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January 21, 2012

Occupy Nigeria leads to general strike

Despite its obvious inspiration in the Arab Spring, the global Occupy Movement is most prominent in relatively wealthy countries. This does not mean the movement has not appealed to those in the global south- often Occupy protests have not taken place in these countries because social movements with their own identities were already in progress when people in New York started camping out on Wall Street. Rather than being sneered at however the Occupy Movement has been welcomed as a showing of solidarity. Indian activist Arundati Roy told an audience in New York;
“The Occupy movement has joined thousands of other resistance movements all over the world in which the poorest of people are standing up and stopping the richest corporations in their tracks. Few of us dreamed that we would see you, the people of the United States on our side, trying to do this in the heart of Empire. I don’t know how to communicate the enormity of what this means.”
The show of solidarity with activists in the developing and under developed world could be why socialists and labour activists in Nigeria decided to adopt the name ‘Occupy Nigeria’ for the protests they began in January this year.
Background
There are many reasons for Nigerians to protest. Despite being one of the worlds biggest oil exporters (the largest in Africa) much of the population lives on less than US$2 a day. Corruption is rife in the government, infrastructure is badly maintained and food prices are on the rise. Despite all this, mass protests were not expected by many commentators. “even though Nigeria is just a few hours flight from Egypt or Libya, no one believed for a moment that the winds of change would reach Africa’s most populous nation.” wrote Michael Bociurkiw, a Canadian journalists who was in Nigeria during the Arab Spring.
That all changed when the Nigerian government announced on January 1^st that it was ending a fuel subsidy resulting in a doubling of fuel and transport prices. The result of this was that many Nigerians could not afford to get to work, or power the generators that are relied on because of a blackout prone electricity system, The ending of subsidized fuel was the spark that set things aflame .
Protests and general strike
Following the announcement protesters shut down petrol stations and blockaded highways. Nigerias union movement called for an indefinite general strike on January 9^th. Chris Uyot of the Nigeria Labour Congress told the BBC “We have the total backing of all Nigerian workers on this strike and mass protest”. Thousands gathered daily in Gani Fawehinmi Park in Lagos. The gathering in the park featured speeches by labour leaders and civil society activists, as well as, artists’ performances.
After a week the general strike achieved a partial victory, with president President Goodluck Jonathan announcing a cut in fuel prices, although it fell short of the previous subsidy.

The role of imperialism
The reason behind the ending of fuel subsidies was repaying public debt. Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, visited Nigeria in December and around the same time the World Bank sent its executive director Nguzi Okonjko-Iwela to take over as the country’s finance minister. She was also made co-ordinating minister of the economy, a portfolio created especially for her.
Nigeria has borrowed vast amounts of money to fund the infrastructure required to obtain and export its oil reserves, yet it sees very little of the wealth the stems from the oil industry. Much of the media converge has pointed out the cost the general strike has had to the economy- estimates range in the billions- but rarely is it noted that the average Nigerian hasn’t missed out on any of this money, instead the ones missing out are Shell, Chevron, Agip and Total.
Further reading: Occupy Nigeria Takes On Nigeria’s Occupiers

January 21, 2012

Mana: We Support the Wharfies

“MANA supports wholeheartedly the rights of the wharfies who work for the Port of Auckland,” states MANA leader Hone Harawira. Harawira says “Workers across the country need to wake up and smell the coffee – if the wharfies lose this fight then the casualisation of working hours will become a permanent feature of employment in this country. Everybody who earns a low to middle income job will have to wait by their phones for their boss to call to see if they are working or not, not knowing how many hours they will work and be paid for each week.”
“As a country we should be doing our utmost to back our wharfies. Despite the efforts of National and the country’s media to make this dispute about money, this is all about having reliable and stable employment. The workers want to know that they have a set number of hours per week. If it was about the money why would they only want to settle for a 2.5% pay rise when they are being offered 10%? What I don’t understand is why the workers are being held responsible for risks to the business. Tony Gibson will get his huge salary each week no matter what and the Council wants a 12% return on capital no matter what. It is the wharfies who are expected to pay the price each week if business is down. Under any other business regime, the owner is the one who takes the risk, not the workers!
“As for politicians saying that we should not get involved, what a load of crap. This dispute became political when Rodney Hide set up the appointments of the Board of Directors for the port…
“In 1951 there was a watershed strike involving wharfies. Today we are faced with another defining moment regarding employment rights in this country. Rest assured that if the wharfies lose then this right wing Government will see it as an endorsement to go ahead with the casualisation of hours and it will be another blow to the union movement, a movement that has for so long protected blue collar workers.”

January 20, 2012

#transphobictampons: It's Not Offensive, It's Oppressive

Kassie Hartendorp, Workers Party member and Queer Avenger.
At the end of 2011, an advertisement for Libra tampons was pulled from air after members from the queer community called out the company for its transphobia. Many argued that the company was sending a strong message to those who did not identify as the gender they were assigned at birth, that they were not as ‘authentic’ as their biological counterparts.
The issue was framed as being problematic for only a small amount of ‘oversensitive’ members of the trans community but the advertisement can be linked back to the way that negative images work to oppress many on the gender and sexuality spectrum.
Continue reading “#transphobictampons: It's Not Offensive, It's Oppressive”

January 19, 2012

Auckland event tonight: Victory To The Wharfies

Public meeting: How can we support the Auckland port workers?

