Marching To Class War.

“We’re from the Employing Class, and we’re here to help”: What the bosses are saying, in effect, is: “We are having none of this. We will not participate in the creation of a minimum set of employment conditions across New Zealand’s industries. If you want Fair Pay Agreements, then you will have to impose them upon the employing class without its consent.” 

AROUND THIS TIME last week, I was thoroughly enjoying myself, writing a parody of “Onward Christian Soldiers” for Christopher Luxon. My take on the old hymn’s refrain had “Luxon’s soldiers” marching to “class war”. Some readers thought that was a somewhat inflammatory characterisation. Class war was soooo Twentieth Century, they insisted. Apparently, my paleo-socialist slip was showing.

Well, maybe not. Today (9/12/21) we learn that Business New Zealand has refused to partner with the State and the NZ Council of Trade Unions (CTU) in the roll-out of Labour’s long-awaited – and well-mandated – Fair Pay Agreements.

This decision can only be interpreted as a deliberate attempt by New Zealand’s employers to sabotage the tripartite structure of the FPA model. What the bosses are saying, in effect, is: “We are having none of this. We will not participate in the creation of a minimum set of employment conditions across New Zealand’s industries. If you want Fair Pay Agreements, then you will have to impose them upon the employing class without its consent.”

I don’t know about you, but that sure sounds like a declaration of class war to me.

How have “Luxon’s soldiers” responded to Business New Zealand’s decision. Well, Luxon’s Workplace Relations and Safety spokesperson, the dry-as-dust neoliberal, Paul Goldsmith, doesn’t really do “unbounded joy”, but, in a media statement released earlier today he certainly comes across as a Happy Chappy.

The Government should ditch its Fair Pay Agreement policy following Business New Zealand’s refusal to be the Government’s preferred partner,” crows Goldsmith. “The agreements would remove the flexibility and autonomy modern workplaces need to grow and flourish.

Oh boy, it’s been a while since we heard that kind of language. It takes me back thirty years to 1991, the year when the Employment Contracts Act came into force.

Goldsmith would have been 20 years old in 1991. For someone of his ideological inclinations, the ECA must have represented the capstone of the Neoliberal Revolution unleashed by Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson. This crowning achievement, the one big “reform” that Labour dared not undertake, would have struck the young Goldsmith as absolutely sacrosanct. The effective destruction of the trade unionism across the private sector was the critical “reform” that made all the other “reforms” work. Confronted with a unified and confident working-class, Neoliberalism cannot succeed.

Hardly surprising, then, that Goldsmith’s statement included this little gem:

Business New Zealand’s withdrawal lays bare the fact that the national industry awards would have to be imposed by force – denying workers and businesses the right to sort out pay and conditions for themselves.

As if the ECA was not imposed. As if the Act did not, with one ruthless stroke of the legislator’s pen, wipe out rights which New Zealand workers had fought for and won, and which had remained entrenched in the country’s laws for close to a century. As if the people controlling the means of production, distribution and exchange; and those with nothing to sell but their labour – economic and social equals that they so obviously are! – were both clamouring for the right to arrive at mutually advantageous agreements without the pesky intervention of a trade union. As if the 500,000 New Zealanders who marched, rallied and struck against the ECA in March-April 1991 had only done so for a lark – because they had nothing better to do.

Flexible labour markets have been an essential element in New Zealand’s progress in the past 30 years, Goldsmith continued. They have enabled consistent economic growth and job creation, which is the only sustainable way to increase living standards in the long-term.

Umm, no, Paul, that’s not what flexible labour markets brought to New Zealand. The ECA was nothing more, nor less, than an open invitation for New Zealand employers to distil their profits from their workers’ sweat: making them work harder, and longer, for less.

In sophisticated capitalist countries, the state understands the value of an organised labour movement powerful enough to keep workers’ wages high. It is a necessary adjunct to the process of “creative destruction” that allows capitalism to rejuvenate itself. High wages encourage employers to replace workers with machines, or more efficient work practices, thereby lifting productivity – and profits – while building up an increasingly skilled workforce. Win–Win.

The ECA’s “flexible labour markets” – i.e. the destruction of the trade unions – excused the New Zealand capitalist class from doing business better and smarter. It condemned the New Zealand economy to appallingly low and seemingly unimprovable levels of productivity. That made us a low-wage country and sent our best and our brightest across the Tasman to Australia – where the equivalent of FPAs had kept wages high and boosted the productivity of Australian industry.

Though dry-as-dust Neoliberals like Goldsmith are too ideologically blinkered to see it, the ECA – far from being “an essential element in New Zealand’s progress in the past 30 years”, fundamentally weakened both its economy and its society. It drove our most talented citizens offshore, denying the taxpayers, who had contributed so much to the making of these highly-skilled workers, any hope of ever seeing a return on their investment.

