Three suggestions for the NZ Council of Trade Unions

by Don Franks

Fellow workers may have a similar email from Richard Wagstaff, President NZ Council of Trade Unions:

 “Don – I just wanted to wish you a happy and rewarding New Year and to say thank you for being part of the CTU’s online campaigning arm… we want to hear your thoughts about what the year ahead means for you, for your pay-packet and how you’ll get by. 

“Don, together we can make 2019 a great year for working people. Let’s start by making it clear what we need to do to get there”. ( Then follow some questions; has my income and quality of working life has gone up or down, do I think workers conditions look better or worse in Australia?)  

And then “What other comments do you have about cost of living and incomes in New Zealand?”

Here are my comments.

Richard, thanks for the email. Just before we get into New Year, some workers are still reeling after Christmas. Not from over indulgence, from hunger. 

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Workers and left confront Labour Party in Dublin

Yesterday (October 3) there was a big protest in Dublin over the housing crisis in the south of Ireland.

The Labour Party tried to take part, but there is a sizeable layer of working class activists who are totally hostile to Labour being allowed to be part of working class and left campaigns.  The Irish Labour Party is hated in many working class communities and by many left activists for its role in imposing vicious austerity against the working class when it was in coalition with Fine Gael (2011-2016).  Not only did they cut benefits and pensions, they also tried to railroad anti-austerity protesters to prison.

At the rally yesterday it was announced that a private member’s bill is being introduced to the Dublin parliament to start to tackle the housing crisis.  A list was read out of supporters of this bill, and this is what happened when Labour was mentioned (this is also the kind of attitude the left in this country needs to create in relation to Labour here):

Business New Zealand at war with the poor

by Don Franks

A just-released Salvation Army-commissioned survey of over 1000 New Zealanders showed 45 per cent of them went without heating last year, due to cost. Doctors’ visits were not made by 44 per cent because they couldn’t afford it. 

Manager for the Salvation Army’s welfare services, Jono Bell, said his first response to the figures was disbelief. 

“But on reflection, I thought, actually the numbers are not too dissimilar from what we are seeing on the frontlines,” Bell said. 

“It’s not just beneficiaries but people in our community who are working are still not making ends meet and are being forced to choose. It is a widespread problem.”  Bell said it was wrong working families were being forced to choose between food, housing and heat. 

“Some of the numbers have serious implications,” he said.

“People can’t heat their homes, so they are getting sick more often, so they have to go to the doctor but can’t afford it.  More medicine is required so they are having to make a choice between medicine and food.  And then there’s the house prices on top of that.”

 In the same week as the Salvation Army survey, an alternative opinion was published in the New Zealand Herald, by one of the economy’s most 

Wasting away in Jacindaville

by Don Franks

Nibbling pavlova, warm fuzzies all over
Hasn’t it been a great honeymoon
But there’s still shit in the river – old pensioners shiver
And Auckland house prices aren’t coming down anytime soon

Wasting away in Jacindaville
Waiting for the baby’s arrival
Some people claim a new dawn’s in the frame
But I know it’s still – just about survival

They hosted Obama, without any drama
Went over and had a wee bow to the Queen

A play about something that matters – Howard Petrick as V.R. Dunne

Being arrested for union organising, Minneapolis 1934

One of the most important battles fought by workers in the United States in the 1930s was waged by the Teamsters Union in Minneapolis.  Through a series of fights, Minneapolis was converted into a union town and the Teamsters were able to spread organising across the Mid-West.  At the heart of the working class struggle in Minneapolis were a group of teamsters who were union militants and Marxists.  One of the most prominent of these was Vincent Raymond Dunne (1889-1970).  Dunne later spent 16 months in jail for opposition to WW2.

Recently, long-time left-wing activist Howard Petrick, a former anti-Vietnam War GI, produced a play on Dunne and his life. 

by Barbara Gregorich

Howard Petrick’s one-man play, Fight for 52 Cents, is set in 1969, with Vincent Ray Dunne speaking to a meeting. With this as the framing device, Dunne tells his younger-generation audience about his life — the lessons he learned in helping lead the working class in its struggle for better living conditions and why he became a communist.

Howard Petrick as V.R. Dunne

As written and performed by Petrick, Fight for 52 Cents is a well-structured play that treats the audience to the story of Dunne’s life: what events were significant to him, and why; how these events helped shape him and allowed him to stand on a strong foundation.

Childhood experiences

The first event Dunne speaks about is that when he was five years old, his father, who was a street-car conductor in Kansas City, fell into a hole and broke both legs. Because of this accident, his father was not able to work. There was no such thing as workman’s compensation in 19th century United States. Dunne experienced this grave injustice first-hand: the five-year-old child saw that his father was injured and as a result the company he worked for dropped him from existence. The Dunne family was forced to

Theo Spierings’ true value

Theo Spierings: salary of $160,000 per week; $32,000 per ‘working’ day

by Don Franks

Not everyone admires the bloke but I believe Fonterra chief executive Theo Spierings is due some appreciation.

If we have eyes to see it, Theo’s done us a favour.

This kiwi dairy worker has jumped into the headlines, not for what he’s done or not done at the office but on account of the size of his pay packet. A total of $8.32 million in 2017, a 78.5 per cent increase  from last year.

Theo Spierings’ earnings are made up of a $2.46m base salary, superannuation benefits of $170,036, a short-term incentive payment of $1.832m and a long-term incentive payment of $3.855m, the co-operative’s latest annual report shows.

Twenty-three other Fonterra executives received up to $1m for their efforts, five of those have recently left the firm, possibly feeling a bit deprived at their loss of relativity.

So what favour has Theo Spierings done us New Zealanders who can’t afford as much cream and butter as we’d like to put on the table?

The Fonterra boss stands as a reminder of several important truths. A reminder that 

Election time is open season on immigration

by Daphna Whitmore

Scaremongering about immigration has traditionally been Winston Peters’ territory. Then Labour decided it wanted  a piece of the action in 2015 and its housing spokesman, Phil Twyford, announced a “tsunami of Chinese money” was heading to our shores. He claimed 60% of house sales in Auckland were to Chinese buyers and he knew this by picking out “Chinese-sounding names” from a list of house sales. Most of the people on Twyford’s list it turned out were New Zealand residents.

Labour now says it will ban foreign property speculators, not just ones with Chinese-sounding names. Well, that will be nice for local property speculators but it won’t help people on moderate or low incomes hoping to buy a house. What is more, it won’t make much of a dent in the speculators’ numbers as just three percent of house buyers were living abroad in 2016, according to Land Information. Labour’s tsunami was exposed as a crude dog-whistle to prejudices.