sins are responsible for the Kaikōura earthquake has angered many not only in the Queer community […]
