Note from PWV: We have been posting articles about the struggles of dock workers on the US west coast. Today, we offer some links (see below this article) on the fight by wharfies in New Zealand. Workers worldwide face a relentless attempt by the capitalist class to suck every penny of profit out of the working class. 

New Zealand: Public Support for Wharfies

source: REDLINE

by Daphna Whitmore

The auditorium of the Trades Hall in Auckland was full with activists and unionists tonight. We were there to hear about the current Ports of Auckland waterfront dispute from the Maritime Union (MUNZ).

Garry Parsloe, MUNZ’s National President, is a seafarer. They have a strong union tradition. They are, in fact, 100 percent union. As Garry put it: “You can’t get up a gang plank of a ship without being in the union. The employer recognises the union as the source of labour”.

Union membership among wharfies is also high. On the Auckland waterfront there are 600 workers, all bar 17 are in the union. Until recently there were only three non-union workers but the company got to a few more recently with promises of permanent positions and a 10 percent pay rise if they’d leave the union.

The dispute began a few years back when the management started contracting out shuttle jobs. The union fought it and the management backed off. But it wasn’t over; Tony Gibson, the Port’s CEO, and his board have an agenda to smash the union and casualise the port operations. Read the background in the MUNZ fact sheet here.

There’s a madness about Gibson’s and the Board’s plans. They are demanding 12% returns on investments – sheer fantasy land stuff – and so too is their dream of a highly-efficient wharf staffed with casual labour.

The wharf is right now one of the most efficient in the region, shifting a container off a ship and onto the wharf in 1 minute 40 seconds. So impressive was the productivity last year the bosses paid bonuses and put on celebrations for all the workers. Now they are shrieking: ‘greedy wharfies, evil wharfies’. Russell Mayne, the union’s Assistant General Secretary, told the meeting: “It’s like it’s a crime to have a decent job these days”. These skilled workers are being paid $27 an hour, a rather modest sum when measured against the CEO’s $750,000 salary.

Much has been made of the Maersk shipping line moving to the Tauranga port, but this had been planned for months, and isn’t about the dispute said Garry Parsloe, it’s just management spin. Maersk has gone to Tauranga to deal with cargo from nearby Waikato. As for all the talk about Fonterra moving to Tauranga, that port cannot handle all of that cargo and more ships are now moving from Tauranga to Auckland’s port.

Wharf work is dangerous, and you have to have skilled workers driving the gear. On the Auckland wharf there are about 150 full-timers, some 50 or so part-timers who are guaranteed 24 hours a week, and 100 casuals. So the company clearly already has enough casuals to have loads of flexibility.

Russell Mayne pointed out that you could easily run the port without that many casuals, and not lose any profit, but the schedulers keep the casuals ”lean and hungry by not giving them enough shifts”. Some have been casuals working 4-5 shifts a week for 17 years. (MUNZ have fought for years to get casuals made permanent.) The Tauranga Port runs on a casual workforce and has had three deaths in the past three years in contrast to Auckland which hasn’t had any deaths in that period.

MUNZ are members of the International Transport Federation (ITF), which has around 700 affiliated unions from 150 countries. Garry Parsloe is an ITF convenor and says there is solid support from the Federation and it can be called upon. The ITF resolved after the Liverpool dockers lost a battle against casualisation in 1998 never to let that happen again. They say they’ll rally to the watersiders in New Zealand.

Garry Parsloe explained: If a scab handles a ship, that ship it will be “blacked” and sent back to the port of origin. Shipowners understand this well. During a recent strike, shipowners said the scabs weren’t to touch the ship; another ship didn’t even call into the port when the strike was on. One ship that came into port had a sign hanging over the side saying “Piss off scabs”.

Some at tonight’s  meeting were disappointed that the Labour Party has sat on the fence through this dispute. It should come as no surprise. As Matt McCarten from Unite union quipped “they are neither for nor against”, a reference to Labour’s betrayal of the watersiders in the 1951 lockout. (See The Truth About Labourand the interview with Jock Barnes, part one and part two.)

Green MP Denise Roche said the Greens support the MUNZ workers for economic, environmental and social reasons. They are fighting privatisation “and the Greens want to increase coastal shipping and keep it regulated” she said, citing the Rena disaster.

Jennifer Ward-Lealand, President of Actors Equity, got up to thank the wharfies. She said that in 2010 when the actors had their dispute (with Peter Jackson and Warner Brothers) the MUNZ members came along and gave support and provided security at a meeting. She was happy to be able to publicly thank them for their support. She said she’d never forget one MUNZ member getting up and saying “actors are workers too!”

MUNZ want the public to know what this dispute is about. The CTU are helping to publicise the issue and will deliver leaflets to every house in Auckland.

