General Strike: The Next Step

What happens next is a matter for speculation as we go to print. Both the FoL and the Government, it is claimed, are looking for a settlement without either losing face. If that is true, then the FoL leadership may be in danger of forgetting the basis on which the whole dispute flared up: the Remuneration Act. The aim of the working class movement now must push home its demands that the Act be scrapped and that free wage bargaining be properly set up.

To do this, three things are needed. The first is a good understanding among the workforce and other sections of the public of what the Act and its related powers mean. For this to happen, the Trades Councils and their unions will have to step up their efforts to get out among the members. The PSA and CSU must also take it upon themselves to ensure that their members are informed of what is happening.

The second need is unity. The Government's tactic in this disupte has been to pick on one union (the Drivers) and try to isolate it from the rest. If it beats the drivers, it will turn on the next, and then the next, and so on. This unity must involve workers of different unions on the same job sites, and also different union organisations: principally the PSA and the CSU.

No less important is the support, active and otherwise, of other sectors of the public. Students will be joining the workforce soon for several months. We should make sure that we understand the struggles of the workers, join unions, and not be fooled into scabbing on the workers should the possibility arise. Unions have supported students in the past and we must stand with them now.

The third factor in the struggle is the continuing determined action that unions must mount. The general strike was an important show of strength that made the Government realise it wasn't dealing with a complacent movement. For its full effectiveness to be felt, there must be a programme of sustained industrial action. Workers gave up a day's pay that they could ill afford last Thursday to show the Government that they were not prepared to stand by and watch their trade union and democratic rights cut away from under them.

It's like the Education Fightback campaign really. The struggle is on for the defence of our living standards. The Government wants to keep wages down, smash the unions and slash welfare spending, all for the sake of the fat pockets of the monopolies poised like vultures over the New Zealand economy and the New Zealand people. The Government is hitting those who can least afford it where it hurts the most. There is nothing they can do but fight back. They deserve our support.

As for the Tripartite conference proposal, involving employers, unions and the Government, it must continue to be rejected out of hand. Any system where the Government tells the two main parties that they can do what they like except that they can't really (which is what such a conference would involve) is not free wage bargaining or anything like it. It would be like telling the unions they can play rugby again but they aren't allowed to score tries.

As the Acting President of the Manufacturers' Federation said last Tuesday, "No-one should forget that this week's production is next week's earnings". He meant that workers shouldn't go on strike. What he showed was that workers produce the wealth in this country, and they have the right to benefit from it.

Kathy Jamieson