Socialist Aotearoa

EPMU members at Air NZ Zeal 320 need your support to get a fair deal. At the moment they're paid tens of thousands of dollars less that other Air New Zealand cabin crew but do the same job. Rather than negotiate a fair deal the airline has spent six months stalling, has been threatening our members with legal action and is now trying to hire strike breakers. You can help by visiting http://www.epmu.org.nz/zeal/ and taking action. You can also support them through their supporter facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=61304859532 Their open letter follows: "You might have heard that Zeal 320 flight attendants are taking industrial action at Air New Zealand because our wages are tens of thousands of dollars lower than people doing the same job but who are employed directly by Air NZ. We've got ourselves organised and are committed to getting a fair deal but the company is trying to hire strikebreakers through Hudson Recruitment and has even threatened to make

Tens of thousands join Put People First protest to demand economic justice from SWP in Britain The week of protests against the G20 summit to be held in London this week kicked off on Saturday with the Put People First march in central London organised by a broad coalition of trade unions, NGOs and activist groups. Some 40,000 people came to the march—more than organisers expected, despite repeated attempts by the police and right wing newspapers to put people off demonstrating. They were there to demand decent jobs and public services, an end to global poverty and inequality, and serious action taken now to avert catastrophic climate change. But the march was also marked by a deep sense of anger at the economic crisis—anger that had a class edge to it, directed against bankers, the rich and the politicians that had presided over an economic system that has failed to deliver jobs, justice or environmental sustainability. The march started at Victoria Embankment and made its way to

Date: Thursday, March 26, 2009 Time: 7:00pm - 9:30pm Location: Algie Lecture Theatre, University of Auckland Law School Street: Waterloo Quadrant City/Town: Auckland, New Zealand View Map Google MapQuest Microsoft Yahoo Phone: 0211861450 Email: solidarityjoe@yahoo.com Socialist Aotearoa gathers activists from the unions, movements and the anti capitalist left to discuss the twin evils of economic and climate crisis, and why we must move beyond capitalism as an outdated and failed economic system. The workshop will be divided into a number of phases, discussing- (a) marxist theory on the economic crisis (b) strategies to build a combative anti capitalist movement (c) what kind of socialist organisation, what kind of socialist society? http://www.socialistaotearoa.org The University of Auckland Law School is one of the nine faculties that make up the University of Auckland. It forms part of the city campus but is separate from what is termed the "main campus"

As the crisis deepens in Europe and more and more workers face redundancy and unemployment, traditional methods of union struggle are being replaced by direct action occupations, confrontations and in one case, hostage taking . See this video footage from France at the moment. Kiwi workers, take hope. Kiwi employers and Union bosses, take note.

"but his memory lingers on" - LKJ Thursday April 23rd 2009 marks the 30th anniversary of the murder of Blair Peach at the hands of London's Metropolitan Police. Blair was a revolutionary socialist and member of the SWP, and was an activist with the Anti Nazi League opposing the rise of the National Front when he was killed on an anti-fascist demonstration in Southall. To this day, no one has been brought to justice for his death. Socialist Aotearoa is hosting a night of music, poetry and talks to celebrate Blair's life, and to build support in New Zealand for the campaign to expose his killers. (Two papers, the Sunday Times and the Leveller, published leaks naming the officers that had travelled in the van that held Peach's killer. They were Police Constables Murray, White, Lake, Freestone, Scottow and Richardson. When the lockers of their unit were searched in June 1979, one officer Greville Bint was discovered to have

Frontline article by Christophe Chataigne, March 2009 "We managed to topple the government using the best of non-violent protests, civil disobedience and political satire," - 24 year old receptionist Guðjón Heiðar Valgarðsson encapsulates what many of the protesters felt when on 26 January the then prime minister, Geir Hilmar Haarde, announced the resignation of his government. "The Saucepan Revolution" as it is called, because of the pots and pans protesters had with them, made Haarde the first leader to resign as a result of the global economic crisis. Haarde's right wing Independence Party had been in power for nearly two decades, steering Iceland's economy away from the fish industry and geothermal energy to finance by deregulating the banking sector in the late 1990s. But in the autumn of 2008 Iceland felt the full impact of the crisis. Its currency, the Krona, collapsed. Banks' debts are ten times Iceland's gross domestic product and the peop

Socialists say "We WON'T pay for their crisis". We didn't cause it, and where workers are threatened with redundancies, we point to the examples of factory occupations in Chicago , Waterford and Buenos Aires as an alternative to capitalist greed and mass unemployment. The new film from the EPMU differs in tone. Whilst it puts forward some valuable economic information and gives rank and file workers a voice to raise their fears, it also sees the Union's role as softening the effects of the Depression in partnership with employers, rather than fighting them militantly for every job . SA presents the film and welcomes readers to post their take on the EPMU's line. Crunch Time. For workers, for bosses and for union bureaucrats. THE ALTERNATIVE TO REDUNDANCIES- FACTORY OCCUPATIONS IN "THE TAKE" .

Guest Commentary: Louis Riel And so it begins... Somehow, despite John Key's optimism, the real world is arriving on Aotearoa's doorstep. Today, workers in Wellsford and Nelson have faced massive layoffs--105 jobs lost at Irwin Industrial Tools, and 60 at Nelson Pine Industries. This on top of the nearly 350 other jobs lost nationwide in less than one week.I read this news piece today right about the same time I was reading some other blog entries on last week's Job Summit (what was the purpose of that again?) where I was told that "We are all in this boat together". If that's the case, then can somebody tell me why I haven't heard about any CEO's facing redundancies? Why have I not heard about any bankers (not bank staff, mind you) facing redundancies? And why don't they seem very worried? Let me tell you how it is in the boat that I'm sitting in.I'm employed, and for now I'm in a "safe" position. That's for now--I can se

We won't pay for their Crisis. with thanks to Vincent from MEDIA REVOLUTION NEWS Keeping it Indy.