ALL OUT- FEB 28 2009
PRESS RELEASE- SOCIALIST AOTEAROA
There's a new spirit in the fighting Left of Auckland.
Faced with a barrage of attacks from the new National led government, in particular the 90 Day Fire at Will Law (which
now comes into effect on March 1st, thanks to pressure from ACT), socialists, unionists and left Greens have got their
act together and began planning the fightback.
Socialist Aotearoa organised an inspiring meeting on Thursday 11th December, where Unite union's John Minto and the
Green's new MP, Catherine Delahunty, joined SA's Frank Doleman in outlining the need for a united front to resist the
effects of the international crisis in capitalism and the new government's attacks on workers and the poor. Leading
activists from the Workers Party, Greens on Campus, the National Distribution Union, the Residents Action Movement, the
CWG and the CL also spoke from the floor. All agreed that we could work together round the slogan "We won't pay for
their Crisis".
The next day saw this new unity in action, where activists from Socialist Aotearoa, the Workers Party, Greens on Campus
and Unite joined a vocal picket of John Key's Auckland mansion, as his government rammed through the 90 Days Fire at
Will Law.
Thursday December 18th saw the United Front convene again in Unite Union's Morningside HQ, where Mike Treen gave a
powerful lead off that critiqued the inadequacy of the response from the so called Opposition Labour Party, and the need
for a fighting left alternative. That alternative will now-
(a) Call a National Day of Action against this government and its attacks on workers rights, in particular the 90 Days
Fire at Will law, on Saturday Febuary 28th 2009.
(b) Build this day of action through all our union, community, college and political networks, and organise mass
postering, leafleting, stickers and badges to oppose the Fire at Will law. Activist stalls will take the word out to
major markets, workplaces and city streets.
(c) the stalls will also collect pledges of resistance from those who want to do more than just sign a petition, who
will then help staff a Rat Patrol which can picket, protest or occupy any workplace where a worker has been unjustly
sacked using this law. This warning goes out to employers immediately.
(d) organise a major weekend conference on the Global Economic Crisis in mid or late March, with respected international
critics of capitalism and a wide range of speakers from Aotearoa's fighting left, to help educate and cohere the
movement we bring out onto the streets on Feb28.
The stakes are very high for our class. Already, redundancies are mounting, and the employers are preparing to flex
their muscles in the workplaces as they begin stripping us of our work rights. And sorry, Chris Trotter! The Labour
Party leaders have failed us- the answer to the worst economic crisis since the 1930s is not Phil Goff...
The answer is building a powerful coalition of our community, political and union organisations to resist them on the
streets and in every workplace facing their attacks. We need to learn the lessons from workers in other countries who
are already resisting the Crisis. Factory occupations in Chicago got the goods against redundancies imposed by the
banks- a tactic that we should educate NZ workers facing the sack about. Irish teachers, pensioners and students have
had mass street protests and fought back against cutbacks in public services- which is what we now face in Tory
controlled Auckland City and with increases in the ACC levy. And the economic crisis has seen scenes in the cities of
Greece not glimpsed since the heady days of Paris, May 68, as a generation of students and young people are joined by
the organised working class in what 62% of Greeks refer to as a national uprising.
FEB 28 2009
John Key's Honeymoon is over.
We won't pay for his Crisis!
ends