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Casualisation: real jobs and con jobs

– Don Franks

For those of us in the working class, few things are more important than having a real job. A real job produces stable predictable earnings. It pays enough for us to support ourselves and our dependants, with a bit left over for some luxuries, savings and fun. A real job is also a big part of our social life. For many people their workplace is a sort of secondary family; in some cases the community of an individual’s job provides their main social connections. In every case a proper job gives us a feeling of social worth, a feeling that we belong, and that we count for something because others count on us.

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The Kind Governor

– Don Franks

(wsws.org commentary on the economy: “spokesmen for the ruling elite have been quick to demand workers tighten their belts and lower their wage demands, despite the steep increase in the cost of living. Reserve Bank Governor Bollard first issued the call in early June, bluntly saying that any “over-exuberance” when it came to wage negotiations this year would meet with a response from the central bank, probably in the form of interest rate rises.”)

Prices are going up,
You know the drill
We’re going to be hungry and feel the chill
So
How do our societies experts
Advise those with blue collars on our opshop shirts?

Reserve Bank Governor Bollard says wage claims should not show “over exuberance”
Or they’d invite a swift kick in the pants
A bit of exuberance then, must be alright
A dose first thing each morning
And one more again at night

Myself, I’ve never had an exuberant wage claim
All the ones that I remember were pretty much the same
Small, infrequent and a lot less than I needed
Each time I struck, negotiated, asked or pleaded

Exuberant means “prolific”, “overflowing”, “luxuriant”,
“Abundant.”
The opposite to falling back or being made redundant
Ordinarily exuberant will do me very well, so thanks, I”ll take it
“Over exuberance” would make me sick, without the need to fake it.
So let us raise a cheer for Governor Bollard of the Bank!
And perish all suspicion that he isn’t being frank.

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Why socialists oppose GST

We publish below a talk given by Philip Ferguson at a recent Christchurch Workers Party forum.  It is an expanded and updated version of an article originally published in the Spark in 2005 available here.

Most of the parliamentary parties favour tax cuts both for individuals and companies. Indeed, under Labour there has been a small cut in company tax and also tax credits for companies investing in R&D – and, in the latest budget, some personal tax cuts. Although the personal tax cuts are presented in a populist way, as if they would benefit workers, these parties vigorously oppose measures such as substantial increases to the minimum wage, serious across-the-board wage rises and increases in welfare payments to keep up with inflation, let alone living real wages and incomes for people on benefits. And all the parliamentary parties oppose the abolition of GST.

During the upcoming election campaign, one of the minimum platform points of the Workers Party will be demanding the abolition of GST, something that would be done by any government with even a token desire to make life a little easier for workers, especially the poorest workers.

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Capitalism: not our future!

– John Edmundson

One thing we’re supposed to value about living in the capitalist West is “choice”. We can choose our representatives, we can choose where to work, we can choose how to spend our money.

Socialists, including myself, often argue that those choices are an illusion for most people. Under capitalism, real choice exists only for capitalists. So it’s interesting to think about how quickly the capitalists hide behind lack of choice. Margaret Thatcher famously announced “there is no alternative” to ruthless neo-liberal restructuring, the slashing of jobs and wages, and the gutting of British industry. Successive Labour and National governments here have parroted the same line.

This month two of the poor suffering oil companies, Caltex and BP, complained that they had no choice but to put up petrol prices by a second six-cent hike in the space of two days. The first six-cent increase of the week involved all the oil companies. Blaming market forces beyond their control, they announced that the market robbed the oil companies of choice. Shell held out for a few hours before raising its price by four cents. The others quickly followed suit.

Recent discoveries by oil exploration companies off the southern coast of New Zealand means that within a few years New Zealand could be self-sufficient in oil. Will this mean cheaper oil for us? Well, no, actually. The oil will be sold at market prices. The oil companies have no choice.

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Tranz Rail buyback: why they did it

– John Edmundson

On May 5 this year the Government announced that it had completed negotiations with Toll Holdings to repurchase the rail and ferry business sold by the Bolger National government in 1993. For some, this has been seen as a great blow against the post-1984 neoliberal onslaught, characterised by a string of restructuring and asset sales carried out by successive Labour and National governments.

There is no question that the decline of rail in New Zealand has been a sorry tale. Prior to the 1984 election, Richard Prebble toured the nation, stopping in at railway workshops around the country, promising to “Save Rail”. Once in power, he revealed what that actually meant. NZ Rail slashed staff and services. Thousands of workers, and many communities, were devastated by the reforms.

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A handful of rice

Japan is about to send 20,000 tonnes of rice to five African countries, according to a report in the May 23rd Dominion Post. This contribution to help ease the global food crisis sounds generous. In fact, Japan’s present stockpile of surplus rice amounts to 2.23 million tonnes. Japan’s donation to Africa is less than one percent of their surplus.As the feature article in the June issue of the Spark, “Lies and truth about Food Prices” makes clear, there is no global food shortage. There is only a shortage of political will to fix the problem.

