The case for unionising unemployed and beneficiary workers

[This rank and file worker makes the case for the proposed amalgamation of three unions in NZ to have the equal membership rights of unemployed and beneficiary workers along with employed workers written into the Constitution of the new union.]

.....

A worker once asked a rank and file union member, “Who controls the level of union membership at any given time?”

The union worker answered, “Well, if union membership drops because of closures, lay-offs and redundancies, then it must be the BOSSES plain and simple.”

Of course the other part of the equation is that it is helped along needlessly by an institutionalised union mindset that says union membership ends with the termination of paid employment. The biggest indictment against unions in relation to unemployed/beneficiary workers has been a failure to recognise them as WORKERS first and foremost. Workers solidarity is a Joke!

The Returned Services Association (RSA) in spite of its dubious politics has set a better example of solidarity by maintaining continuity of membership and benefits long after its members have ceased their military service. Within the RSA, ‘comrade’ means comrade and not merely a loose and shallow term of address as it is used among some union members.

Unions abandon unemployed

In the past, when unionism was young, the unions looked at the wage earner as the union member but also extended help to the family in times of adversity. This dropped away at the height of compulsory unionism when unions were better resourced with no compulsion for union bureaucrats to recognise or advocate on behalf of members whose paid employment had come to an end. Union reliance on the welfare system instituted by the first Labour Govt and maintained to this day by all successive Govt’s has divested any union involvement in the ongoing interests of these workers being kept on as union members.

The now defunct ‘Peoples Centres’ that advocated on behalf of beneficiaries, were one part of an attempt by volunteers who were mostly unemployed to address the problem. Hugely under resourced, they were always doomed to go under. Others still march on in support of the rights of beneficiaries; but it is an endless struggle. One such organisation, the ‘Whanau Resource Centre’ in Pukekohe South Auckland is contracted to Counties Manukau DHB and CYFS as a half way house for battered women and their children. It also doubles up as a beneficiary workers advocate service among other things. Its principal organiser has said that beneficiary advocacy belongs in the unions.

Bringing unemployed back into unions

A former DSW/WINZ frontline case manager and PSA delegate with 18 years experience in Christchurch, Manurewa and Pukekohe spoke of dealing with beneficiary advocate groups who were clearly out of their depth. Some could barely afford the gas to make it to WINZ offices and keep appointments. Keeping up to date information important for their clients was also a problem. [WINZ like the Dept. Of Inland Revenue is not in the business of informing taxpayers of their entitlements when there is a cost incurred by the respective Govt. Departments. That’s for the client to find out.]

In Christchurch the former WINZ worker remembered having to deal with laid off workers who were members of several unions including the NDU, SFWU, EPMU etc. In many cases, older union members in particular, lamented the passing of their union associations brought to a halt by the machinations of bosses. Some become so demoralised at being unemployed, that health/ psychological deterioration forces them onto one of the various sickness benefits and worse.

She went on to say, “It’s no use putting the thing in the ‘too hard basket.’ There exists more potential to grow a structure within the union movement to deal with unemployed workers than outside of it. Sudden policy changes have an immediate impact on beneficiaries. Without the support or security of independent unions, unemployed workers are forced to fend for themselves. Unions have to take ownership of this issue. They avoid it at their peril.”

Unite, union of low-paid, unemployed workers and beneficiaries

In 1992 in the wake of the introduction of the ECA, the TUF (Trade Union Federation) which came out of the temporary bust up of the CTU included among its ranks the newly formed union called UNITE. A pivotal plank in UNITEs constitution is a commitment to represent the interests of ‘unemployed workers and beneficiaries. To date, UNITE has never been able to fulfil that role.

Lack of resources and the perceived logistics nightmare of organising dispersed unemployed/ beneficiary workers are among the problems haunting UNITE in its current manifestation. Its internal politics with regards to a certain section of its own membership on this very issue has become acrimonious with no resolution in sight.

Amalgamation

It is now the task of the eventual amalgamated union to rise to the occasion and sort out the mess left in the wake of UNITE before it’s too late for all of us. Today as the uniting of the NDU, SFWU and UNITE inches ever closer, so does the challenge to incorporate within the new union, a sector dedicated to unemployed and beneficiary workers with its own organisers. Imaginative and bold use of new technology in conjunction with a new union call centre will ensure better delivery of services to all union members including this most vulnerable part of our community. As things stand, we have historically limited our scope in terms of union recruitment to paid employees while neglecting the collective potential of paid workers, unemployed workers and beneficiary workers together. This must change! The demands of future industrial struggle and political turmoil (Bush gearing up to bomb Iran), make it important for unions to be more inclusive of all workers irrespective of their being employed or otherwise.

Conclusion

Unions as a subset of the wider working class which constitutes the majority of the human race, must be strengthened on our terms and not the profit driven whims of the bosses. Unions have always been weakened by the continuous cycle of small advances and big retreats in terms of membership because we give bosses the ability to weaken unions every time there are closures, layoffs and government policies that are friendly to the interests of bosses. We have a mandate to inspire young workers to want to join unions and become involved in the wider political activities affecting workers. We have to show that unions will always provide security, support and solidarity when those same workers suffer bad health and fall victim to the shrinking job market.

The prospect of returning to the ECA is very real if National wins the next general election. We do not want to see history repeat itself.

Lets inspire the next generation:

Union Independence from the state

Union Independence from political parties

Whakakotahi nga kaimahi o te Ao! (Workers of the world Unite!)

By Rank and Filer, Site Delegate, Wood Sector, NDU

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Free the Political Prisoners of Las Heras

Appeal to Workers of the World

We reprint here an edited version of an appeal from Workers Democracy of Argentina which calls for international workers campaign to free the Las Heras political prisoners. This campaign shows that it is the militant vanguard that can mobilize and unite all workers struggles to remove the Kirchner government and form a continent wide force that breaks from the World Social Forum and opens the road to socialist revolution.


A little over two years ago, in February 2006, the oil workers in the south of Argentina, in the region known as "Patagonia", started an indefinite strike. It was the first strike confronting the "Social Pact" between the union bosses of the CGT and the CTA (the two Argentine central unions) and the bosses’ government of Kirchner.

This strike had its epicenter in the province of Santa Cruz, birthplace of Nestor Kirchner who was governor for 17 years, and now continues to rule through front men like the present governor Peralta. Kirchner and his wife Cristina are long standing allies of the oil companies in the region.


