Socialist Aotearoa

Bosses- Hear the Workers Rage- Raise, raise, the minimum wage! Vampire Boss burns in a fire! What do we want? BRAINS! When do we want it? BRAINS! The Zombies United, will never be defeated! Vampire Capitalism Sucks! Working for Nothin', really SUCKS! What do we want? 15 BUCKS! Sue Bradford on her last night as a Green MP rejoins the Parliament of the Streets. Robin, Socialist Zombie Queen! Who'll carry high the burning flame? BURN! BURN! THE VAMPIRE BOSS! thanks to John Darroch for the fantastic pictures. See them in full at Resistance Photography.

Click, Print, Copy and put up! Two new posters going up round Auckland for the Halloween Trick or Treat Protest

By Mike Treen Unite National Director Official data on wage movements in New Zealand point to a real wage decline of around 25% between 1982 and the mid 90s that has never been recovered. There have been two series measuring wages in the period – the Prevailing Weekly Wage Index (discontinued in June 1993) and its replacement the Labour Cost Index. I have created a continuous series based on the LCI series back to 1982 (by adjusting the PWWI numbers before December 1992 when PWWI at 1000 was equivalent to the LCI at 868). These numbers are in turn deflated by the CPI index covering the whole period. What is revealed is that by the mid 90s real wages had declined at least 25%. There has been no recovery since then and real wages remain 25% below their 1982 peak. This result can be directly attributed to the combination of the massive de-unionisation as a result of the anti-union employment laws and the recession that accompanied it in the early 1990s. The decline in real wages wasn’t of

Time to step up the pressure - Auckland needs fair pay for bus drivers The past week has shown just how crucial our bus service is for the people of Auckland. For a week, NZ Bus not only locked out the drivers who had done no more than vote to follow the company's own safety rules, but also the 80,000 people who rely on buses to get to work and school. The bosses showed exactly how little they care about our community when they rejected the drivers' offer to take the school run for free on the first day back at school. NZ Bus is happy to take the subsidies paid for from Aucklanders' pockets, but they don't care what kind of service we get for our money. There has been huge support for the bus drivers from the travelling public. The drivers' campaign has highlighted the low pay and terrible working conditions that bus drivers face every day. From the start it has been clear that the company is only interested in squeezing as much profit as it can from both

click on pic, print off, copy and poster SHOCK! Zombified minimum wage workers awaken and achieve class consciousness, pouring out from the shopping malls to choke the bloodsucking vampire capitalists who exploit their surplus value as profit! HORROR! Zombie workers march en masse on citadels of the elite vampire bosses in Auckland city centre- Massive vampire Boss staked in public and then burned in a bonfire! All this and more, From 7pm Friday October 30th in Auckland CBD. Brought to you by the Campaign for a Living Wage www.unite.org.nz

Message to NZ Bus: Auckland has had enough 12 October 2009 ARC Chairman Mike Lee has delivered a simple and blunt message to NZ Bus, on day five of the NZ Bus lock-out of drivers. “We have had enough. Auckland will not be held to ransom. If you can’t deliver the services that the people of Auckland rely on, then we will have to find someone else who can,” he said. Today the industrial dispute again disrupted the travel plans of tens of thousands of Auckland commuters. The disruption was even worse with the start of the school term. Despite meetings over the weekend and facilitation today, it appears that the company and the union have made no meaningful progress on settling the dispute. “The Auckland travelling public have run out of any patience or sympathy for this on-going nonsense,” said Mr Lee. “NZ Bus operates public transport services under contract to the Auckland Regional Transport Authority (ARTA). NZ Bus is currently in breach of those contracts – it is not delivering the se

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For weeks now, the bosses have been going on the offensive in New Zealand. Emboldened by the election of a National-Act government, they are now declaring industrial war against the working class. They have used the Lockout weapon against Telecom Engineers, Open Country Cheese Dairy workers and now our Busdrivers. This attack now needs to be met by co ordinated action by the Union movement. Ten of thousands of Auckland workers are also locked out by Infratil- the working poor who rely on Public Transport. Those of us who cannot afford expensive parking charges and high petrol prices must now attempt to find other ways to work. We will not be blaming the Locked out Busworkers. They are workers just like us- struggling to survive in a low wage economy that sees their pay scale go from $14 to $16 odd. We will be blaming the Corporates in Infratil- a useless company that wastes the millions of dollars it receives in Public Subsidy in dodgy investment ventures overseas. The money th