What the CTU Workers Hui should be thinking about today
Comrades
We need to focus on how to combat this terrible racist, anti-worker, anti-Treaty, anti-renter, anti-beneficiary, anti-environment Government who are selling out the common good for the interests of their donor friends.
We have to re-establish the egalitarian mission by promoting policy that directly challenges the capitalist status quo in meaningful ways.
Without vision, the Union movement is lost.
There are 4 magical pillars of the NZ economic ‘success’
1 – Stealing Indigenous land and never paying back the full value.
2 – Selling basic milk powder to China
3 – Selling each other houses and pretending that makes us rich.
4 – Addiction to a low wage economy.
The migration exploitation rules are garbage because NZ loves exploiting migrant labour!
We are addicted to it.
We say locals are too lazy for these jobs when really what we say is locals won’t allow themselves to be exploited as easily as migrant workers.
There is of course a solution here.
Universals Union membership for every migrant worker crossing the border.
That way domestic workers know they are not competing against exploited labour.
That way migrant labour can’t be exploited without the Union stepping.
That way the migrant worker and domestic worker are all protected by the solidarity of the Union.
We don’t want a solution to exploited labour, that’s why Universal Union Membership for migrant workers is ignored and non-solutions like this are promoted.
This Wednesday the CTU are holding hui all over the country to speak out against this Governments attack on worker rights.
We need economic resilience, we need community resilience, we need radical reform to strengthen sustainability.
We need more Left Universalism.
We need to lift the tax yoke off working people, beneficiaries and the middle classes and we need to put it on the Banks, the Corporations, the Billionaires and the mega wealthy.
We need more Democratic Infrastructure, not less!
Why do we need these things?
Because the climate is shutting down and we face a bleak future where Billions will suffer and die thanks to catastrophic climate change.
This change will be forced upon us whether we like it or not.
This demands more connections, more bonds that bind us together to emotionally, socially, economically and politically survive what is coming.
Māori communalism is going to teach us a lot.
Here are some thoughts on what the CTU hui should be considering:
The Right to Strike: A 10 day nation wide national strike would achieve more for working people than a dozen elections. We don’t have the right to strike in this country for God’s sakes, stand on your feet or live on your knees!
Iwi backed new Supermarket: Bring in a 3rd player into the supermarket duopoly that is Iwi backed with a focus on cheap prices for consumers, best prices for producers and high wages and work conditions for workers. Take 30% of the Supermarket Industry by force (allowed under the Commerce Commission powers) and use this as the backbone for a new food security system.
Mārae Civil Defence: Use Marae as the backbone of Civil Defence throughout NZ with resources based there alongside new building grants to strengthen those Marae.
Ministry of Green Works: We need to be able to build our own sustainable infrastructure, we need social housing builds and we need vast upgrading of the existing infrastructure to be adaptable to climate change.
New Mental Health First Responders: A whole new branch of first responders to deal specifically with mental health issues to talk people down and seek help rather than calling then Police and arresting people.
Artist Benefit: As part of a degrowth Capitalism model, pay Artists to make public art, use that art as a means to deal with the wondrous grief caused by the destruction of the planet.
Māori Parliament: An indigenous Parliament that amplifies Māori political voices.
Universal Student Union: Allow Student Unions to be the incubators for tomorrows politicians and stop students simply being cash cows for corporate education.
Universal Migrant Union: Stop migrant worker exploitation with universal student membership.
Retirement Village Unions: These scumbag retirement villages abuse their elderly and sick clients, universal Retirement Village Unions would stop them being exploited.
Pensioner Unions: Give our elderly a voice!
Sugar Tax to fund free dental.
Financial Transaction Tax to target speculators
Free Public Transport to lower emissions and make an impact on the wallets of the poor.
Wealth Tax aimed at the super wealthy
Inheritance Tax only realised after death
First $20 000 tax free for everyone
Lower GST to 10% to take the tax burden off the poor
Nationalise Early Childhood Education to lower the cost for working mothers and fathers
The Right to Strike to generate more Union muscle
Without vision the Union Movement is dead.
Solidarity Comrades.
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Two of your pillars to economic salvation are not pillars at all.
1- Changing the ownership of the stolen lands does not increase economic activity, it simply transfers the wealth off those properties, from one entity to another.
2- Unless you set up expensive distribution channels for add on value to any export commodity, you are always at the mercy of the commodity recipient. Read milk, bottled water, logs, meat, etc. Value lives in the distribution, not the product. Example is Nestle versus Fonterra. Nestle has world wide distribution channels, Fonterra does not.
Taking back the wealth from the people who stole the land
and returning that wealth to the legal owners is great.
And pay the interest acruing too.
Sure is a wakaaro poutokomanawa for me.
Hell yeah!
Are you going to dig them all up? Or dispossess the innocent living?
To do that is easy, the crown simply natiopnalises all the territories and gives them back to the effected tribes. One hundred percent doable.
As for interest? That is offset by the improved value of the land. Unless you want the land back as it was before colonisation and before the Maori wars. Again simply done remove any asset on the land, dig up the roads, rail, power lines, water reticulation pipes and pumps, etc.
Another issue to confront is who “owns” the land. Varies tribes claim ownership and reading Keith Sinclair’s book “The Origins Of The Maori Wars” in regards land ownership around Waitara, is but an example of conflicting land ownership between tribes.
The you have the issue of squatters on the land. Cant see many simply walking away. Who will enforce the eviction? I guess you put a lien on the properties that they can only be returned (not sold to anyone else) to tribal entities. Second round of land wars?
We have the issue of the payment of “full and final settlements” from the crown to the tribes in the past. Will they be returned?
The settlers made the land valuable by making it productive So how do you pretend nothing has changed since Cook landed.
There are no full blooded Maori left so how do you work out how much each gets as recompense.
It is great that the Maori language and culture is being promoted but we are a small Island and cannot afford to have duplicated arrangements for each sector of society. Each group should be treated with respect no matter the colour of their skin their religion or place of birth
You could argue that the products produced makes a significant difference to the distribution channels, Nestle makes a huge range of products while Fonterra mostly supplies bulk commodities with milk powder being dominant. Farmers have talked for decades about getting more value added products to export but since it would require an income sacrifice now to invest they keep putting off any decisions for future generations, since the future generations are just as selfish nothing gets done.
unions are the worst thing in this modern world. They are about outdated as coal mining.
Lifting productivity would be the first thing we need to address.
Why do we have a low wage economy, simple, a workplace where the majority of workers are gutless wonders, who would rather be on their knees, with the gutless, what can we do, simple grow a pair and form a UNION.
“The Right to Strike: A 10 day nation wide national strike would achieve more for working people than a dozen elections. We don’t have the right to strike in this country for God’s sakes, stand on your feet or live on your knees!” Quite so. Since the Employment Contracts Act and Labour’s carbon copy of it, the union movement has never recovered. Most union officials have been willing to accept tight restrictions on strike action and workers have consequently suffered a decline in their fortunes.