Equal pay and conditions for all

The main demand of the strike was for equal wages and working conditions for all oil workers. That is, equality between the workers "directly" employed by the big oil companies (Repsol, Vintage, Panamerican, etc.) who are members of the Oil Workers Union (benefiting from the relatively better working conditions, benefits, wages, etc.), and "the rest" of the oil workers, who work for the subcontractors (but alongside the "direct" workers, doing the same jobs).

The Oil Workers Union does not recognise the subcontracted workers as "oil workers", so does not recruit them or defend them. This plays directly in the hands of the bosses who say these workers are "construction workers" who get lower pay and worse conditions in Argentina.

Moreover, while the Oil Workers Union members has some job security, the "rest" of the workers were contracted as temporary or part-time workers, alongside permanent workers with the same hours, but were not paid extra hours, and are even "in black" (undocumented). Despite this distinction all the workers went on strike shouting "We are all oil workers!"


Down with the tax on wages!

The other important demand of the strike was the rejection of the tax on wages at the same rate as the bosses’ profits. As well as the devaluation of 70% of the Argentine peso en 2002, and the high real inflation rate of 20% that year the “better paid” workers were not exempt from the wage tax. The taxes made their devalued wages worse than ever. This is particularly unbearable in the Patagonian region, where the cost of living is much higher than in the rest of Argentina, as it a remote, isolated area with a very harsh climate.

The struggle around the demands for "equal pay for equal work”, and "down with wage taxes", united all the oil workers and threatened to spread to the workers in the rest of the country. The strike posed a threat to the Social Pact signed by the treacherous union leaders, the bosses and its government, to keep the workers quiet in spite of the loss of their wages and conditions, and to legitimate the repression of demonstrations and strikes.

It would challenge the Social Pact precisely because it is based on the divisions between workers on different wages and work conditions in the same job, the wage tax imposed on "privileged" workers, and the demand that workers increase productivity before they got wage rises. Its was also a rebellion against the against the role of the union bureaucracy that was preparing to sign a new condition in the Social Pact that would have capped wages at 16,5% annually, in two or three instalments, well under the rate of inflation.



Regime represses strike

The oil workers were striking at a very critical time for the economy and they had every chance of winning. Their victory would have opened the door for the rest of the working class. That is why the bosses and the government stroke back furiously, with the complicity of the union bosses of the Oil Workers Union.

The latter announced they did not back the strike and the demands, and left the Patagonian workers to fight alone without support from the many other oil workers in Argentina working for the same companies. The rest of the union leaders and the top leaders in the CGT and the CTA did not even pay the ritual lip service to the workers solidarity.

The government declared the strike was illegal and sent the police to arrest the delegates and take them to Las Heras (a small town of about 7.000 people). The workers of the nearby oil fields and plants rallied together with hundreds of other exploited people at the gates of the police station, to demand freedom for their representatives. The police responded with a brutal repression, with tear gas, rubber bullets and live rounds fired over the heads of the people, who defended themselves by any means at their disposal. But after a long battle they could set their leaders free. But in the middle of the fight, a policeman was left dead.

The response of the oil companies and the Kirchner government, with the open and total support of the oil workers union bosses, was repression, like that of the state terrorism of the '70s. Workers and their families were attacked by armed troops and dogs in house by house raids, beaten and abused. Not even children, women or old people were spared. Arrests were made without warrant and without the right to a lawyer.

Some people were "disappeared" for a time. Undercover and intelligence agents were used. In the nights cars without registration plates filled workers neighbourhoods shooting indiscriminately to intimidate the people...



Political Prisoners not criminals

...The authorities applied the entire weight of the state repression on the strikers. On order of the oil companies they arrested dozens of activists and delegates, including their wives, partners and children. All of them were beaten and tortured in the police stations.

While they were charged with “murder" and locked up indefinitely without right of bail while the state looks for evidence to prove the charge. The oil workers had some of their demands partially met to defeat the struggle. As a result the prisoners were then isolated and apparently forgotten in their jails.

Meanwhile the prisoners were labelled "common criminals" and the union leaders made a public apology for the death of the "poor boy, that policeman", as if he had not been engaged in suppressing the strike!

The six main political prisoners have been jailed far from their homes to demoralize them and their relatives even more, under subhuman conditions, and are beaten, abused and harassed by the police daily.

Their families are also being harassed, and they along with their class brother in jail are strong because they are principled fighters and have the support and solidarity of those militant workers that did not abandon them.



Militant solidarity with the Six

The oil workers, despite the threats, the layoffs, the deployment of more police and gendarmerie to persecute the activists and their families in their homes, have not abandoned the fight. Yet while their struggle is supported by sectors of workers all over the country, the leadership of the main unions and those of the central unions have done nothing but keep silent or pay lukewarm lip service in their defence.

The Six comrades of Las Heras are held hostage by the same oil companies that lock up and torture the workers, exploited and anti-imperialist fighters, including children and old people, in the jails of Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Guantanamo, etc., in order to defend their profits. But they are not the only ones in Argentina.

The Kirchner government also imprisons many other workers for similar causes, for example, Jose Villalba (head of an organization of unemployed that were demanding real jobs and not humiliating petty handouts). It is prosecuting more than 5000 workers under serious criminal charges.

Their only "crime" is opposing the interests of the bosses and the transnationals: striking, protesting in rallies and demonstrations against the governments starvation policies, demanding better conditions of work and transport, and rejecting the brutal increase in the cost of living while our rights are violated one by one.



Regime’s ‘double standards’

The Kirchner government boasts that it is a champion of Human Rights. To prove it they have put some of the killers during the dictatorship under ‘home detention’ in luxury homes or hotels. They have everything they want and can be visited freely by their families and associates, despite the fact that they have already been convicted of murders, torture, mass disappearances, baby kidnapping, etc.

The regime has done nothing to find Julio López a key witness to the trials of those charged with the "disappearances" during the dictatorship, who was himself taken more than a year ago. It has done nothing to protect other witnesses who have been attacked or threatened.

