Response to NZCTU initiative

On January 2nd, NZ Council of trade unions President Richard Wagstaff contacted unionists, inviting comments about cost of living and incomes, with a view to make 2019 " a great year for working people"
My comments.

Richard, thanks for the email. Just before we get into New Year, some workers are still reeling after Christmas. Not from over indulgence, from hunger.
Auckland City Missioner Chris Farrelly told Radio NZ: “It’s been quite overwhelming and shocking for us to see just the volumes of people … there is significant food poverty in this country—we’re seeing here, at the moment, the real hard end of it”. In response, Auckland City Mission handed out 8,500 Christmas hampers over 10 days. Double the amount compared to last year, yet not enough to meet the demand. On December 19 about 400 hungry Auckland families were turned away after the mission’s food supply ran out.
The Christchurch City Mission reported that demand for food parcels had increased 45 percent as compared to the same time last year, with many employed workers impoverished.

NZ Council of Christian social services calculate that the poverty line after deducting housing costs for a household with two adults and two children lies at $600 per week or $31,200 annually in 2016 dollars. For a sole parent with one child it is $385 per week or $20,200 annually in 2016 dollars (MSD Household Incomes report July 2017, p.106).
From this analysis, there’s around 682,500 people in poverty in this country or one in seven households. Over half a million people, trapped in a wretched state of hunger, insecurity, ill health, reduced life expectancy, bad housing, debt and constant stress. Stress on many levels, not least the stress of seeing your kids set up for failure, because not enough money for their education.
All this while a tiny minority have somehow grabbed far more than they could ever possibly need.
Figures from global charity organisation Oxfam reveal that the richest one percent now hold 20 percent of the wealth in New Zealand, while 90 percent of the population owns less than half of the nation’s wealth.

Rachael Le Mesurier, executive director of Oxfam New Zealand, said the organisation was shocked to discover the level of wealth inequality in the country.

“The gap between the extremely wealthy and the rest of us is greater than we thought.

“It is trapping huge numbers of people in poverty and fracturing our societies, as seen in New Zealand in the changing profile of home ownership.”

The Inland Revenue’s high-wealth individuals unit shows the number of the wealthiest Kiwis jumped by almost 20 per cent between October 2015 and June 2016, from 212 people worth more than $50 million to 252.
Of course, all these facts and figures are no secret. Facts about poverty are not hard to find. What’s seemingly concealed is the key to economic justice.
I’d like to offer the CTU three practical suggestions towards a way forward in 2019.

First, I think we need more workers’ unity in action.
Workers’ actions over the last year included nationwide strikes by teachers and nurses. Some gains were made, they could have been more. Of course there are differences in pay scales and skill levels between different groups of workers, but we’re all united in wanting to feed our families, educate our kids and get some fun out of life. We’re all the same on the beach, we should all go together in pursuit of better money and conditions. Not just a little bit more. Substantially more. As we can see, the wealth is there, it just wants sharing better.

As a move towards workers’ unity in 2019 the CTU should organise a nationwide series of cross union job delegates meetings. Before the meetings, delegates should seek opinions from the workers they represent, bring these to the meetings and exchange ideas about ways to fight poverty and dismantle unearned privilege. This would translate into a nationwide programme of basic social and economic demands placed on employers and the government. It’s hard to see the government welcome such a move, which leads to my second suggestion.
I think it’s time for the New Zealand union movement to reclaim its independence and bin its outdated fantasies about the Labour Party. The worsening state of workers’ poverty we’re now in came about under successive National and Labour governments. The fantasy that Labour are better for workers is simply a myth. For instance:
“On July 21, 2006 the National Business Review (NBR) published its annual Rich List. The list contained the richest 187 New Zealand individuals and 51 families. This super-rich group had increased their wealth by just over $3.7 billion in the past year. That increase is as much as the entire wealth of the entire Rich List back in 1992. The people on the Rich List now have wealth estimated at over $35.1 billion.

By the time the last National Party government went out of power in 1999, the Rich List had 135 individuals and 36 families, with wealth estimated at just over $9.8 billion, so the growth of the fantastically rich has speeded up under Labour. The graph of the rate of growth of wealth by these parasites is therefore interesting. Under National in the 1990s it went up relatively modestly, and then after Labour entered government in 1999 it curved dramatically upward. The rise in the 2004-2005 year – when the super-rich got over $9 billion richer – makes the upward curve especially pronounced.”
That extract from “The truth about Labour, a Bosses’ Party” is a typical example of Labour’s historical behaviour. Since its formation a hundred years ago, Labour has accepted the system and played the game. Attacking unearned privilege is foreign to Labour. Like National, as a party of the money class, Labour is not our friend.
Where then are workers to find friends and allies?
My third suggestion is that the union movement reclaim with both hands its international heritage. We need to talk more regularly and seriously to overseas unions and workers’ organisations, to learn from each other and support each other, financially and by supportive strike action. Workers in New Zealand have more in common with low paid toilers across the sea than we’ll ever have with kiwi born billionaires who rip us off and keep us poor.

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