Tonight 7:30pm
Trades Hall, 147 Great North Rd, Grey Lynn, Auckland

January 19, 2012

Don’t Talk to Me About Sewing Machines, Talk to Me About Workers’ Rights! A Call to Action for Socialists from a revolutionary hooker

Greta de Graves
The question of how to relate to sex workers (in this article, I will use the term ‘sex worker’ to refer to workers in commercialised sexual encounters, including, but not limited to prostitutes, strippers, go-go dancers, and pornographic actors of all genders) has been a topic of contention for many Marxist and other radical activists, and the New Zealand left has not been exempt from this struggle. The rationales that I have heard as to why the left is often ambivalent towards sex worker struggles are diverse, ranging from “all commercialised sex is inherently sexist and politically incorrect – it is a tactical mistake to ‘normalise’ sex work” to “sex workers are unintelligent and non-political – it would be a waste of our time and energy to politically align ourselves with them.”
Such attitudes (voiced to me by experienced and hard-working activists) are in direct conflict to my experience as a sex worker. My experiences that lead me into the sex industry conformed to every sad stereotype prevalent in popular culture – I was left in a huge amount of debt at the break-up of an unhealthy relationship, and was struggling to come to terms with the suicide of a close friend. I experienced poor mental health and was unable to find work that would allow me to pay off my debts and fit in with my existing job and study. I felt depressed, un-attractive and had a low sex drive. I didn’t believe that anyone would ever love or even sexually desire me – a crazy, neurotic failure – ever again.
And then a friend told me that she was thinking of working as a prostitute – and it occurred to me “well, why couldn’t I do that?” While I had a fairly sheltered upbringing, I had always had a fascination with what I perceived to be the glamorous “underworld” that sex workers occupied. Of course, the reality proved to be far different. In my experience, the vast majority of consumers of commercial sex in New Zealand can only be described as normal. Of different races, different personalities, different apparent socio-economic and educational backgrounds, different ages, some married, some single, but none of them the type society would classify as “deviant,” or who would arouse suspicion in their friends, families and colleagues that they paid for sexual services.
Continue reading “Don’t Talk to Me About Sewing Machines, Talk to Me About Workers’ Rights! A Call to Action for Socialists from a revolutionary hooker”

January 18, 2012

On the party question

This article was first written for internal circulation. We publish it now in light of public discussions among Socialist Worker comrades, partly regarding the party question (Goodbye Lenin? and Towards Ecosocialism.)
On February the 4th 2011, in the lead-up to our partys’ first internal conference of the year, a cross-section of leading comrades posted a statement resigning from the Workers Party. This statement argued that communist ‘party-building’ is impossible in the present conditions. As this statement raises important questions of political line that confront many communist and radical groups, it is necessary to engage with it; ultimately, to justify the very existence of communist organisations.
As the statement asserts that our comrades’ resignations are driven by “bigger and deeper” problems, we will not go into the sordid details of the lead-up to this development. Rather, we will engage directly with the content of their statement, available here.
In short, our comrades assert that given the lack of a mass workers’ movement in New Zealand today, communist party-building is futile. In particular, this affects recruitment:
“Those conditions meant that recruiting workers and progressives into the organisation has been very difficult.”
Continue reading

January 11, 2012

Australia: Baiada Workers Win Strike

Originally posted by the Socialist Party of Australia.

Workers at Baiada Poultry, Australia’s largest chicken supplier, have won their dispute with management after a 13 day strike. The workers stared down bullying, intimidation and police violence without any sign of wavering. It was this determination that forced this rouge employer to retreat and concede to the bulk of their demands.

Primarily the workers were fighting for a union agreement which included a decent pay rise, job security and improvements to health and safety – particularly they wanted an end to the constant bullying and harassment that takes place on a daily basis.

Continue reading “Australia: Baiada Workers Win Strike”

December 29, 2011

ANZCO Lockout Ends

On Thursday the 22nd of December, after nearly 3 months locked out, workers at meatworks ANZCO-CMP Rangitikei voted to return to work.

A corporation jointly owned by New Zealand and overseas investors, ANZCO aimed to cut costs and smash the Meat Workers Union. A week before the lockout began, letters were sent to all union members onsite demanding they accept pay cuts of 20-30%, and leave the union, before returning to work. While a significant number accepted the pay cuts, 111 workers refused, including many of the skilled workers onsite. The union took a position of accepting 10% pay cuts which the company did not accept.

The decision to stand strong against a brutally exploitative local corporation inspired nationwide solidarity efforts. While the Maritime Union was the only major union to make significant financial contributions from the start, community efforts as far south as Invercargill and as far north as Whangarei raised up to $46,000 p/w, exceeding the CTU target of $25,000. Even this number was meagre when divided up between families, but solidarity efforts did a lot to boost morale.

After negotiations repeatedly broke down, Council of Trade Unions head Helen Kelly was drafted in to mediate. Just before Christmas, the negotiating team recommended a deal with reduced pay-cuts and without some of the former cuts to conditions. With the site becoming increasingly split, workers voted to return.

We will publish an analytical article in the February edition of the Spark. In the coming months it is crucial that radicals consider and debate the significance of this struggle.