On the contrary, it has ordered the police, the gendarmerie and the coast guard to attack workers’ strikes with live ammunition, as was in the case with the teachers, state workers and civil servants, fish canning workers, etc. This resulted in the death of History teacher Carlos Fuentealba in 2007, and many other workers were seriously wounded, imprisoned and persecuted. Again, their only "crime" was to demand a living wage to allow their families to survive.

And where they have not send their direct agents to repress the workers struggles, they have not stopped the criminal activities of the gags of thugs paid by the treacherous union bosses, who have smashed with clubs, knives and guns the assemblies of striking workers, terrorizing the workers and their families, destroying their camps outside the locked out workplaces, such as at the French Hospital and the Boat Casino in Buenos Aires City, the workers of the fish packing plants in Mar del Plata, the metal processor and Dana auto parts in Buenos Aires, and many more.



Held as political ‘hostages’

Meanwhile, the prisoners are kept in the worst conditions, in bare, tiny and dirty jails in police stations or in local courts, where they are beaten daily, and their relatives are humiliated and abused and often denied visiting rights.

The families of the imprisoned workers live in a dismal poverty, full of suffering, especially in Patagonia where the temperatures can go as low as minus 22 Fahrenheit with winds up to 180km/hour and sometimes they don’t have money for fuel. They only survive thanks to the solidarity of their class brothers and sisters.

The government keeps them imprisoned in an attempt to terrorize other militant workers. They are held hostage by the bosses' state, by the transnationals and the national bosses, in order to prevent the workers from breaking the notorious Social Pact that was signed with the treacherous misleaders of the unions.

They are prisoners of the class war that the bosses have unleashed on us, to keep wages low, destroy the few social and labor benefits that we still have, and to increase their billions in profits, and forcing us onto starvation wages that cannot even buy the basic food and clothes we need.

They are held hostage to discipline us to accept job "flexibilization", work "in black"(undocumented), long working hours, and dangerous working conditions that every day cause deaths among the workers.

They want us to accept the 19th century conditions in health, education and housing conditions, under conditions that can only get worse with the developing world economic crisis and the skyrocketing of the prices of food and oil all over the world.

The social pact between the Cristina Kirchner government and the treacherous union misleaders, all of them servants of the transnationals and their junior partners, the local bosses, is so bad that it asks us to put up with an annual rate of inflation of 40% while our wages are capped and paid in instalments that are limited to 12% annually. This peg on wages is imposed on top of wages that have been falling behind inflation for many years.



They will not intimidate us!

Meanwhile the regime, the multinationals and the national exploiters take away our country's resources to make them huge profits for their businesses. Do get away with this they have to keep our best fighters in jail, and held hostage, humiliated, brutalized and on the verge of suicide. They have to starve their families and terrorise the working class to divide it and prevent it from acting on the most basic principles of class solidarity and internationalism. To do this they have to launch on us the thugs of the union bureaucracy, the police, the gendarmerie and the corrupt judges that "administrate justice" on the orders of the companies.

Yet they will not win! We are convinced that our class brothers and sisters all over the world will come to our aid, and with our united forces we are sure to set the imprisoned workers free, just as we will then free the imprisoned workers and freedom fighters all over the world, by means of international solidarity and struggle!

We ask that you make solidarity statement s, distribute widely the appeal of the workers and their families, and make financial contributions and messages of solidarity (letters, e-mails, fax, telegrams, messages, voice messages, etc.,) to the campaign, and address your demands for the freedom of the imprisoned comrades to the addresses, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, etc., that we have made available below.



LOI (CI)-Workers Democracy, Argentina, Member of the Leninist-Trotskyist Fraction

28 May 2008

1) Casa de la Provincia de Santa Cruz


25 de Mayo 279 CP (1002ABE) – Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires - Argentina

Telfax: 4343-8478 / 4342-7756


2) Gobernación de Santa Cruz


Alcorta 231 CP (9400) - Río Gallegos – Santa Cruz - Argentina

Conmutador (02966) 420421-422291-422757

mingobierno@santacruz.gov.ar

Sitio oficial del gobierno de la Provincia de Santa Cruz: webmaster@santacruz.gov.ar


Gobernador: Daniel Peralta: Tel. (02966) 420187 Fax (02966) 420139

e-mail: gobernador@santacruz.gov.ar

Vicegobernador: Luis Hernán Martínez Crespo:

Alcorta 431 – Río Gallegos

Tel. (02966) 422922


Secretario Privado: Juan Francisco Lagos Saavedra: Tel. (02966) 420187

Fax (02966) 420139

Asesoría de Asuntos institucionales (Vacante):

Tel. (02966) 420139


Escribana Relatora (Vacante):

San Martín y Mitre - Río Gallegos

Tel. (02966) 420051


Secretaría Legal y Técnica:

Alcorta 231 CP (4900) Río Gallegos

Conmutador (02966) 420421-422291-422757


Director Provincial de Investigaciones Administrativas:

Dr. Arturo Pedro Froment:

Comodoro Rivadavia Nº 185 - Río Gallegos

Tel. (02966) 422000-423090

fiscalia@speedy.com.ar


Dirección de Ceremonial y protocolo RRPP: ceremonial@santacruz.gov.ar


3) Gobierno Nacional – Ministerio del Interior



25 de Mayo 101/145 (C1002ABC) – Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires - Argentina

info@mininterior.gov.ar

Tel.: 011- 4339-0800



4) Secretaría de Derechos Humanos – Gobierno Nacional



25 de Mayo 544 – (C 1002ABL) - Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires - Argentina

Tel.: 011- 5167-6500



5) Secretaría de Derechos Humanos - Provincia de Santa Cruz



Secretario: Alberto Marucco

Edificio Galeria: Av. Roca 952 2º piso, of. Nº 26 – Río Gallegos

Tel-fax (02966) 435517-423578 R.P.V. 1521



6) Juzgado Federal de 1º instancia de Río Gallegos (Santa Cruz)

San Martín 709 - Río Gallegos (9400) Santa Cruz

Telefonos: (02966) 420269/420037/420170

Juez Camaño - Tel. : (02966) 420253

Secretaría Penal Hebe Álvarez de Ramírez - Tel: (02966) 420253

Secretaría Civil Ana Álvarez - Tel.: (02966) 420256

Secretaría Electoral - Sofia Viritilne - Tel: (02966) 421790



7) Ministerio Público ante el Juzgado de Río Gallegos (Santa Cruz)

