About Us

The two richest men in Aotearoa own as much wealth as the bottom 1.4 million people. Wages in this country have been stagnant for 30 years. Public services are at breaking point. We have the worst housing crisis of any OECD country. Our government, whether National or Labour, sets policies — from tax cuts to trade deals — which always favour the rich.

It doesn't have to be this way. Quality education and healthcare; fair pay; dignity at work; homes for life: these things should not be luxuries, they should be human rights. We could live in a society which favoured working people rather than a tiny corporate elite.

But such a society is never going to be handed down to us by the wealthy and powerful. Things can and will change — not when we ask politely for things to be a little fairer, but when we stand up and fight for our communities. Working people need to organise to campaign for a fairer world. That means joining unions and demanding better wages and conditions — but it also requires a political movement.

Socialist Aotearoa is part of that movement. We have been agitating since 2008, not only for small, immediate improvements in the lives of working people, but to build, through struggling for short-term reforms, a force which can in the long term win an entirely new world. A world where the wealth we all work so hard to create sits in our hands, rather than being hoarded by the top 1%.

Find Out More

Socialist Aotearoa is a working class revolutionary organisation. We are an activist group operating primarily within the trade unions, arguing for workers to discover our collective power and take strike action against exploitation, and for more direct worker leadership of and control over the union movement. We help build united fronts around key issues with a diverse range of groups, and have been part of several coalitions in the last ten years, campaigning against privatisation, corporate globalisation, racism and war. While fighting for immediate reforms to improve life for the majority of people, we believe ultimately that capitalism must be overthrown and replaced with a world of equality and workers' democracy, and we try to educate, agitate, and organise to that end.

Socialist Aotearoa was founded on May 10, 2008.  At the foundation hui, we ratified 'Five Fingers for a Fist' as our statement of principles.  You can read Five Fingers for a Fist here.

You can read the SA Constitution, ratified at the AGM on September 9, 2018, here.

Socialist Aotearoa is primarily available across the country via this blog and our Facebook page.  Our Tāmaki Makaurau branch has been active since SA's foundation hui on May 10, 2008, but we do not currently have active branches outside of Auckland.

If you live in Auckland, come along to our fortnightly public meetings!  We meet at 7pm every second Thursday at Unite Union — 6a Western Springs Road, Morningside.  Public meetings will always be advertised in advance on Facebook.

If you live outside of Auckland and are interested in working with or getting involved in SA, feel free to get in touch with us.  We are keen to grow and expand our organisation and to get to know comrades in other parts of Aotearoa.

Please email aksocialistaotearoa@gmail.com to contact us and/or be added to our mailing list!

Join the Union Movement

Flying our banner in solidarity at the primary teachers' strike, August 15 2018.

The working class is the force we believe has the potential to change the world, and the trade union movement is the natural expression of working people defending ourselves against the capitalist class on a day-to-day basis.  SA members are involved in our unions as volunteers, members, delegates and organisers.

If you are not already a union member, find out what union covers your workplace here.

International Socialist Tendency

On a global level, SA is affiliated to the International Socialist Tendency (IST), a network of revolutionary organisations across many different countries who believe in permanent revolution, internationalism, and rejection of bureaucratic states which call themselves "socialist" or "communist", but too often end up crushing working class movements when strikes and protests pose a threat to the powers that be.

The raised fist is the symbol of the IST.

If you are interested, you can read the writings of Tony Cliff, founder of the IST, here.  The Socialist Workers Party, our sister organisation in the UK, publishes the quarterly International Socialist Journal, which you can read here.  We would recommend Chris Harman's short book 'Revolution in the 21st Century' as an entry point for comrades new to the ideas of the IST and wanting to learn about the theories involved without getting bogged down in too much jargon, available both in print and online.

Kia kaha, solidarity forever!