What yesterday told us about National and Labour

Ardern and English: two faces of what is really one party

by Phil Duncan

Two events yesterday provided a micrcosm of the problem with the NatLabs, and yet more evidence of why workers and progressive people generally shouldn’t support either wing of this party.

One of the most obnoxious events in politics, and in elections in particular, is when capitalist politicians – people dedicated to managing the system that exploits workers- show up at workplaces.  They put on hi-viz jackets or hard hats or hair nets or whatever and walk around making absurd chit-chat with workers and posing for photo opportunities.  The more obsequious workers agree to be part of the photo opp and the most obsequious even take selfies and stick them on their facebook pages.

But, thanks to the courage of Robin Lane and several other workers, Bill English found one of these workplace walkabouts highly embarrasing.  Shortly after inspecting a tray of lemons at Kaiaponi Farms (near Gisborne), English looked like he was sucking on a

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Yes, it’s important to think

by Don Franks

For reasons known only to themselves, Unions Wellington have chosen to pitch their election message at the level of a slow-witted preschooler.

The UW Voters Guide advises: “This election its important to think about your rights at work when you cast your ballot.”\

“Here’s how the parties stack up on major issues: a living wage, industry agreements to control rogue employers, and a change of government!”

Following that text is a little coloured diagram depicting categories Living wage, Industry agreements, Change the government. Labour and the Greens get a tick for each box. The Maori Party get two ticks, NZ First one, Top and National none.

Or, as a friend of mine put it -“it’s simple really. Labour good, Greens good, NZFirst half good, workers stupid”.

Indeed. Can you really imagine advising a workmate: “Look, you know, this election its important to think about your rights at work when you 

What’s up with the working class in New Zealand?

Even in the US there is greater awareness of the importance of opposing immigration controls

by Phil Duncan

In New Zealand, working class struggle remains – as it has been for a couple of decades now – at an historic low.  In fact, abject surrender to exploitation and acceptance of the contempt of the employers and their political representatives in National and Labour seems to be thoroughly normal now.  Occasionally a group of workers will struggle, but these workers are a tiny minority and their struggles are limited to immediate conditions and take place entirely within narrowly-prescribed industrial law.

The share of wealth going to workers, meanwhile, continues to decline.  For instance, official figures show that business operating profits have grown from $NZ47 billion in 2009 to just over $NZ65 billion in the latest financial year, an increase of about 38 percent.  But the median-average hourly wage grew by less than 20 percent.   Large numbers of workers simply haven’t received wage rises in the past couple of years.

Mourning sickness

Even when faced with workplace closures, and a possible future of unemployment, the tendency of the employees generally is to look

Redline on the Labour Party

No-one on the anti-capitalist left in this country today puts forward a case that Labour is on the side of the working class.  There are certainly people who call themselves ‘socialist’ who do, but they are essentially liberals with vested interests in Labourism – often for career reasons.

Nevertheless, there are certainly sections of the anti-capitalist left who, in practice, retain illusions in Labour.  Some think Labour is still, at its core, some kind of “workers’ party” and that it is therefore permissible to vote for it and call on others to vote for it.  Or to take sides in Labour leadership elections.  Or to invite Labour speakers to speak at their educational conferences.  Or to demonise National in such a way that points clearly to support for Labour, without actually saying so.

Even on the anti-capitalist left, there are also some illusions about the first Labour government.  And illusions about the early Labour Party from its founding in 1916 to the formation of the first Labour government.

It is a form of comfort politics.  Just as some infants require comforters, a left which hasn’t yet grown up and been prepared to face the harsh realities of the 21st century capitalist world requires the comfort of thinking that there was once a mass force for socialism in this country and that it was the early Labour Party.

In fact, there has never been a mass force for socialism in New Zealand.  There were certainly revolutionary elements in this country – marxists, anarchists, syndicalists – in the early 1900s and there were far more of them then, when New Zealand only had a million people, than there are today when the country has 4.5 million people.  One of the functions of the early Labour Party was to destroy these revolutionary elements, in part by mopping them up and sucking them into Labour, transforming them into harmless social democrats.  Where they couldn’t do this, they worked to marginalise them and destroy their organisations.

All the while, through the 1920s, Labour moved rightwards, becoming more and more oriented to saving and running the system than getting rid of it.  Labour was always far more hostile to the anti-capitalist left than it was to capitalism.  And, of course, the early Labour Party staunchly advocated for the White New Zealand policy, indicated that they preferred a divided and politically weakened working class – ie one more likely to turn to Labour as its saviour – than a united, politically powerful working class which didn’t need the Labour Party.