Fiscal Dr. Miguel Segovia - >Tel.: (02966) 420377

Defensoría Pública Oficial - Dr. Santiago Fassi - Tel.: (02966) 420376



8) Juzgado de Primera Instancia Nº 1 de Instrucción de Pico Truncado (Juzgado de la causa)

Seminario y Urquiza - CP (9015) – Pico Truncado

T.E.: (0297) 4992193/4992687

e-mail: instruccionpt.com.ar

Secretaría de Instrucciòn Dra. Griselda Rosana Revai

Secretaríaa de Instrucción Dr. Miguel D. Hubert



9) Ministerio Publico

Sarmiento y Urquiza – CP (9010) – Pico Truncado

T.E.: (0297) 4992697

Agente Fiscal: Dr. Sergio Armando Gargaglione



10) Comisaría de Pico Truncado

T.E.: (0297) 4993405
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Venezuela: Reinstate Chirino

Statement of Leninist-Trotskyist Fraction

An international campaign to reinstate a leading member of the UNT (National Workers Union) Class Struggle Current to his job in the state oil company (PDVSA) is being made. Chirino led the oil workers union in the recent negotiations and came into conflict with the Labour Ministry, refused to join the PSUV and called for abstention in the recent referendum. He was sacked from his job as a result.

Return Chirino to his job!

· The quickest way to achieve this is for the the UNT to break all its links with the bourgeois state and Chavez'es bourgeois government!

· For the UNT to set in motion the Venezuelan working class armed with an independent class strategy and program!

From the Leninist Trotskyist Fraction we demand the immediate reinstatement of Orlando Chirino, a leader of the UNT and memeber of the UIT, who has been sacked under Chavezs orders, to his job and workplace in the PDVSA.

As a member of a workers organization being attacked by the bosses' state, we defend Chirino unconditionally, and we fight for his reinstatement in the same as we do in the case of any worker who has been sacked and attacked by the bosses. This is for us a fundamental question of principle.

At the same time, we cannot let it pass without saying that that unfortunately this attack on Chirino by Chavez and the "Bolivarian bourgeoisie" comes as a logical consequence of the policy of the UNT leaders' policy of Chirino himself. This includes the subordination of the UNT and the whole Venezuelan proletariat to the bourgeois state and Chavez government.

Chirino Chavez man on PDVSA

As Chirino explains in a letter to the PDVSA chairman, he (Chirino) was appointed by Chavez as a member of the PDVSA board of directors, along with other union leaders, after the defeat of the bosses' lockout in 2002. Chirino says they were appointed

"to constitute a team of labor and political consultants, in order to advance a plan for getting rid definitively of the old pro-coup, corrupt, bureaucratic union leadership [that of the former central union CTV] and from SINUTRAPETROL [oil workers union] to build a new leadership committed to the revolutionary process of the workers, and to continue to advance the battle against the pro-coup partisans, so providing a guarantee of "gobernabilidad" [that is, the ability of the government to rule without any threat to its legitimacy] of political and labor stability, and also providing a defence of the company (PDVSA) against further attempts at sabotage".

So it was Chirino in his capacity of a UNT leader who headed the Venezuelan delegation to the 91^st Conference of the ILO (International Labor Organization) in 2003. Moreover he was the chief delegate at the meetings of that gang of bureaucratic labor traitors chaired by the AFL-CIO in the following years (2004-2006).

Chirino was, along with Stalin Perez Borges and other leaders of the UNT, one of the main promoters of the “10 million votes for Chavez” campaign for 2006 presidential election.

For this reason, while we demand the immediate reinstatement of Chirino to his job at the PDVSA, we affirm that the only way to achieve that is through the UNT breaking every link with the Venezuelan bourgeois state.

It must also break with Chavez bourgeois regime and call for a Congress of rank and file delegates of the UNT to make the Venezuelan proletariat take up an independent working class strategy.

This is the shortest road to win the reinstatement of Orlando Chirino to his job in the PDVSA!

Read more!

Castro and World Social Forum

What has enabled the current bureaucracy of Castro to leap ahead in the process of restoring capitalism in Cuba? It is undoubtedly the suppression of the workers' and poor peasants’ revolution in Bolivia, and the containment of the pre-revolutionary situations in Chile and Mexico.

This represents the temporary defeat of the most advanced anti-imperialist and revolutionary struggles of the proletariat and exploited in Latin America.

The Castro bureaucracy could not move towards capitalist restoration without the World Social Forum’s treacherous ‘Bolivarian Revolution’. In the years since the turn of the century the WSF has put all its efforts into preventing revolutions in Ecuador, Argentina and Bolivia. It has stopped workers and peasants struggles in Chile and Mexico during 2006/2007 from embarking on the revolutionary road.

The Zapatistas and the Stalinists allowed the heroic Oaxaca commune to be crushed. In Chile, the Castroist FPMR [Popular Front of Manuel Rodriquez] prevented a general strike and allowed the "red pacos" [red pólice] of the Communist Party and the unión bureaucracy of the CUT to save Bachelet’s pro-NAFTA civil-military regime. In the United States the WSF subordinated the emerging opposition to the Iraq war and the struggles of migrant workers to the Democratic Party

Meanwhile, along with Chavez, the Castro bureaucracy is pushing a Contadora and Esquipulas style of agreement to stabilize Colombia by disarming the FARC. This agreement is designed to bring about a situation where the FARC and the Colombian bourgeoisie end the war and the FARC become a legalised ‘Bolivarian’-type party contesting elections.

Just as the betrayal of the Salvadoran and Nicaraguan revolutions in the 1980s allowed the Castro bureaucracy to move towards capitalist restoration, the suppression of the Bolivian revolution, the containment of the struggles in Mexico and Chile, and now the betrayal of the FARC today, has created the opportunity for the Castro bureaucracy to complete the restoration process and turn themselves into a new bourgeoisie.

This process will not be peaceful because to succeed, it has to crush the resistance of the Latin American workers and poor peasants.

So far the Castroists and the WSF have suppressed and contained the Latin American revolution, and the struggles of the US working class at the feet of the Democratic Party, but the continential proletariat has not been crushed by an historic defeat.

Cuba is undergoing the terminal decline of the foundations of the degenerate workers state. It is facing a crisis of insufficient production and shortages similar to that of the USSR in the late 1980s under Gorbachev and his policy of "perestroika”.

