tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18947592.post117037504039114655..comments2023-11-06T00:01:30.085+13:00Comments on New Zeal: Communists Push Sovietisation of VenezuelaTrevor Loudonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17040453691836232676noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18947592.post-1170653865773651662007-02-05T18:37:00.000+13:002007-02-05T18:37:00.000+13:00Please anonymous, until you can prove to me that V...Please anonymous, until you can prove to me that Venezuela is freer than the United States or even freer than Hong Kong, wake me. Otherwise you are praising another socialist hellhole thanks to someone like Hugo Chavez.mah29001https://www.blogger.com/profile/14534560947847502694noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18947592.post-1170482216346527432007-02-03T18:56:00.000+13:002007-02-03T18:56:00.000+13:00"These small-to-medium factories are usually run l..."These small-to-medium factories are usually run like feudal baronies of old"<BR/><BR/>What a crock of shit Anon. What proof do you have of this?<BR/><BR/>Do you have a job?, do you know anyone who owns a business?, Do you know anything at all about the 'working class' that you pretend to champion?<BR/><BR/>EXOCETAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18947592.post-1170385563498434992007-02-02T16:06:00.000+13:002007-02-02T16:06:00.000+13:00Typical of someone like Hugo Chavez who is openly ...Typical of someone like Hugo Chavez who is openly becoming the "Robert Mugabe" of Venezuela.mah29001https://www.blogger.com/profile/14534560947847502694noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18947592.post-1170380304391475972007-02-02T14:38:00.000+13:002007-02-02T14:38:00.000+13:00This February, Solidarity Union launches a major c...This February, Solidarity Union launches a major campaign to organise workers in two industrial clusters in East Tamaki. Most of South Auckland's vast army of factory workers are employed in small-to-medium sites which haven't seen a union for at least 20 years. These small-to-medium factories are usually run like feudal baronies of old. Solidarity Union aims to kickstart a mass movement for workers' democracy and justice in New Zealand's industrial heartland. And we want you to help.<BR/><BR/>The old ways of union organising cannot hope to succeed in these small-to-medium factories. That, after all, is why they remain unorganised. We believe that the only way to win is through a new geo-political strategy based on whole-of-street organising (rather than site or industry organising) and regional workers councils (rather than geographically isolated job delegate networks). This "cluster" organising is the only way to overcome the inherent working class disunity that flows "naturally" from New Zealand's mostly small-scale industry.<BR/><BR/>Our overall strategy has been confirmed by Solidarity Union's detailed practical lessons, both positive and negative, over the last few months of 2006. These lessons allow the union to fine-tune our strategy in order to increase our success ratio. If the factory bosses are feudal barons, then our union is going to put their tiny castles under siege. Factory February will see a large team of Solidarity organisers surround two East Tamaki industrial clusters in an offensive with a difference.<BR/><BR/>We have a 35-seater bus, a grunty sound system, sleepover facilities with union film screenings, and displays for union stalls outside local lunchbars or key factories. We will be printing lots of leaflets and posters for the offensive. The idea is to mass leaflet key sites many times over the course of February with different leaflets on pay, social inequality, workplace rights, bullying, racism, how to organise, what a collective is, how to win a strike, etc etc. Solidarity organisers will talk with factory workers outside their job sites, gather information on the problems they face inside, their pay rates. Through this protracted siege, we will strike up a relationship with key contacts inside the factories who will liase with the union before we even request a formal on-site meeting with all workers.<BR/><BR/>The only way social justice activists in Aotearoa can learn how to rebuild the union movement is by getting our hands dirty doing it. An essential ingredient in rebuilding a truly strong union movement is activising grassroots workers, delegates and organisers, rather than power being held by remote bureaucracies. Solidarity Union is not interested in just signing up thousands of members who pay dues in return for servicing, but who lack democratic control of their union and any self-emancipating workers' mission. That would do little to change today's unjust power relations, which in turn would mean a permanently weakened union movement.<BR/><BR/>We are going to build a movement that revolves around regional workers councils - organic, authoritative and representative bodies able to organise and empower the army of workers who are presently disorganised and disempowered in a mass of small-to-medium factories.<BR/><BR/>This is a vision of union organisation that goes back to New Zealand's first militant union movement, the Red Feds. Factory February will give us all further invaluable experience of what works and what doesn't, and help lay the foundations for a fightback against exploitation that could change the balance of forces in NZ society.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com