View release with images @ socialistaotearoa.blogspot.com
30 Anti-Capitalists cut through horrendous rush hour traffic to slap up a boisterous and humourous picket of John Key's
Job summit today. There were some angry exchanges between the protesters and Rodney Hide, some of NZ's 200 top CEOs and
leading bankers, whilst John Key was spirited away without running the red flagged gauntlet.
The crisis has seen the emergence of a new movement in countries such as Ireland, Iceland and France. New Zealand is not
immune from the effects of a Global crisis, and as 70,000 jobs are lost this year, Socialist Aotearoa and other
anti-capitalists will be urging confrontation, not co-operation with this 200 strong tiny elite that run this society in
the interest of profits, not people.
One of the glaring realities this summit exposed was that his country lacks a combative opposition at the moment- one of
the reasons why John Key scores high in media popularity polls. Unfortunately, there are those in the Trade Union
bureaucracy and on the Cappuccino Left who would rather sneer at those willing to stand up for a radical alternative
outside the front door of this Capitalist summit rather than organise a fightback. A boycott of this conference by Union
leaders would have sent a clearer signal than what amounted to nothing more than their pacification and incorporation by
a hegemonically astute Key. Whilst the now invisible Labour Party leadership licks it wounds and talks of capacity
building, workers in Fisher and Paykel, TVNZ and Irwin Industrial Tools face redundancy.
And the redundancies will snowball as the international crisis deepens. Mass unemployment and the drying up of the easy
credit safety valve for the working poor who suffer low pay will have a massive polarising effect on class society.
We'll oppose the cutbacks of Public Services. We'll be supporting the workers when they strike. We'll leaflet the
factories facing redundancy with information about successful factory occupations in Chicago, Buenos Aires and
Waterford. We'll be on the Rat Patrol hunting down Rat bosses who use the 90 Day Fire at Will Law against workers.
Now is the time to prepare and build our networks of struggle.
ENDS