by Don Franks
Some things don’t change much over the years. A thousand union hours lobbying MPs is still worth less than five minutes organising on a job.
The reason for unions existing at all is to advance workers’ interests and at their own workplace is where workers are best able to do this. I feel fortunate to have done my union apprenticeship at a time of relatively high workplace union activity. When ordinary people routinely did extraordinary things.
For example, one such incident. The Wellington Trades Council had called an all-up support meeting of Hutt Valley workers at Randwick race course, to support
out-of-town unionists on strike. It might have been a Kinleith mill dispute, or the Mangare Bridge battle, I can’t recall. What I do recall clearly from that afternoon is seeing the mass of men and women from the Gracefield industrial area; from the oil stores, the bottling plant, the car plant and the little metal working
shops tucked away from the main road. Together we all packed out the race course stadium
The officials made a report and there was a silence. Then a guy in the crowd stood up and doffed his grubby beanie. “I reckon those guys on strike are gonna need some money. I’m gonna put a dollar in this little purple hat and pass it along for the rest of yous to put in too.”
The hat bobbed along the rows, making its swelling way to the men at the microphone. Whether that guy who set the tone of the meeting got his (more…)
by Don Franks
We are now drawing to the end of Marx’s bicentennial. He was born in 1818 (May 5). And March 14 was the 135th anniversary of his death (1883).
