A 10 day nation wide strike in NZ would do more for the people and the environment than a dozen elections
The NZ Union movement is more focused on Lawfare for success than actual populist muscle.
Rather than grow the union movement, the status quo is using legislative rulings to force minimal gains.
We need to see more democratic infrastructure, not less.
We need to see Universal Student Membership back at all tertiary institutes and all migrant workers should be immediately enrolled with the Union.
Fair Pay Agreements were a great start, but we are beyond the need for great starts into paradigm shifting leaps.
Chloe speaks of the need for a mass movement, well the Union movement needs to be part of that.
Specific Universal Union membership policies and wider Fair Pay Agreements could take Union membership back to 50% of the entire working population.
We need a response that recognises the need to grow members immediately to counter the political actions of the Billionaire Donor Class.
We need a clear template of what we are promising the people and build the political muscle to force the issue.
A 10 day nationwide strike would achieve more in real terms for the people than a hundred years of elections!
The climate meltdown is here, the plutocrats have taken over your democracy and the economy is plunging while you face another 5.4% rise in cost of living.
A 10 day national strike would force our concerns to the front of the Government’s agenda rather than the corporate donors and Real Estate Pimps who currently own them.
Māori showed us on budget day what the power of strike can do.
It’s time for all those bing impacted by this anti-Māori, anti-Treaty, anti-environment, anti-worker, anti-public service and anti-renter agenda to come together if this hard right racist climate denying beneficiary bashing Government is to be blunted to one term.
A 10 day nationwide strike would achieve more in real terms for the people than a dozen elections!
And who would be in charge after the strike.We saw the dire effect on the economy with the covid shut down. While the shutdown was necessary the effect is ongoing . Whoever was in power wether left or right many would not support the strike many would not care so it would not work
Whilst it may seem great, there are considerations that need to be instigated if you are to achieve the 100% compliance. You need to give at least a month notice
1– So that households can stock up the necessities (toilet paper for one!!). You need a month so people can plan their budgets to pay for the 10 days (plus allow at least 4 days after for suppliers to restock their shelves after the initial rush prior to the strike) supplies purchases.
2– So that suppliers can increase shelf stock (and manufacturers can increase warehouse stock) for the fortnight before the strike and have stock for the after strike rush.
3– So that the strikers can cancel any automatic payments that fall due during and after the strike as there will be no income to cover those payments.
4– So that striker’s can plan home, street and local entertainment and activities that do not involve paid suppliers (cinema’s, bars, fast food restaurants, coffee shops, shopping malls, bus and train services, taxis, uber, couriers, etc.,etc.).
You have to ask yourself, who will organise this? There is no overarching organisation that can mobilise this scale of activism. So good luck with the proposal and a 100% buy in.
And what do you want to happen on day 11? If the strikers simply go back to work nothing will have been achieved. You must have a post strike plan to create a change. Just striking for 10 days and a return to BAU is not doing anyone going on strike any favours.
Who will lead this change?
Gerrit Re 5 : Milk the cows, transport milk to ??; drive ambulances, perform emergency appendectomies, tend stroke victims, victims of violence, and staunch haemorrhages etc; deliver babies; extinguish fires, clear fallen trees, attend floods, landslides, blocked drains and power outages; process the dead, mourn and hold wakes.
Farmers are on a hiding to nothing. Cant stop milking cows for if they did be charged with animal cruelty, dump the milk on the farm and be done for polluting the environment. They would need the one month notice at least just to dry the cows off. Once dry it will increase the price and supply of milk for at least 9 to 12 months before cows can be fertilised and be in calf again before birthing and new milk supply can start again.
Guess we can bring in Indonesian milk along with the coal?
What a party pooper Gerrit, was so looking forward to having another 10 day holiday.
Yes, in other words an organised 10 day unpaid holiday, in which most people wouldn’t feel anything other than that since consumers will prepare for it by buying up two weeks of goods and services beforehand. Naturally doctors etc would not be encouraged to be part of this, since accidents will still happen during the strike and I assume Bomber is not for unnecessary suffering. Police of course also can not be involved since otherwise there would be civil unrest including unchecked burning, looting, raping and shooting. Emergency services generally can’t be involved.
Utterly pointless.
Who overdid the ’shrooms? is all I can say about 10 days. Massive action is only possible in genuine revolutionary (significant shift in class power) situations. Even a one day strike would be a great achievement to get things started at this point.
A nationwide strike–involving union and non union members, along with unpaid workers including carers, family and community etc. takes a lot of organising. But, the key point remains–if all NZ CEOs and their crawlers stayed home few would notice–but…if all the workers did, the place comes to a grinding halt.
People do have the power–the ideological struggle to get them to exercise it is the challenge. NZCTU urgently needs a class left leadership and policy, a new united NZ Communist Party needs forming to be the pointy end of the spear alongside other activists, and expanded practical work in communities needs to happen–food, transport, childcare and defence.
Only one thing goin to get the Kiwi, out its exploited working hole, is government compulsory Unionism,.Outside of working people to wake up, and that like Clo., getting getting a hair cut.
yeah but — we are fucking captured. sure it would send a message but a strike would only hurt those who strike. IMO – a coordinated boycott on a roster of companies would be more effective. Start with Woolworths, New World and Pak n Slave.
man with no name “ Would only hurt those who strike.” Yes, and the buffered buffoons in the Beehive would remain unscathed as usual, like they did in the pandemic. A coordinated boycott of rich supermarkets could hit hard with loss of profit and wage challenges. Better still, a boycott of greedy electricity companies, but unthinkable, even as many of of us now struggle just to have a warm home in winter.
Remember,,, Helen Kelly. Remember Tallies.
… A boycott on food companies resulting in big refrigerated trucks pounding crumbling roadways with nowhere to go, providing moving targets for inept tourists to crash into and change lives in horrible ways…