Invercargill Pak’n’Save workers protest!
On Saturday and Sunday workers at Pak ‘n’ Save Invercargill protested outside their workplace against low wages and workplace bullying. To a chorus of supportive car horns and megaphone siren blasts, the workers led a noisy picket alongside trade unionists, socialist activists and supporters from throughout the community. The issues at stake are simple. Some […]
Local democracy under new attack
National’s and ACT’s long-running plans to cut out the district level of local government and institute Auckland-style regional supercities hit the buffers in 2015. Their local government reorganisation programme has been run through the government-appointed Local Government Commission. In June the Commission dropped supercity plans for the Wellington and Northland regions after it saw the […]
The Listener doesn’t love larrikins
“How do you feel about streakers at football games?” Rachel Smalley asked recently in the New Zealand Herald. “A bit of fun? Or idiots after their moment in the sun? Or worse, perhaps?” She was responding to an Eden Park streaker who was, he says, punched several times by a security guard once he was […]
Once again on Pride
There is an old retort amongst homphobic know-alls that “if we should have gay pride then it must follow that there should be room and acceptability for straight pride”. This claim is absurd and the reason for its absurdity is readily apparent and illustrates so well the failure of Pride 2016. Our pride in being […]
Defeat the Bill! The struggle against the Employment Contracts Bill, 1991
‘We’ll need to go on strike, an ongoing strike.’ That’s how Jane Otuafi, a delegate in the Engineers’ Union, responded in March 1991 to the recently elected National government’s plan for an Employment Contracts Act. [1] ‘A general strike is the only answer,’ job delegate Sa Leutele of the Northern Distribution Union agreed. ‘I’ve had […]
The Cruel Irony of Pride
I sat down to talk with a couple of No Pride In Prison (NPIP) members as they tried to get a respite from their scrum with the police. One of them tells me “pride has historically been a protest and to deny protest for the rights of queer and trans people where it began in […]
We Back the Bus Drivers!
Gowan Ditchburn and Josh O’Sullivan joined bus drivers at yesterday’s strike in Auckland. Stress and Fatigue at Central Depot I got to the bus depot just before 9am. A few workers stood outside the gates blocking the exit with their cars, a dozen or so placards on the fence. I ask one worker how the […]
Review: Love’s Labour’s Lost
Love’s Labour’s Lost, directed by Ania Upstill. The Dell, Wellington Botanic Gardens until 27 February. Tickets here. The scene is set for a pitched battle at Ania Upstill’s Summer Shakespeare production of Loves’ Labours Lost. We sit along a thrust stage, or rather lawn. At one end sits the stuffy pomp of the Court of […]
Māori struggles and the TPPA
Earlier this month the blessings of Ranginui washed the hikoi as it made its way to the powhiri at Te Tii Marae at Waitangi in the midst of pouring rain. Around 200 people assembled. Some had made the long march from Northland to Auckland and back, others, like us, joined after the massive anti TPPA […]
From Slaveholders to Sanders: A Brief History of the Democratic Party
American socialist Bill Crane – in an article first published at RS21 – provides a brief history of the Democratic Party from its inception to the present, and asks how revolutionaries might relate to the movement behind presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. The US Democratic Party is the oldest surviving modern political party.[1] In its longer than two centuries’ […]