There is, accordingly, considerable irony in Goldsmith’s claim that:

There should be a relentless focus on improving our productivity and lifting incomes.

If he was serious about either of those objectives, Goldsmith would be castigating Business New Zealand for undermining what is quite clearly the best hope of improving this country’s appalling productivity, while materially improving the wages of its workforce. Instead, “Luxon’s soldier” offers us this:

Unions now only represent 16 per cent of the private sector workforce – this is all about strengthening the role of unions.

He hasn’t even grasped the fact that union density in New Zealand’s private sector workforce long ago fell below 10 percent. In that brutal statistic is contained not only the tragic story of the National Party’s cold-blooded elimination of trade unionism as a mass movement wielding significant political power on behalf of the New Zealand working class; but also the shameful failure of the CTU to either fight for that class when they still possessed the power to bring the state to the negotiating table, or to do what was necessary to rebuild mass unionism when the political climate changed. (The reasons for the NZCTU’s failure must be left for a future posting.)

What Goldsmith needs no tutoring in, however, is the fundamental elements of class conflict – which achieved their clearest expression in the “flexible labour markets” made possible by the Employment Contracts Act:

Fair Pay Agreements will take us back to the failed policies of the past and should be scrapped, says Goldsmith.

With Business New Zealand drawing up their forces alongside the National Party and Act, it is pretty clear that the employers and their political lackeys have already declared the opening of class hostilities.

The real question now, of course, is whether Labour and the CTU have the guts to declare class war right back at them.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 10 December 2021.

Missing From The Anti-Covid Action.

The Invisible Man: Where has the NZ Council of Trade Unions been during the Covid-19 Pandemic? Why hasn’t its current president, Richard Wagstaff (above) become a household name during the pandemic? Up there with Ashley Bloomfield, Michael Baker, Shaun Hendy and Siouxsie Wiles? 

WHERE HAVE THE UNIONS BEEN during the Covid-19 Pandemic? That the question can even be posed suggests that something is very wrong with the New Zealand labour movement. After all, the answer should be all around us.

At its high-point, under the late, and sorely missed, Helen Kelly, the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (CTU) liked to present itself as the largest democratic organisation in New Zealand. With upwards of 300,000 affiliated members, that claim was no idle boast. As Kelly proved, the CTU has always possessed the potential to do an enormous amount of good.

So, where has it been? Why hasn’t its current president, Richard Wagstaff, become a household name during the pandemic? Up there with Ashley Bloomfield, Michael Baker, Shaun Hendy and Siouxsie Wiles? Where was the tireless advocacy for essential workers: the people who stood at the check-out counters, drove the trucks and operated the warehouses? When supermarket workers came under attack from the stupid and the selfish, why were they defended with more passion by their bosses, than by the CTU?

Which is not to imply that, down at the coalface, union organisers have not been fighting the good fight for their members. The “sergeants” and “corporals” of the movement have, indeed, been working tirelessly. Some of them have even managed to attract the attention of the news media. Unions like FIRST and Unite – affiliates of the CTU – have stood loyal right through this pandemic: speaking-up and fighting-back; making it very clear to anyone with ears to hear, exactly which side they are on.

But these are the “grunts”, the frontline fighters, the ones who, when the question arises: “Who ya gonna call?”, answer: “Us. You call us. You call your union.” There just aren’t enough hours in the day for these battlers to meet even half the need that’s out there. They certainly don’t have the time or the resources to plan and fund nationwide campaigns; issue media releases; and appear on programmes like AM, Breakfast, Newshub Nation and Q+A. That’s why they send money, collected from thousands of ordinary working people, to the CTU in Wellington.

This is where you might expect to find the “generals” and the “colonels” of the labour movement. The men and women who run the unions’ union. This is where you might expect to hear the national voice of organised labour in New Zealand – speaking up loud and proud for this country’s working-class.

So why haven’t we heard anything remotely like this coming from the CTU? All that money: taken from the pockets of ordinary working men and women so their voices can be heard and their interests defended; what has it been spent on?

This country has been subjected to a veritable blizzard of propaganda from those whose profits have been put at risk. The lobbying of the tourism and hospitality industries was so unrelenting they were gifted their precious Trans-Tasman Bubble – and workers ended up with the Delta variant.

Workers might have expected the CTU to lead the charge for “No Jab. No Job”. Because how else can employees be protected from the enormous risk posed by the stupid and the selfish? The great union motto has always been: “An injury to one is an injury to all!” Not, “The injury of all – by one.” What greater priority could the labour movement have than throwing its entire weight behind the drive for universal inoculation against Covid-19?

Well, according to the veteran political journalist, Richard Harman, the priority of the CTU has been ever-so-slightly different:

“Businesses are caught in a legal tangle if they try to enforce ‘no jab no job’ policies. Up until yesterday, business leaders were convinced the Government would not move on “no jab no job”, in part because it is opposed by the Combined Trade Unions.”