All foreign exchange and profits generated in the sector of the economy open to imperialist investment – tourism, nickel, petroleum, etc. – go offshore as royalties, patents and profit remittances to foreign monopolies, and as the income of the bureaucracy that goes into "off shore" accounts in the Bahamas or the Cayman Islands. The convertible peso –the "chavito" – that exchanges 1 to 1 for the US$ shows how profitable this sector is for foreign investors and the corrupt expropriation of foreign exchange by the bureaucracy.

Of those billions of dollars of profits extracted from the island, little or nothing is reinvested in Cuba. This is the cause of the insufficient production and shortages faced by the workers and peasants earning miserable wages (US$ 13 per month) in devalued pesos (34 pesos equal 1 US$!).

The devalued peso reflects the declining labour productivity of the obsolete and defective state sector of the economy. Many people are homeless and most autos are 50s US or Eastern European 60s and 70s models. Most people have ration books for food and the once high standards of education and health are deteriorating dramatically. Thus, as was the case in the 80s in the Soviet Union and the states of Eastern Europe, Cuban workers are left with very few past gains to defend that have not been liquidated or weakened by the restorationist bureaucracy.

This crisis of insufficient production and shortages results from the failure to develop the productive forces within the limits of the traversty of "socialism in one island."

Since the bureaucracy cannot enrich itself on the backs of the declining state economy, the only way out for the bureaucracy is to finish the restoration of capitalism. The alternative of revaluing the peso doesnt work because there is not the production to back the currency, and hyperinflation would result causing increasing social inequality and growing hatred among the masses.

The only alternative for the bureaucracy is to raise labour productivity. But this would need an acceleration of the process of foreign investment in joint ventures with the bureaucracy. This intensifies the exploitation of Cuban workers and drives down its miserable living standards. In other words, another explosive cocktail that could blow up in the faces of the bureaucracy.

This shows that as Trotsky said in The Revolution Betrayed, restoration will not be peaceful. The bureaucracy in its attempts to restore capitalism and become a new bourgeoisie must overcome the resistance of the masses by means of civil war.

Therefore, the only course is the political revolution linked to the Latin American socialist revolution. This is the only way to stop the bureaucracy from becoming the direct agents of US imperialism, crushing the masses, finishing capitalist restoration and inserting Cuba into the global division of labour as a new “brothel” of America."

· For the Trotskyist program of political revolution to overthrow the parasitic bureaucracy, and to create a workers state, a true workers democracy with a government of armed workers, peasants and soldiers councils!

· For a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat that ends all the "privileges, ranks and medals" of bureaucracy, class inequality and wage labour, where the first task is to renationalize under workers’ control and all sectors of the economy that are open to foreign capital and "joint ventures", and to reimpose the monopoly of foreign trade and stop the flight of foreign currency which bleeds the of wealth of the Cuban economy.

This is the only way to end the perverse system of "two currencies", and return to a single Cuban peso, a healthy currency that represents the real value created by the economy of the island once the workers and peasants have regained control from the monopolies and corrupt bureaucracy all branches of the production and all the wealth they have been stealing.

It is also the only way to expel the parasitic bureaucracy and its foreign partners, and create a healthy workers state as a bastion of revolution in Latin America, North America and the world.

Read more!

UNION DEMOCRACY IN NEW ZEALAND

Class Struggle 77 March/April 2008

Union Democracy

In the last issue of Class Struggle we reported on the amalgamation of NDU, SFWU and Unite! being driven by the official without the active intervention of the membership. We have no reason to change that view. Reports in the news media claim that the new union will have 50,000 members and its strength will be in its numbers and ability to influence government. This was the same argument foisted on workers during the Fourth Labour Government when the CTU was formed. The CTU would unite the unions into a force that could act in ‘partnership’ with government and the employers to run the economy. The TUF stayed out of the CTU at the time fearing that the sheer numbers of the state sector white collar unions would make the CTU conservative. How right they were! It was these unions, despite overwhelming votes in support of a general strike by their memberships that voted to back Ken Douglas and prevent a general strike against the ECA in 1991. Now the amalgamation of Unite! with two older unions that have a history of backing Labour Governments is going ahead without full discussion by the rank and file. The members of these three unions need to use their existing union rules to challenge this process. It could be that the members would be happier to unite in struggles on the picket lines rather than formally amalgamate into one super union. If the amalgamation is to go ahead it should be run by the members and it should come up with a constitution that is much more democratic and independent of the state than the current constitutions of the three unions. Here we point to the shortcomings of the existing constitutions, and then we put forward some ideas on what a really democratic, militant union constitution would look like.



First we compare the existing constitutions of the three unions involved



1. Union Structure

The NDU and the SFWU are organized on both regional and sectoral basis, with specified numbers of delegates from each sector attending biennial national and regional conferences held on alternate years. In Unite! there is currently no constitutional provision for sectoral representation, though positions on the national executive (Management Committee) are reserved for regions, and the 2007 AGM announced a constitutional review with such measures in mind. NDU and SFWU also have national and regional representation for Maori, Pacific Island and Women at dedicated conferences and committees and with positions allocated on the National Executive. SFWU has similar representation also for Youth Affairs.



2. Policymaking & Governance

In the NDU the biennial delegates’ conferences are the supreme policymaking and governing bodies of the union at which remits are voted on. Only elected delegates have speaking and voting rights at these assemblies, though ordinary members are entitled to attend and may be granted permission to speak. AGMs are held at the same time at which all financial members have speaking and voting rights. It is unclear whether resolutions of AGMs take precedence over those of biennial conferences.

In the SFWU policy remits do not take effect until passed by AGMs, although before being put to an AGM they must first be put before delegates’ conferences, which vote on whether or not to recommend them. Speaking and voting rights at AGMs and delegates conferences are similar to those of the NDU.

In Unite!’s constitution it is the AGM which is the supreme governing body. Delegates’ conferences have no constitutional status, though constitutional amendments in the pipeline may change this if amalgamation does not eventuate. What in the other unions is called the National Executive is in Unite!’s constitution termed the Management Committee. NDU has a Management Committee comprised of designated officers as well as an elected National Executive.



3. Election of Officers.

In Unite! the national positions of President, Vice President, Secretary and Management Committee members are all elected at the AGM, that is annually. Thus all financial members get to vote on all positions.