Capitalist countries fear that rebellion from desperate starving people will disrupt their profit making. That’s why they’ve been driven to toss a few crumbs in the direction of those in want. But those few crumbs are as far as capitalism will go. The history of the capitalist system is a history of starvation in the midst of plenty. During the potatoe famine, Ireland exported food. During the great depression, mountains of fruit were destroyed while American sharecroppers went hungry. As long as the capitalist system operates, profit will be put before every human need, including the need of poor people to eat.

The Spark is produced as a part of the international struggle to destroy the inhuman system of capitalism and replace it with a planed democratic society run by working people.

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The budget – funded by workers, controlled by the bosses

Jared Phillips reviews some aspects of the 2008 budget and the response to it from a Marxist perspective

The qualification threshold for the top tax bracket has changed from $60,000 to $80,000, which provides some relief for the middle class,which is where Labour draws its support from. The media has seized on the fact that this might help prevent middle-New Zealand’s political migration to National. Those earning an annual $80,000 will have a weekly after-tax increase of $28 in Ocotber. For working people the tax cuts provide little relief. For those earning an annual $20,000- $30,000, after-tax weekly income will increase by $12 in October. Social Issues reporter Simon Collins has noted that in terms of percentage changes, lower income earners are in fact receiving bigger cuts with a 5.7 percent cut at 20,000, a 3.3 percent cut at 50,000, and a 3.6 percent at $80,000. While this percentaging won’t provide any comfort for those living on the hardest incomes and receiving lower dollar-amount tax cuts, it does help illustrate that increased incomes and wages, not tax cuts, have more relevance for the restoration of real incomes, and that this budget has done nothing to lift the abysmal income of beneficiaries.

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A Teacher for Peter Conway?

– Don Franks

NZ Council of Trade Unions economist Peter Conway’s reponse to the Budget included a request for the minimum wage to be $15 an hour. However, the bulk of his statement was fulsome praise for Labour’s “timely” “positive initiatives”. Peter summed up the government’s record: ” In other words it has been a comprehensive and balanced approach to economic management.”

By contrast, spokeswoman for the Child Poverty Action Group, Susan St John flayed Labour¹s brutal treatment of the poor. After the budget Susan St John noted:

“Forgotten and invisible are the 200,000 children and their parents who eke out a subsistence living on benefits, propped up by a variety of income and asset tested, stigmatising special hardship payments, loans from Work and Income as well as from high-cost loan sharks. Do the needs of these families not count as much as the needs of those over 65? The relativity with net wages for those on sickness, sole parent and other benefits has been falling for some time. This Budget amplifies that fall, pushing these families further to the margins of society outside the normal standards of the community.

“It is greatly disappointing that the Government has not grasped what welfare groups, churches, doctors and nurse have been saying, in an increasingly agitated way about child poverty. Our child health statistics are appalling for a developed country and can clearly be sheeted home to the effects of poverty. How much louder do the voice have to be? Clearly, no one has been listening in this budget.”

Susan St John is also an Auckland University senior economics lecturer. CTU economist Peter Conway might benefit from attending her classes.

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Lies and truth about food prices

– John Edmundson

Nobody trying to pay their bills recently could have failed to notice the way basic foods have increased in price. In New Zealand, we’ve suffered massive increases in the price of staple items like bread, milk and other dairy products. Turn on the news and it is immediately obvious that this is a global problem. Food riots and protests from countries as far removed as Haiti and Egypt make it clear that the world is faced with a major food crisis.

Globally, food prices have risen by a staggering eighty three percent in the last three years. Grain costs in particular have skyrocketed. Rice has doubled in price in the past twelve months. Corn has risen in price by seventy percent while wheat and soybeans have similarly hit record prices. These costs have then flowed on to other foods as well. With a large proportion of the world’s cattle being grain fed, dairy and meat prices have also been affected. Globally, the cost of cooking oil has gone up. In New Zealand, with inflation pushing at the Reserve Bank’s upper limit, our rulers’ response has been to tell New Zealand workers not to push for “inflationary” wage increases. In other words, New Zealand workers and the poor should bear the burden of rising food prices.

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Abolish GST

The Workers Party for many years has said GST has to go. Below is an article originally published in The Spark in July 2005, in which Philip Ferguson explains why the rich favour this tax and why we oppose it:

In recent months the National Party has been pushing for income tax cuts. Although they present this in a populist way, as if it would benefit workers, they vigorously oppose measures such as raising the minimum wage, serious across-the-board wage rises like those sought by Auckland bus drivers and the abolition of GST.

During the upcoming election campaign, one of the minimum platform points of the Anti-Capitalist Alliance [now called the Workers Party] will be demanding the abolition of GST, something that would be done by any government with even a token desire to make life a little easier for workers, especially the poorest workers.

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