What can be Done about the Problem?

A two pronged strategy must be adopted which attacks the problem of unemployment as well as the problems of the unemployed. This strategy must link short term tactics with long term goals. The relationship between the two must be made explicit. This strategy must deal with both the symptoms and the victims of the employment situation, as well as dealing with the causes of unemployment; the political and economic system.

The first requirement is to deal with the immediate situation in which unemployed people find themselves, and the immediate needs which arise out of that situation. It must be realised by those working with the unemployed that it is the unemployed themselves who are the ones who must define the activities, set the pace, and organize the action.

The best example of this to date has been the action of the young unemployed kids in Porirua who pressured for the setting up of a Labour Department office there. They organized a disco to draw other young unemployed along, advertised the action at this disco, picketed the Labour Department Offices in Wellington and won public support for their case.

The lesson from this is for those wishing to work in this area, let those involved decide on the action. Young people must be encouraged to set winnable and achievable goals. A success such as that had in Porirua can only help build the confidence and ability of people to organise around the is issues and problems of their own situation.

If this means pressuring the Social Welfare Department for reforming the benefit system, then young people should look at the kind of activities which will produce this reform. Publicity and exposure of tardy bureaucrats is always an effective weapon.

What is required too is the promotion of activities which will bring people together. The whole benefit system and un-employment situation keeps people apart and physically isolated. Activity which will break down this is needed. Whether this can be done through such things as discos, local house gatherings, will be determined by the people in the locality.

People must come together for some purpose, and the most obvious is the need for work. Some assessment should be made of local resources to see what areas could be developed to produce work. Local community agencies, such as the councils and countries, must be pressured to develop trading activities and to sponsor work coops by offering administrative back-up or whatever is required.

The logic of this is that if public money is going to be spent in dealing with the employment situation, then the local community is entitled to some return on money spent. It private employers can't keep labour on in hard times, then they have no right to expect that the pool of labour will be just sitting around waiting to be tapped when times pick up.

In the long term, we must work towards creating significantly different employment relationships, which challenge the right of private individuals to hire and fire at will with the ups and downs of the economy.

Labour is a social commodity, the consequences of labour being employed or not employed have social effects which everyone pays for. We are entitled to see some measures of social control introduced in the labour process. Already we see this with some of the work co-ops which are now operating.

Similarly, investment decisions which have been made up until now by private individuals on the basis of the greatest profit and the greatest return must be looked at. Investment decisions have social consequences. An area of high return for investment, may not be socially desirable or produce secure jobs on a continuing basis. This right of a few people to control large amounts of public money, whether this be in the form of institutional finance from banks and insurance companies, or from tax, must be looked at.

In all of this there must be the thread of self sufficiency which holds everything together. Unemployed people in the ′30s came to realise that it was only going to be through their own activities that something would be done about their situation. No-one else was going to organize for them, though a number of people were prepared to help them. So it must be today, that the importance of self-help and self-activity be promoted.

This principle can be extended to encompass the demand for the necessary political and economic changes which must be made to deal with the employment situation. Measures taken to build employment must produce greater self reliance of NZ economically. The whole area of energy is a priority area in this sense. Measures taken to build more democratic work place relationships, must also be underpinned by this concept of greater self reliance of those employed.

In this way, we can build on what always has been a tradition in NZ, that of the strong sense of independence which many people have. Many people feel with the growth of the state and the power of big businesses in NZ that this has become more threatened.

What is needed is not so much a return to some mythical past, but a willingness to promote change, based on the better traditions and values of the past.