In the SFWU all financial members appear to get to vote for national president and vice-president and for regional presidents, vice-presidents and secretaries, but the National Secretary is appointed by the National Executive from amongst the (elected) regional secretaries. In this reader’s recollection, the constitution did not clearly spell out how the elections are to be conducted, but according to a delegates’ manual it is at the AGM.

In the NDU only delegates get to vote (at biennial conferences) for national and regional officeholders. Their terms of office are thus for two years, with the exception of national and regional secretaries, whose elections are held only every second biennial conference and whose terms of office are thus four years.



4. Notification of Meetings, Elections etc.

The SFWU and NDU constitutions allow ample time before elections for the calling of nominations and publication of candidates’ manifestoes. The same applies to the calling for and publication of remits. Unite!’s constitution allows barely adequate time and its wording is ambiguous enough to admit of restrictive interpretation.



5. Recall of Officers.

Before their term of office has expired, officers performing unsatisfactorily or guilty of misconduct may in the SFWU and NDU be recalled by an SGM of the union. In either union this SGM may be called by the president or the national executive or by a petition of the membership. In the case of the SFWU this petition must hold 50 signatures of members entitled to vote for the position; in the case of the NDU it must hold the signatures of 10% of the voting membership.

In Unite! The Management Committee may by a two-thirds majority vote remove an official from office, with that official having the right of appeal to an AGM. There is no constitutional provision for ordinary members to initiate recall proceedings unless it is by remit to the AGM

.

6. Delegates and Site Meetings.

In Unite! delegates hold office for a term of one year. In NDU the term is for two years but there is constitutional provision for recall by a petition (to the Head Delegate) of 10% of financial members. In all unions site meetings may be called by authorised officials of the union or by petition of 10% of financial members.



Well now deal with how these provisions can be democratised starting with the membership and then the election of delegates and officers by the membership!



· Unemployed and other beneficiaries shall have equal rights with employed in the union.

This is a provision of the Unite! Constitution that is not practically implemented except in the Waitemata branch of Unite! It needs to be a central principle of any union, let alone a super-union, to represent all members of the working class, whether in paid employment, unpaid labour, on the unemployment benefit, or on any other benefit paid to a person whose main income would otherwise be the wage.

All members have the right to vote for delegates, officials and remits to annual conference. There must be equal funding and provision of resources for unemployed and beneficiaries as for employed members.

Union dues should be graduated according to level of income with unemployed and beneficiaries paying no more than 1% of income.

Members can be organized into locals, and regionals, for the purpose of uniting members from different sectors, worksites, employment status, and special interests.

Special interest groups must have the right to caucus separately, that is, to organize their own meetings, and to have speaking rights at workplace and other membership meetings.



· Delegates elected, accountable and replaceable by the membership that they represent.

All delegates should be elected by worksite membership, or by the unemployed, beneficiary and unpaid membership in each region, annually and at least six months before annual conference, on the basis of 1 delegate for each 20 members or less.

Delegates should canvass support in a written statement that may include qualifications to represent various categories of members, including special interest groups, two weeks before elections. In a super union of 50,000 members this would mean a national delegate body of 2,500.

Delegates are mandated by decisions of their membership to vote according to their decisions on remits and candidates for office with no individual discretion.

Delegates can be recalled by 10% of the membership they represent and replaced as delegates by a simple majority. Delegates are obliged to meet with the membership weekly to report on union affairs to discuss workers issues and educational material.

Officials, organizers etc, must arrange onsite or other meetings with member through the delegates. It is the delegates’ responsibility to collect membership dues and keep accounts open to the membership.



· Officers are elected by annual conference and return to the workforce after 2 years in office

The annual conference is the supreme decision making body of the union. The delegates are mandated by their members to vote as instructed on remits circulated at least two months before each annual conference. The delegates are mandated to vote for all those who hold a position of responsibility in the union according to the votes of their membership.

No elected or paid official should be paid more than the median wage [the largest group] of union members.

Elected officials can be recalled by 10%, and suspended by 50%, of the voting members, and replaced either at a SGM or the AGM by a simple majority of delegates. Special General Meetings can be called by 10% of the membership. Elected officials shall not be voting members or have the right to call SGMs.



· For complete rank and file control of industrial negotiations and actions

Agreements should be negotiated by a committee of delegates elected by the rank and file for that purpose. Negotiations must be reported back to the membership at least weekly. Stop work meetings most vote on all agreements before any ‘deal’ is signed off by negotiators.

Strike committees elected by the members on strike (or locked out) must be in charge of strikes, actions and pickets, and the use of strike funds. During strikes and lockouts, the strike committee must report to the membership daily for discussion and voting on proposals and actions. State funds for education and training under the control of rank and file committees.



· Review, and ratify endorsements of political parties by a 2/3 majority of members at each AGM.

Any political party supported with union funds needs to be have a budget limit set and ratified by 2/3 majority of members. Where 2/3rds of the membership do not support any exiting party, members can nominate candidates on a workers program in an attempt to get 2/3rd majority membership support.

Read more!

SOCIALISE FISHER AND PAYKEL

Class Struggle 77 March/April 2008

Socialise Fisher and Paykel

The closure of Fisher and Paykel’s Dunedin plant is further proof of the necessity to fight the devastating effects of capitalist crisis on the working class by our class taking control of the economy and running it for meeting our needs and not the bosses’ profits.

As US workers have found, globalisation has decimated industry and exported blue collar jobs. Since the opening and deregulation of the NZ economy in the 1980s NZ has undergone a similar de-industrialisation. The response of Labour Governments and the unions has been to try to increase valued-added production and up-skill the work force. Fisher and Paykel was the poster boy of the knowledge economy. It was no producer of raw commodities. As tariffs came down and much of NZ industry collapsed, F&P could export whiteware and compete on the world market by applying new technology to stay a world leader. What went wrong?

Capitalism is what when wrong. Not FTAs, and over-valued dollar or a ‘moral failure’ as the EPMU thinks. F&P is a capitalist firm. It has no obligation to its workforce to make a loss. Those who say that it was economic mismanagement, or China, or wrong economic policies, are reformists. They think that there are good capitalists and bad capitalists, and forming partnerships with good capitalists to manage the economy is all that it takes to benefit everyone.