Yep, that’s what he said: “because it is opposed” by the CTU. Opposed!

Rather than defend the health of ordinary working people, the CTU has been slowing the vaccination roll-out by defending the “rights” of the stupid and the selfish. Permitting the injury of all – by anti-vaxxers.

How wonderful that, at last, Jacinda Ardern and her Labour colleagues have finally seen sense and set the “No Jab. No Job” ball rolling. But, how ironic, that they had to do it over the objections of the CTU.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 15 October 2021.

“No Jab, No Job!” – Preventing The Injury Of All By One

Intramuscular Solidarity: A trade union movement dominated by the working-class wouldn’t have a bar of all this anti-vax nonsense. The idea that some ignorant believer in conspiracy theories peddled by right-wing nutters on the Internet should be allowed to refuse vaccination – putting countless other Kiwis at risk – would strike them as complete bullshit. A working-class-led trade union movement would have been in the ear of  Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Michael Wood for weeks, urging him to institute a “No Jab, No Job!” policy ASAP.

ALL TRADE UNIONISTS are familiar with the slogan: “An injury to one is an injury to all.” It encapsulates the principle of solidarity and signals the determination of the collective not to be picked-off one-by-one. Employers who are not brought up sharply by their employees’ union for harming one of its members, will very soon feel emboldened to harm them all. Much more challenging, from the union’s point-of-view is how to guard against the behaviour of a single worker imperiling the health and safety of their co-workers. How to prevent the injury of all by one.

It might be expected that, with the Delta Variant of the Covid-19 virus rampaging through Auckland, and mass vaccination being presented as the most important escape-route from the pandemic, the institutions dedicated to the protection of workers’ health and safety would be leading the charge against those who refuse to acknowledge the obligations of social solidarity. Why then, are the trade unions not at the forefront of a “No Jab, No Job!” movement? In the midst of a pandemic, a refusal to be vaccinated (without medical justification) is surely the crowning example of individual indifference to the welfare of the whole. Is it not the duty of the trade unions to take a resolute stand against such anti-social selfishness?

In the context of a Labour Government with an absolute parliamentary majority, is it not, similarly, the duty of the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety, Michael Wood, to do all within his power to ensure that the obligations of solidarity are backed-up by the full force of the law? If, upon inquiry, that same Minister discovered that employers presenting their employees with the “No Jab, No Job!” alternative would almost certainly be acting unlawfully, then, surely, his next step would be to arrange for the law to be changed? After all, this is exactly what was done to ensure that “border workers” were all fully vaccinated. If “No Jab, No Job!” was good enough for customs officers and stevedores, then why not for every other group of New Zealand workers?

Wood was unable to provide a clear answer to questions such as these when he appeared (by Zoom) before the relevant parliamentary select committee. A superb chance to cast himself in the role of a hard-nosed, no-nonsense, champion of the working-class was squandered. Instead Wood chose to present himself as the inconsistent and mealy-mouthed champion of, well, God knows what.

The employers of workers already on the payroll, he informed the committee, could not say “No Jab, No Job!”, but, it would be perfectly okay for them to demand it of their next job applicant as a condition of employment. What a principled stand! Almost as principled as dodging the questions relating to the employers’ legal obligation to provide a safe and healthy work environment for their employees. Isn’t New Zealand lucky to have a Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety who is willing to place the rights of anti-vaxxers ahead of the rights of everyone else in the workplace – and the country?

Wood’s failure is emblematic of the more general failure of the entire New Zealand Left. To prevent certain classes of citizens from feeling hurt or offended by the free speech of their fellow citizens, leftists are all in favour of breaching the Bill of Rights Act and jailing “hate speakers” for three years. Those same “leftists” would not, however, dream of overruling the Bill of Rights Act’s prohibition against forcing medical procedures upon citizens – even at the cost of undermining the nation’s collective effort to defeat the Covid-19 Pandemic.

A trade union movement dominated by the working-class wouldn’t have a bar of this sort of “leftism”. The idea that some ignorant believer in conspiracy theories peddled by right-wing nutters on the Internet should be allowed to refuse vaccination – putting countless other Kiwis at risk – would strike them as complete bullshit. A working-class-led trade union movement would have been in the ear of Michael Wood for weeks, urging him to institute a “No Jab, No Job!” policy ASAP.

Sadly, however, New Zealand’s trade union movement isn’t led by the working-class (of which fewer than 10 percent now belong to a trade union) but by a council dominated by middle-class public servants of every description. A surprising number of these regard the right to refuse having their bodies polluted by injections of unwanted fluids as sacred, and not to be overruled for any reason – not even to preserve the health, safety, livelihoods, and lives, of their fellow citizens.

The idea that there are circumstances (fortunately rare) in which the safety of all might require the injury (but only to the pocket) of one, would strike them as barbaric. Unless, of course, the “one” was engaging in Hate Speech!

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 27 August 2021.