Labour sells out workers’ rights
While the Ardern government has delivered tangible reforms in favour of ordinary people, a good part of the promised or announced reform programme has not been put into effect. It’s either delay – the subject area has been farmed out to a working group – or the reform entails legislation that has not yet gone […]
Politics at Pride, not police!
Pride is political again! All wings of the LGBTQ community seem to be in agreement on that. Calls to put debates to one side and delegate decisions to a “board” or to common sense are gone, replaced with hui in which the issue of cops at our parade can be discussed in lively detail. Not […]
United NZEI and PPTA Action Can Win
James Crichton, chief of the Employment Relations Authority, says our claim is unrealistic. What rubbish! Our teachers’ claim of 16 percent over two years is fully justified to make a teaching career an attractive option. Crichton knows nothing of the reality of being a teacher in an under-funded system – always under stress, never having […]
The strike revival
Strike statistics are useful for assessing the state of workers’ militancy. Fortunately section 98 of the Employment Relations Act requires information to be submitted to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) after every strike or lockout. This source provides statistics up to and including 2017. For this year, so far, we must rely […]
Criminal Injustice: Racist Cruelty
Nine years of National rule has left a cruel and brutalising legacy in New Zealand’s criminal justice system. Last year the prison population reached 10,100, an all-time high. The number of people incarcerated has increased by 364 percent in the last 30 years, according to researcher Roger Brooking. The system is racist. Over half of […]
Wellington: back the bus drivers!
Hundreds of Wellington region bus drivers in the Tramways Union have voted for an ongoing strike from 23 October. Three bus companies that operate in the region may be affected: NZ Bus, Tranzit and Uzabus. Since the regional council awarded a large chunk of routes to Tranzit, drivers have lost their jobs or work under […]
Fraser High students aren’t losers – solidarity is a life skill
Are students who wag school “already statistics of the worst kind”? That’s what one Hamilton principal told her school. Many students didn’t agree, so they organised a walkout the following week. Unlike so-called left commentators like Chris Trotter and right-wing scum bags like Mike Hosking (he called the kids entitled little snots), we think the […]
Kua tae te wā: it’s time to escalate our strikes
On my way into Wellington this morning I wondered how many primary teachers and principals would heed their union’s call to take part in the area march and rally at Parliament, and how many would take the opportunity for a well-deserved day of relaxation. I need not have worried about the level of commitment, the […]
Nurses show the way
Rank and file nurses, midwives and health workers across the country have showed us the way forward. By speaking out – via Facebook, in face-to-face meetings, by all sorts of media – by marching in protest and, above all, by taking strike action in July, the first in over twenty years, they made health a […]
Far Right Routed in Auckland
Attempts by far right hate groups to organise a movement in Aotearoa have suffered a heavy blow after the united efforts of the radical left and concerned community groups this weekend. A speaking event by alt-right personalities Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux was cancelled following protests, and a rally for supporters of the British right-wing […]