The EPMU was very good at its ‘partnership’; with F&P. For many years they were virtually a company union, weeding out the ‘troublemakers’ like Peter Lusk, virtually acting as human relations managers for F&P. Now, F&P have proven the class collaboration of the EPMU over many years to be one gigantic betrayal of workers.

In the last issue of Class Struggle we criticised the gutless, undemocratic, paper tiger EPMU at F&P and called for the democratisation of the union. We now think that this was too kind to the EPMU. We said that workers should take control of their workplace.

We now say that this cannot be done by the EPMU. F&P workers need to form their own rank and file strike committee independently of the EPMU leadership, who are in partnership with the bosses, and prepare to occupy, nationalise and socialise the company.

· Demand more information: open the books! Workers will find that they are the ones who make F&P profits. The technical experts produce the new designs, and the process workers produce the machines. The only skill that managers have is to calculate how to make profits and when to leave to make bigger profits overseas. On top of that, F&P has had big subsidies from central and local government.

· The workers must demand that F&P Mosgiel plant is nationalised jointly by central and local government, and administered and managed by the workforce. Because it is the workers labour and skill, and government incentives, that make up F&P profits, (and workers have no savings and cannot afford to borrow money to buy back what is already theirs) we say that no compensation should be paid to the company!

· Take this fight to the Auckland plant and to F&P plants in Thailand, Queensland and Los Angeles! F&P management have given the same reasons for shifting production from Australia and the US. Lower costs. Australian production will be moved to Thailand, and the US production will be shifted to Mexico. We say Australian and US workers should fight this decision alongside the NZ workers. F&P say that the Auckland refrigerator plant will continue production for the Australasian market because it producers smaller models preferred by workers in those countries. But these workers will buy cheaper but bigger imports!

· In the face of the bosses offensive to cut costs at the expense of workers, we say the workers counter-offensive must be one of challenging the bosses right to own and control production!

In Iraq, the oil workers of Basra are fighting for workers control of oil to prevent big oil from plundering this resource.

In Bolivia, workers and peasants are demanding the gas be “100% nationalised” and to expropriate the MNCs.

In Venezuela, Chavez is nationalising key industries under pressure from militant workers.

In China and India, poor peasants are mobilising to prevent their land being expropriated.

In Australia, Aboriginals are demanding land rights. In NZ, Maori are demanding return of stolen land and control over Foreshore and Seabed resources.

When the workers and poor peasants of the world unite to go on the offensive against the bosses’ crisis, and take over the ownership and control of means of production, distribution and exchange, we shall be able to produce for our needs and not their profits.

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We need a new 'Red Federation'

As the Aussie comrade says, amalgamations, while making unions bigger, usually build bureaucratic monsters (or similar words). It is important for the rank and file to fight back now to take control of any amalgamations and rebuild the unions as fighting democratic organisations.

If you look at the Unite! and NDU (I don't know about SFWU) constitutions, they look good, especially the Unite constitution that aims at unionising lowpaid workers, unemployed and beneficiaries. The NDU one looks good too in that it seeks to represent industrial sites, has locals which bring local sites together, and represents 'special interest' groups like women and Maori.

Problem is that in practice these unions are anything but democratic in their representation of the members. The delegates may be formally elected by members but there is no obligation to actually represent the views, report back to, or be accountable to members. The 'supreme' decision making bodies, annual or biennial congresses or AGMs are reduced to rubber stamps of the officials and tame delegates.

Of course its got to be this way as the union officials are empowered by the bosses law to regulate and control their members. They must stay inside the limits of the ERA or risk court decisions against them and penalties such as loss of union assets etc.

And of course the officials cover their backs by saying that the members are inactive, passive, and need to be led by experienced 'unionists'. Of course they are if they are led to believe that the only thing they can do is follow the officials orders, stay inside the law and vote every 3 years for Labour. You can't get much more passive than that.

Getting active does not mean turning your back on this monster being born. After all the unions today are the rump of very powerful unions that were created over a century ago and which have survived against all odds putting up heroic struggles against the bosses and their state.

We need to reclaim the best traditions of that history of militant unionism. This means organising the rank and file to demand proper all up elections of delegates standing for the principles of rank and file democracy and campaigning for a living wage and decent conditions.

It then means pushing those policies to the limit and working for mass support and industrial unity across all unions to break the ERA and force employers and the state to concede the right to strike and of mass pickets. In the process the union officials will be left high and dry backing the ERA and the bosses.

We need new unions like those of 1890, Red Fed of the 1908-13 period or a TUC of the 1951 lockout. The popular wisdom (bosses mythology) is that these radical union movements were defeated. Yes they were, by overwhelming class forces. If they hadnt NZ would be a very different place today. Yet without these struggles the labour movement would be even weaker than it is today.

In the 1890s the new unions forced the bosses to go to court to deal with workers rather than face a spread of militant unions. This allowed the militant unions to develop and be strong enough to split in 1908 to form the Red Federation. The threat of revolutionary upsurges in 1913 and internationally in the immediate post war period forced the creation of the Labour Party to divert industrial struggles into parliament.

The price of this was compulsory unionism that gave the labour movement real power such as allowed the militant wing to prepare to take on the bosses and the state in 1951, when again internationally, in the face of decolonisation and the Chinese Revolution, the ruling class decided to try to smash the workers again. The bosses survived that one only by imposing a semi-fascist state clampdown on the country and bringing out the army to work the ports and mines.

Even though the '51 lockout was a defeat for the militant unions, its result was to entrench compulsory unionism and create the organised basis for workers to take back some of the value they produced for the bosses in the form of social welfare and relatively high living standards in the decades that followed.

So it is a myth to argue that these militant struggles led to total defeats. Each time workers were defeated, they were never forced to concede their most important historic gains. They kept their organisations and to some extent their material gains.

Rogernomics and the ECA did not force labour back 100 years as some argue. The unions were not smashed rather they were quietly deregulated. Ken Douglas and Co kept the lid on the fightback. But again, the old Labour tradition of state arbitration that goes back to 1894, was revived in the form of the ERA in 2000 by the Labour and Alliance Coalition Government.

This proved to be a charter to empower the officials to go onto job sites and recruit members. It was the only real result of the Alliance split and MMP. Of course it created the labour movement foundation for former Alliance leaders to get into the unions and put pressure on Labour from the left and to plan for a return to a Micky Savage-type Labour government in the future.

