trade unions
New Zealand: What has happened to real wages since1982?
By Mike Treen
Official data on wage movements in New Zealand point to a real wage decline of around 25% between 1982 and the mid-1990s that has never been recovered.
There have been two series measuring wages in the period – the Prevailing Weekly Wage Index (discontinued in June 1993) and its replacement the Labour Cost Index. I have created a continuous series based on the LCI series back to 1982 (by adjusting the PWWI numbers before December 1992 when PWWI at 1000 was equivalent to the LCI at 868). These numbers are in turn deflated by the CPI index covering the whole period.
What is revealed is that by the mid-1990s real wages had declined at least 25%. There has been no recovery since then and real wages remain 25% below their 1982 peak. This result can be directly attributed to the combination of the massive deunionisation as a result of the anti-union employment laws and the recession that accompanied it in the early 1990s.
Iran: Interview -- Trade union activists face repression as regime imposes austerity
January 19, 2010 -- Labor Notes -- Iran has seen incredible tumult in the last few months, with massive street protests challenging the government, even as the US and allied nations continue to threaten the Iranian government under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
But most people in the US know little about Iranian society, and especially its working class. Iranian workers have been organising for more than a century but today largely have to function in a secretive, underground way. It is therefore very fortunate that we have obtained an interview with a labour organiser (whom we shall call Homayoun Poorzad), who is based in Tehran, the capital city of Iran.
Labor Notes: How has the Iranian labour movement fared under the Ahmadinejad regime?
Homayoun Poorzad: This has been the most anti-labour government of the Islamic Republic over the last 30 years. The 1979 revolution was not regressive in every sense; it nationalised 70 per cent of the economy and passed a labour law that was one of the best in terms of limiting the firing of workers. This is a target for change by capitalists, both private and those in the government bureaucracy.
Pakistan: Special appeal for families of killed socialist activists
By Farooq Tariq, Nasir Mansoor and Khalid Mahmood
Britain: One million climate jobs now!
By the Public and Commercial Services Union (Britain)
Canada: Vale Inco strike shows need for international action
By Marc Bonhomme, translated by Richard Fidler
A Québécois militant, member of Québec solidaire, discusses the global implications of the strike by 3500 workers at Vale Inco, the world’s largest nickel mine, in Sudbury, Ontario.
November 11, 2009 -- Socialist Voice -- In France’s South Pacific colony of New Caledonia [Kanaky], a small delegation of Vale Inco strikers from Sudbury, in northeastern Ontario, most of them Franco-Ontarians, met in October with the union at the island’s Vale Inco nickel mine, due to open in 2010, although it threatens a UNESCO nature reserve. The newspaper Nouvelles calédoniennes reported the encounter, in its October 31 edition:
Britain: The Lucas Aerospace workers' plan -- A real Green New Deal
By Hilary Wainwright and Andy Bowman
Karen Silkwood: an inspiration to fighters for environmental justice and workers' rights
By Sharyn Jenkins
Australian socialists demand `green jobs'
By the Socialist Alliance
[The following leaflet was distributed at the ``switch off Hazelwood'' power station protest in Victoria on September 12 and 13, attended by more than 300 people.]
September 13, 2009 -- The transition from a fossil fuel dependent society to renewable energy is perhaps the most urgent question facing humanity. The public debate about climate change has shifted from a discussion about the reality of global warming to a discussion focused on how to transition to renewable energy.
Industrial action for peace: The Communist Party of Australia and antiwar activity before 1960
Kanaky: Interview with jailed pro-independence trade union leader Gérard Jodar
This interview with Gérard Jodar, president of the pro-independence trade union federation USTKE (Union of Kanak and Exploited Workers), was published in Libération, issue #14790, on August 17 2009. He was interviewed by Matthieu Ecoiffier. Translated into English for Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal by Annolies Truman.
Sentenced at the end of June 2009 to a year in prison for ``hindering the circulation of an aircraft'' [click HERE for background information to the struggle], Gérard Jodar is one of very few trade unionists to be imprisoned in France –- and his lawyers’ application for a lesser sentence has just been rejected by the appeals judge of the Noumea Supreme Court.
Gérard Jodar explains the conditions of his detention as well as the situation on the ``Pebble’’ [the nickname for New Caledonia, the colonial name for the South Pacific territory of Kanaky, which remains a colonial possession of France -- translator].
Lucas Aerospace -- When workers said `no' to military production, `yes' to green jobs
By Rob Marsden
August 22, 2009 -- Socialist Resistance -- Today, the twin drivers of economic recession and the possibility of catastrophic climate change are beginning to push working people towards action. A series of small-scale but high-profile occupations of threatened factories, not just at Vestas wind turbine plant but also at Visteon car plant, where 600 workers took on the might of Ford and won a greatly enhanced redundancy package, show what is possible. In the 1970s workers at Britain's Lucas Aerospace went even further. We look back at the lessons of Lucas Aerospace.
It is clear that if we are to avert catastrophic climate change by moving rapidly to a low-carbon economy, certain industries will have to be wound down or drastically scaled back, for example, the power generation, aviation and car industries. However, rather than this leading to a net loss of jobs, efforts must be put into creating new green jobs or ``converting'' old jobs.