The weak kneed NZ Labour Party is being given an example of
courage and principle. Something they lost under Roger Douglas and never regained since that period. We all
saw the panic when David Cunliffe
was elected leader, gosh he was of the left! And we can’t have that screamed
the caucus…so they created a reason to shed a little blood…and Cunliffe had to
go and in his place we got a so-called union leader who never actually acted as
principled unionist.
The British Labour party will now 'automatically' support
all strikes
Pictured: Jeremy
Corbyn and John McDonnell’.
Tuesday, 29 September 2015 9:21 AM
The British Labour party will now "automatically"
support all strikes taken by trade unions, the new shadow chancellor said last
night.
John McDonnell told a conference fringe meeting that Labour
would have "absolute solidarity" with all actions taken by the trade
union movement.
He said the party needed to become a "resistance
movement".
"And that means absolute solidarity. The view now is
straightforward and I tell you this: If there is industrial action taking place
then we should automatically now, automatically come alongside our brothers and
sisters in the trade unions and support them."
He said the former party leadership had been too hesitant to
publicly support strikes.
"Time and time again in the hierarchy of the Labour
party there has been hesitancy about this. I think we have to break that
hesitancy and give people the confidence and courage and determination to start
standing up," he told the ‘Assembly against Austerity’.
"My role, whether it is in parliament, or on the picket
line, is to support workers in struggle.
"That is what the role of Labour MPs is going to be in
the future."
McDonnell is chair of the Public Services Union (PCS) group
in parliament. He was joined last night by PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka,
who praised McDonnell for giving "hope and inspiration to millions of
people."
He suggested that PCS and other trade unions would now seek
to launch co-ordinated strike action across the public sector, with the support
of the Labour leadership.
"There should be united, co-ordinated strikes… And the
thing about the strike that may well come our way, is unlike in 2011 [the]
Labour leadership when asked to support the strikers shuffled embarrassingly and
looked at their shoes, we now have a leader of the opposition and a shadow
chancellor who will support these strikes."
Serwotka, who was barred from voting in the Labour
leadership contest, added that Corbyn's election and McDonnell's appointment
meant the Labour leadership was now "well to the left of the TUC".
Wow! Just image what would happen here in NZ if Labour made
the same statement, just imagine the hell that would break out in the ranks of
Labour Party members of Parliament…they would have to make a stand…have a
public opinion…they would have to support the workers in real terms…not just
state platitudes and insincere head nods…and make meaningless statements. I
mean really folks did the now Labour Party leader [Andrew Little] in his days in the Trade Union movement ever
make a stand against Roger Douglas
and his introduction of super right wing Neoliberalist mayhem that brought havoc
to workers in NZ. No way! ‘Andrew Little’, was the big pusher for the idiotic
‘Partnership’ an arrangement that led to a massive rise in unemployment that
reached almost 11% and a huge number of publicly owned business sold off,
putting thousands of public servants on the dole, they did it without a blink
of the eye. The National Party thought all their dreams were being fulfilled,
so much that they were happy to support the sell off of state assets.
The Labour Party really has yet to oppose the TPPA and have
tip-toed around the issue, it would seem that Labour still sees itself as right-wing.
In their latest advertising Labour said that if the reason
was worthy “We would fight for it” the real question is, what do they mean by ‘Fight
for it’ ?
- · Does that mean they would support strike action or that they would take to the streets in protest?
- · Did the Labour Party take to the streets when care givers were denied a wage increase?
- · Did they take to the streets to stop Charter Schools?
- · Did they take some form of industrial Action when the government made No Hour Contracts legal?
- · Did they take action when public broadcasting was slashed and we have types like Mike Hosking being paid by the state?
No they did not! Did they march out of parliament and onto
the streets and demand fairness and democracy…No they did not… The present
Labour Party is but a fading shadow, a ever diminishing image of those who created
the party back in the thirties, those who stood tall for everybody, and it’s
sad because it means we no longer have a model to look up to, someone to
emulate and aspire to. They have lost their heart, their guts, their strength.
The British Labour Party elected by a massive margin Jeremy
Corbyn and the young and old have flocked to the party in their tens of thousands, at
last they’ve blown away forever the stupidity of and criminality of Tony Blair and his
so-called ‘third way’ he was nothing more than a Thatcher in drag!
New Zealand Labour has to toss into retirement those right-wing
die-hard leaches that still take up room in their caucus…and thereby introduce
some backbone, some social courage into the ranks once more. It can be done… It’s
called fighting for what you believe in…you've just got to start believing once again in working people...because rest assured they will in the end win...
1 comment:
Peter.
Right on in all you say Can you imagine in your wildest dreams Jack Lee tolerating what is called Labour in this day and age? Or that other firebrand, Mabel Howard?
I agree with all you have said. David Cunliffe was on the right track and was trying to bring back some semblance of what this country experienced in 1935. He was beaten by the white collar intellectuals in the party who have never done a full days work at some manual occupation, alongside Real Men. Their fortunes are at their lowest ebb simply because they have abandoned the majority on the bottom of the heap for some pie in the sky ideals that will never materialise. As a result of Labour’s present stupidity those votes are now lost forever and unlikely to be ever regained.
I believe you are perfectly correct in your summing up of Jeremy Corbyn. I think he will be the shot in the arm the Brits have needed since the end of WWII.
Our present unsmiling ex union ‘leader’ with all the charisma of a blunt lead pencil, will never change. The party needs a really strong personable leader to root out the Neo Lib factions and get right back to basic Labour Party principles.
I look at conditions on Building sites where men are dolled up in Hi Viz waterproof gear and hard hats going about their work in pouring rain. Or line gangs working up in the air performing some maintenance tasks on the overhead reticulation. These instances show how far this country has receded from the very fair wages and conditions brought about by Early Labour’s commitment to compulsory Unionism Those were the days of the Arbitration Court which set the wages for the whole of the country and oversaw the Awards system which set out conditions for each and every occupation.
All swept away by the headlong rush into neoliberalism which brought with it the aberrations of employment contracts, zero hours contracts and all the other slimy tricks being played on the working classes, condoned by them on high, who have never done a useful day’s work in any of their useless lives.
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