Tokyo Elections and the Future of the Anti-Nuclear Movement
What to make of the Tokyo gubernatorial election results? How can we organize a campaign to stop reactivating nuclear power plants that connects the whole country? How effective is the “single-issue” focus? On 9 February, amidst the biggest snowfall in 45 years Tokyo held its gubernatorial election. Only 46.14% of eligible voters turned out, the third lowest turnout on record. […]
Banners on the Beach with Oil Free Otago
As Anadarko’s drilling ship lurks some 60km off Otago’s coast, hundreds flocked, flags flying, to Oil Free Otago’s “Banners on the Beach”. As I approached St Clair beach, walking through one of Dunedin’s more yuppyish suburbs, the only sign of a protest I saw was an airplane trailing a banner that read “pro gas for […]
All the way for equal pay
Kristine Bartlett is a hero. She and her union, the SWFU, are spearheading the fight for equal pay through the courts. Last year Bartlett was in the Employment Court to argue that her miserable $14.46 an hour after 20 years experience as a caregiver breached the Equal Pay Act 1972. Her reasoning was that her […]
No Pride in National
Last Sunday, the Auckland Pride Festival kicked off with the LYC Big Gay Out, a pride event attracting 15,000 people, as well as some politicians. While Gay Pride events have a history stretching back to the Stonewall Riots of 1969, and have been powerful protest actions fighting against homophobia, in recent years such events have […]
Engineers and Servos Ponder Mega-Merger Union
Two of Aotearoa’s largest unions, the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) — my union — and the Service and Food Workers Union (SFWU), may merge early next year. Members of both unions will vote on this in June. With about 56,000 members, a merged union would be by far the largest private sector union […]
Rebuilding Our Unions
Dougal McNeill gave this talk as an introduction to one of the sessions at the ISO’s recent national conference / hui-a-tau, held in Auckland in December. This talk is of necessity arranged in a bitsy, fragmentary, tentative way. That’s because this is the kind of year we’ve had – there has been no single event […]
Web Round-Up: January
A round-up of interesting links and articles from January. The Nasty Nats John Minto profiles Paula Bennett, the politician who wanted all beneficiaries to be subject to invasive blood tests. A picture from summer: John Key is a member of the ruling elite, and nobody should forget this image: two multi-millionaires, forcing austerity policies on […]
Wellington in Solidarity with Egyptian Revolutionaries
January 25th marks three years since Egypt’s revolutionary uprisings ended the rule of Mubarak. Today on four continents protests are happening in solidarity with Egypt’s revolutionaries. We initiated a symbolic picket in Wellington today to link Aotearoa with this global solidarity, and were joined by local anarchists and supporters of the International Bolshevik Tendency. Our […]
Korean Railway Strike – What’s at Stake?
On 31 December, thousands of Korean railway workers returned to work after a three-week strike against government plans to set up a subsidiary company to operate a Korean Train express (KTX) service in competition with the state run Korail. It was the longest railway strike in South Korean history. Korail management and the right wing […]
Daniel Bensaïd’s Slow Impatience
Daniel Bensaïd, An Impatient Life, trans. David Fernbach (Verso, 2013) This absorbing, affecting memoir is a beautiful testament to a richly productive and dignified life. Daniel Bensaïd spent over forty years as a partisan of the revolutionary left in France, writing, campaigning, organising and agitating. Drawn into Communist politics as a young man and then […]
