Workers Now

A new slate of candidates aiming to put working people’s interests first is contesting next year’s election. 

The Reserve Bank predicts that New Zealand will be in recession for a year from June 2023. This will cause many people much hardship. Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr has made it clear that a recession is what he wants, in order to force workers to pay for reducing inflation, by cutting real wages and jobs. The bank estimates that 130,000 more people will lose their jobs. 
New homebuyers will struggle with increased mortgage payments. Renters will suffer when landlords take the opportunity to jack up rents. Those at the top will protect their interests at the expense of the working class.
Immediate action to defend working people’s living standards is needed. But no party in parliament today prioritises working class interests. That’s why Workers Now has been formed. 

Candidates in Auckland and Wellington will take this ten-point programme into next year’s general election:

1. More money for workers, now. An immediate rise in the minimum wage and benefit levels. For annual state-mandated pay rises, equal to the rate of inflation, for all wage-earners.

2. Solidarity with union struggles and drives to organise the unorganised workers. Remove all the existing restrictions of the right to strike. For union control of health and safety on the job. Full union and residency rights for all immigrant workers, including citizenship for those who choose to stay. Open the borders to nurses, hospitality workers, and anyone else who needs to come here to find work.

3. For a massive programme of state house construction to meet the housing shortage, with rents capped at 10% of the income of the occupants.

4. For a concurrent programme of public works to repair and build hospitals and fix the decayed water infrastructure, to be run by publicly elected local government boards with special representation for Maori. Not one more cent for the Three Waters shambles.

5. Fund these public works through progressive income tax and profit taxes on big businesses. No income tax on welfare benefits or incomes below $80,000.

6. Defend freedom of speech against the censors, both state and self-appointed. Defend scientific thinking, plus the right to disseminate unpopular ideas, including false, conspiracist and other objectionable ideas. Workers need freedom to confront and debate all ideas and opinions, including those they reject. 

7. Defend the rights of women. Defend the right of women to single-sex public toilets, changing facilities, refuges and prisons. No male-bodied people in women’s sports. Prosecute rapists to the full extent of the law.


8. Stop the illegal photographing and targeting of young people, and the racial profiling of Maori youth in particular, by police. Destroy the photo files. For a full public inquiry into the shooting of Shargin Stevens.

9. No support for AUKUS, NATO or any other imperialist military alliance. No NZ support for NATO’s predatory campaign in Europe, neither troops, weapons, nor military advisers. For workers’ solidarity with the embattled people of Ukraine 
Russian troops out now.

10. Ditch the Emissions Trading charade and the practice of carbon-credit farming that feeds off it. Nationalise electricity generation and fossil fuel production and distribution, as the first step towards beginning rapid transition away from carbon-based energy. No special taxes on farmers.

If you support this programe and would like to be involved in promoting and developing it, please contact James Robb 021 123 1107 or Don Franks 02108693969