News roundup from Aotearoa/NZ

canterbury health workers win partial victory

Two thousand health workers in Canterbury recently won a 10% pay increase and better work conditions after calling off an unprecedented 15 day strike. The dispute between the health workers and the Canterbury District Health Board had been going on for about seven months, and included a 48 hour strike late last year. One good thing about the proposed action by the health workers was that it was supported by 250 senior clinicians. However, most doctors refused to give solidarity to the nurses and midwives and instead sided with their bosses - hardly surprising perhaps given that they are middle class.
What was remarkable about the threatened strike was the hysteria of many bosses over the action. For example, the Mayor of Christchurch, Garry Moore, called it "tantamount to a civil emergency"!
Since both Labour and National governments have "restructured" (ie. tried to privatise) the state owned health sector, health workers have found themselves facing much worse conditions. They are generally over-worked, under staffed and treated something awful by bureaucratic management (who are paid very nicely for doing very little). To cap it all, the workers aren't well paid at all. Most health workers find themselves in pretty shocking conditions up and down the country, not just in Canterbury. It looks likely that 5,500 nurses in Auckland might go out on strike after being offered a mere 2% wage rise recently. The proposed strike is also in response to the government ordering health managers to cut spending at Auckland hospitals.
Strike activity in Aotearoa is at an all time low (see graph) despite a vicious ruling class offensive since 1984 on our standard of living. Bosses have had it too good at our expense for too long. Let's hope that other workers take a leaf out of the health workers book.

CONTENTS

from argentina to aotearoa

anti-capitalist uprising in argentina: an analogy

organising against capitalism in the 21st century

conference report

anarchy in the r.k

bac to smog

the 24 milion dollar minute

war is terrorism

aotearoa news round up

bloody typical…

Hundreds of thousands of dollars of genetically engineered (GE) potatoes were destroyed at Lincoln (near Christchurch) on Jan. 10 by an anonymous anti GE group. Green Party co-leader and MP Jeanette Fitzsimons immediately condemned the attack on the spuds. Perhaps the Greens only want direct action over GE when it is directed by Green Party bureaucrats to gain publicity at election time, like the last crop raid?

argentina solidarity demo

.On Friday 18th January around twenty people picketed the United States Consulate General in Auckland for an hour and a half in a show of solidarity with the anti-capitalist rebellion in Argentina. The protest was called by the Anti-Imperialist Coalition, a collection of individuals and groups formed last September, and attracted several Argentinean nationals, whose eyewitness reports of the struggles in their homeland were greatly appreciated by picketers. Speakers at the picket stressed the international nature of support for the anti-capitalist rebellion, and highlighted the danger of US-backed military intervention. Parallels were drawn between the IMF's role in bankrupting Argentina and the institution of anti-working class neoliberal and Blairite economic policies in Aotearoa/New Zealand over the past decade and a half.

Quote of the month:

"Humanity shall not liberate itself by slicing itself up, like liberated poles to mark their borders. Revolution means going beyond all borders. It means superseding womanhood as well as manhood. Individuals getting private control over their lives, even over something as vital as their own bodies, is not a solution in itself. The only true solution is to create with others (of both sexes) relationships of a different nature, where one no longer fears nor risks domination. The point is not for women to be free of men, but free with them. The goal is not for each person to declare his or her independence, but each may stop fearfully refusing to be dependent, interdependent. Liberty is a relationship."
For A World Without Moral Order (1998).