Workers' Liberty

The Telecom workers’ dispute is heating up. Auckland has seen striking workers marching up Queen St and picketing the Telecom HQ.

The eyes of the world may be transfixed by the spectacle of the race for the White House, but there’s another election in November that deserves some attention. New Zealand is going to the polls.

Mike Treen is National Director of Unite New Zealand, a union which has successfully organised young workers in fast food. In February 2008 he toured Britain speaking to meetings organised by No Sweat, and we published his speech to the London meeting Solidarity 3/127. After that meeting Mike Treen spoke to Colin Foster.

Mike Kyriazopolous interviews Jared Phillips, a Unite Fast Food Organiser and Workers Party activist in New Zealand.

MK: How did Unite plan its organising in fast food?

From Mike Kyriazopoulos in Auckland
The Amalgamated Workers Union of New Zealand (AWUNZ) has achieved a groundbreaking Collective Employment Agreement with Allied Workforce, one of the major players in the notoriously “precarious” Labour Hire Industry. There are about 100,000 casual workers in NZ, and AWUNZ are planning to make the Allied Collective the model agreement for the industry.

From 1 – 3 June the Workers Party of New Zealand hosted its annual “Marxism” conference which featured international speakers and interventions by other NZ left groups. Around 60 mainly young people met in a serious-minded, yet lively and comradely atmosphere to discuss the class struggle and the prospects for socialism.

From Mike Kyriazopoulos in Auckland
The work of Unite union organising amongst low paid workers in New Zealand continues apace. A couple of initiatives recently have shown some workers in 'precarious' industries to be in advance of even the most progressive union in the country.

In the New Zealand city of Auckland, more than 1,000 secondary school students walked out of classes in protest at low pay for young workers, explicitly linking their protest to events in France.

By Bryan Sketchley

After years of union decline in New Zealand, at the hands of anti union labour governments and a concerted effort by the big business Round Table to take advantage of business friendly legislation, a recently formed union has made impressive headway in organising low paid and previously non unionised workers.

By Dan Nichols

At the end of November, New Zealand saw the world's first ever strike at a branch of Starbucks.