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.