Over the five years that this blog has existed, we have run a lot of articles on Labour, including some major, lengthy pieces.  Below are many of the major ones but, for a full list, go to the Labour Party NZ category on the left-hand side of the blog home page.

Labour on immigration – from bad to worse

Political donations and the National-Labour siblings

Labour’s immigrant bashing has a human cost

What every worker should know about Labour’s 1987 Labour Relations Act

Can the Labour Party survive?

A comment on Labour’s ‘Ready to Work’

Latest opinion poll – Labour just can’t catch a break

The truth about Labour: a bosses’ party

Labour’s racist roots

First Labour government wanted ‘Aryan’ immigrants, not Jewish refugees from the Nazis

Labour’s introduction of peacetime conscription and the fight against it

1949 Carpenters’ dispute: Labour and the bosses versus the workers

Twyford is at it again

A stain that won’t wash off: Labour’s racist campaign against people with ‘Chinese-sounding’ surnames

More Labour anti-Chinese racism and the left tags along behind them still

Anti-working class to its core: the third Labour government (1972-75)

Labour’s legal leg-irons – thanks to fourth Labour government

Some further observations on the fourth Labour government

Workers, unions and the Labour Party: unravelling the myths

For a campaign for union disaffiliation from the Labour Party

Labour’s leadership contest: confusions and illusions on the left

Recalling the reign of Helen Clark

Income and wealth inequality unchanged by last Labour government

Darien Fenton at the fantastic conference

New Labour Party general-secretary indicative of party’s managerial capitalism

Why Labour wasn’t worth the workers’ ticks

Why do otherwise sane, well-meaning people choose to delude themselves about the Labour Party and make up rosy nonsense about its past?

Chris Trotter’s false recovered memory syndrome

Empty Andy and the ‘Eh?’ team

Union movement gathers for ‘fairness at work’; Labour gathers missionaries

Labour parties and their ‘left’ oppositions

Radio interview with Philip Ferguson on not voting in the 2017 general election

FreeFM Hamilton’s community radio station interview with Philip Ferguson

Interview starts at 18.39 min

19.20  Discussing the lesser evil position on Labour vs National. Someone who was generally critical of Labour had said they would vote Labour as it was for light rail in Christchurch. On that basis beneficiaries should vote National as they raised benefits where Labour didn’t; pensioners should vote NZFirst because they are the most pensioner-friendly party!

21.50 National is a lot less xenophobic than Labour. Intern scandal – a fraudulent vote for change ‘non-partisan’ campaign really a front for Labour.

25.00 There’s lots of pressure on people to vote as if not voting makes one responsible for something bad happening. Were people who voted Labour in 1984 responsible for that government? Why give your vote for something you don’t agree with or don’t trust?

27.00 Not voting is actually making a statement. A lot of people not voting says something quite powerful. “They are all basically the same, how do we choose”.

1. 00 Murray Horton in the early 1990s said National are the front stabbers and Labour are the back stabbers. That is the key difference between them

Support the fast food workers’ strike action, Saturday, April 22

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KFC, Pizza Hut, Carls Jr and Starbucks workers will strike on Saturday after negotiations broke down over a new collective agreement.

Overworked & Underpaid : Unite on Strike for a Living Wage!

Come along and support the workers, Saturday, April 22.

Auckland:  KFC, 511 Dominion Road, Balmoral, Auckland (by Potters Park).12-4pm

Other centres:

Rotorua: Rotorua KFC, 1289 Amohau St from 12pm
Palmerston North: KFC Rangitikei Street, 201 Rangitikei St, 12-2pm
Wellington: Kent Tce KFC – corner Kent Tce and Pirie St, Mt Victoria 12 pm.
Christchurch: KFC Hornby 418 Main South Road, 12-2pm
Dunedin: KFC Dunedin North, 714 Great King St, 12-2pm

For a campaign of positive abstention in the 2017 elections

by Phil Duncan

In 2014, most of us at Redline favoured not voting in the New Zealand general election.  There was simply no party that represented the interests of workers, much less that attempted to politicise and organise workers to represent themselves.

Labour and National are the twin parties of capital in this country and a vote for either is a vote for capitalism.

The other parliamentary parties represent variants that still ‘play the game’.

Mana might have been worth considering in 2014 but the lash-up with pirate capitalist Kim Dotcom and giving the presidency of InternetMana to Laila Harre. who had not long before taken a job which meant she oversaw the laying off of a swathe of workers in Auckland. put that party beyond the pale.

This year Mana is in an alliance with the Maori Party, a political vehicle of Maori capitalist interests.

Another issue to take into account is that