There are widespread and unacceptable levels of poverty in this country and inequality is getting out of control. One way to address those issues in a meaningful way is to progressively increase the minimum wage in real terms.
Many unions seemed to turn the groups inside the unions which had been formed to empower workers from oppressed groups into inwardly focussed talking shops rather than organising centres.
Genuine class consciousness is needed to fight uncompromisingly for your own rights. You have to understand that your rights as a worker are in opposition to not just your own boss but the whole class of parasites that he belongs to.
I am convinced that is a significant reason fro the high levels of suicide in this country and the rise in absolute poverty reflected in levels of homelessness and the growing numbers of people accessing foodbanks.
Right-wing commentators and big business advocates want to see government spending on any welfare that goes to the people as of right slashed.
We must build existing unions and form new ones that are able to struggle much more effectively that we have. We need to forge allies with everyone in the community being exploited and abused. We need community organisations willing to fight as allies.
In New Zealand, however, we are taxed to death and then when we need help we get denied our entitlements by a brutal system that seems dedicated to stopping people gaining access to help when they or other members in their family have an accident or are unemployed, sick, or are born or become disabled.
The government and IRD seem to get very brave when persecuting some small business person who falls on hard times but run away from a fight with the real big boys who dodge taxes.
We are told there is no alternative. The so-called “progressives” in social democratic parties then appeal to the centre by adopting the rhetoric of the right wing opposition by being “tough” on law and order and “tough” on welfare cheats, and “tough” on immigrants. They assume that because working people have no where else to go they can abuse us as much as they like.
Just a few months ago Andrew Little was attacked by the government for questioning whether New Zealand actually needed so many chefs as part of the skilled migrant category.