The proposed amalgamation above is a step towards the fulfillment of that plan. Building the biggest union in the growth area of the NZ semi-colonial economy, casualised cheap labour, will create the constituency for a future New Labour Party.

Today that party is conceived in the image of both 1930s Labour but increasingly 21st century socialism as it is taking shape in Venezuela. This is not some wild utopian dream either. NZ is heading downwards in the OECD and is virtually a colony of Australia. The populist politics of Hugo Chavez, and the indigenist politics of Evo Morales win lots of sympathy among young and Maori workers in Aotearoa.

The problem is that unions tied to populist parties there or here, cannot develop the working class struggles beyond parliament. Parliament is one branch of the bosses state, and for workers to get a living wage and decent conditions it is necessary to take power, smash the state, and expropriate the bosses property. Unions tied to the capitalist state hold back and prevent workers from taking power. That is there job.

To educate workers in what is needed to take control of their unions and turn them into organs for workers power, the battle must be to build fighting, democratic unions now - in a phrase, we need a new Red Fed.
Read more!

Will Amalgamation Strengthen the Uniting Unions?

The officers of the National Distribution Union, the Service and Food Workers' Union and Unite! Union have initiated moves towards the amalgamation of the three unions to form what would be the largest union in Aotearoa. While this could vastly strengthen these unions, members have a right to thoroughly consider the issue and be actively involved in amalgamation at every step of the way. Come and have your say.

Workers’ Forum 7:00 P.M. Tues 22 nd Jan 2008

Onehunga Community Centre

83 Church St, Onehunga

Hosted by Waitemata Branch of Unite! UnionHon Sec 1/16 Parr’s Cross Rd, HendersonPh 836 9104 email keithhend@gmail.com
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A Monster Union or a Union Monster?

A Monster Union or a Union Monster?

PRESS RELEASE FROM WAITEMATA BRANCH OF UNITE! UNION
Unite members will be interested to read in the media that amalgamation talks between the heads of Unite!, the Service and Food Workers’ Union (SFWU) and the National Distribution Union (NDU) have reached the point of 'agreement'. Of course the Unite News invited us as members to make submissions on this question. But that is a very different thing from the membership driving and controlling this process. Is that the way to build strong, democratic unions?
It seems to us that it is a good thing for relatively small, enthusiastic and campaigning unions like Unite!, SFWU and the NDU who work in the low-paid casualised job sector to unite. The bigger combined union will have more members and resources to fight or the interests of its members and recruit many more into the reviving union movement. But isn’t this something that the membership should be driving? Why is this amalgamation being done from the top down? The unions are its members, and those members should be in control of everything their union does. It’s called union democracy.There are a number of questions that we want to raise about this process.Why these three unions? Are there other unions in the low-paid sector that can be included? We hear that SFWU is offloading Elder Care workers to the Nurses' Union. Maybe there are other cases of groups of workers who need to be included in one big low-paid workers union. What about membership? Matt McCarten is quoted in the NZ Herald as wanting to introduce 'life membership' to cover members that may move from job to job. This is a very welcome move since it recognises implicitly that today's casualised low-paid job sector involves periods of unemployment 'between jobs'. But this 'portable' membership should not be confused with 'lifetime' membership which today means a membership that is earned by long service to a union.'Portable' membership should be equally valid for employed, unemployed and beneficiaries, recognising that the working class is composed of all of these groups. Unite under Matt McCarten has been reluctant to acknowledge the equal rights of employed, unemployed and beneficiaries according to the constitution of Unite!, a union established in the 1990s to all of these groups. Unless the rights of these groups are considered to be equal and recognised by any amalgamated union in its Constitution, then a bigger, more powerful union will not do anything to overcome these divisions in the working class.What about the new Constitution?We also see that Matt McCarten has generously offered the Unite! name to a new amalgamated union. We are right behind the spirit of this offer, but we would be very worried if the new union was to be organised on the basis of the existing Unite! Union. Matt McCarten has built up a strong membership of casualised lowpaid workers, but we don't think that these workers have any real democratic control of the union.In Unite!, for example, the officialdom has at Matt McCarten's instigation actively and successfully opposed democratic rights such as those of ordinary members to observe at Management Committee meetings and has successfully failed in its democratic duty to furnish branch secretaries with minutes of those meetings.We don't think that the elected officials of these three unions have the authority under their constitutions to make these decisions without the active participation of the members. Nor do we think that Unite! with its record under Matt McCarten is the model for a bigger, better union. 'Consulting' members to rubber-stamp a top-down agreement is not union democracy, its union bureaucracy.We think that the members of these three unions should be responsible for amalgamation negotiations, the conditions of membership and the Constitution of any combined union.To ensure the active involvement of the members in these negotiations Waitemata Branch of Unite calls for:

(1) each of the unions take the current proposals to all up meetings of their members, so that they can be debated and voted on, and for negotiation teams to be elected from these meetings to take forward any resolutions from the members.

(2) if the members agree to proceed with amalgamation, we call for a Constituent assembly of the delegates of all the memberships of each of the unions to meet to decide on the terms of amalgamation, membership and a new Constitution.

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Forum: Leg Irons for Workers

When the world is plunged into yet another of capitalism’s recurring economic crises the working class will be expected to pay for it with a return to lower wages and mass unemployment. In the necessary and unavoidable fight-back, workers will find we are shackled by draconian legislation.

“Leg Irons for Workers…”
What Links The Employment Relations Act and the Terrorism Suppression Act?
A Working Class Forum.
2.00 P.M. Saturday 24th November
Workers’ Educational Association
9 Henderson Valley Rd
Henderson
(Soon after going under the railway bridge)
Location Map: http://www.smaps.co.nz/nz/waitakere/henderson+south/henderson+valley+road/9/

Invited speakers, but all can participate.
Refreshments provided.
Koha for overheads.

Bring yourself, workmates, fellow unionists.
Family members-youth and children welcome.
Get union contacts for information and fight back
against the bosses and the government
Make friends
Fight back against WINZ
Join Unite!

Hosted by: Waitemata Branch of Unite! Union
The Union for Low Paid, Unemployed& Beneficiaries
President: rfox638@yahoo.com.auHon. Secretary: keithhend@gmail.com
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