No one doubts the importance of this fight. As Garry Parsloe put it: casualisation is like a cancer that spreads.

UGTT

The 22nd Congress of the UGTT

Nizar Amami  (source: International Viewpoint)

The 22nd congress of Tunisia’s UGTT trade union federation was held from December 25-28, 2011. A large part of it was devoted to the election of the new national leadership.

 The new Executive Bureau (EB) is clearly better than the old one. It is based on real activists involved in the struggles, who are not corrupt.

An alternative list had been constituted around those close to the federation’s former deputy leader. It includes some self styled independents, of whom some were in reality close to the Islamists currently in power (about 10 % of congress participants were estimated to be linked to the Islamists).

The overwhelming majority of members of the new EB belonged historically to the trade union left, and this is a victory for that left. Half of those elected are not, or are no longer, members of a party. This is for example the case with the new general secretary. He was part of the minority on the old EB and belongs to the democratic and left movement. He was a member of the Communist Party twenty years ago.

What facilitated the election of the victorious list was the fact that the political sentiments were not there represented by the party leaders. Sami Tahri from secondary teaching and Mohamed Msalmi from the Regional Union of Benarous, for example, are respectively in the MPD and PTPD. But they were elected to the EB as trades unionists, and do not belong to the leadership of these parties.

The PCOT did not behave in the same way. One of their activists, Hfayed Hfayed, was on the list which won as the representative of the primary teachers union. But the PCOT wanted one of its activists, Jilani Hammami, to also be on the bureau. The majority of the members of the winning list considered that it was not possible to have a second PCOT activist on the Bureau.

What is important now is to see what this new leadership will do in a situation where numerous demands are expressed at the democratic and social level. For now, it is not possible to give it a free pass. The past of those elected is known, but that does not allow us to predict what they will do now.

There was very little political discussion at this congress (Motions were however adopted with a left content, against unemployment, for jobs, against the ultra neoliberal economic project).

The orientation which results from it is not well defined, but I think that this will come. The new Bureau is seeking to transform the UGTT. A big job has started, and a change in the statutes is planned in particular.

The winning list was constituted not on the basis of ideas but so as to win the elections. That is one of the reasons there were no women on this list: those who constituted it thought that this would not allow sufficient votes for the list to win (97 % of congress delegates were men, whereas 47% of UGTT members are women).

For me the winning list should have nonetheless included a woman. The fact that there are no women on the EB is the most unacceptable choice made by this congress. It is not democratic and this has shocked many activists (Women are 50% of postal workers, and are in the majority in sectors like teaching, health or tourism. More than 60% of textile workers are women. Women have participated in the struggles to bring down Ben Ali in the same way as men).

A debate will be opened on a change in the internal rules so as to include quotas for women in the leaderships, starting in the regional unions and branches. It will be necessary to await the next congress for women to participate at last on the EB.

Nizar Amami is a Tunisian trades unionist in the PTT and a member of the Ligue de la gauche ouvrière (LGO – Workers’ Left League). This article first appeared in TEAN NPA, France) on January 12, 2011.

[from ILC International Newsletter No. 55 (424 Old Series) -- January 6, 2012]

The National Congress of the UGTT Trade Union Federation Met on December 25-27, 2011

Independence of Organisation and Defence of Workers’ Demands at the Centre of the Congress

“Allah wakbar” (“God is the greatest” – translator’s note). That was the slogan that a small minority of delegates to the 22nd UGTT Congress attempted to use to provoke an incident at the opening of the conference.

But the overwhelming majority of the conference delegates, whatever their positions on religion, came back with the slogan “The Tunisian people are free! Neither Qatar nor the USA will dictate their choices!” This slogan was taken up again and again during the congress, and was chanted by the delegates after the proclamation of the results of the newly-elected leadership. The question of the independence of trade union organisation was at the heart of the convention discussions.

The portraits on the convention hall walls of Ali Hached, the founder of the UGTT, assassinated by French colonialism in 1952, reminded all of the long fight for trade union organisation. On the same subject, the UGTT spokesperson Abid Briki — who held a press conference every day of the congress — reported that “the conference delegates stressed the independence of the unions.” The daily newspaper La Presse (on December 28th, 2011) emphasized that, for the delegates, “it was imperative that the (restructuring of the UGTT) be reviewed, in the perspective of optimizing the role of rank and file unions, by increasing the number of their affiliates – without, however, neglecting to consolidate the role of the regional structures.”

This demand for independence was forcefully expressed when Hassine Abbassi, who was elected at the end of the congress as the new secretary general of the UGTT – declared that the support “given to the candidacy of the former president (Ben Ali, in 2007 – editor’s note) had been a strategic mistake.”

This will to organizational independence does not only refer to the questions of the past but also to current issues.

Before the congress and over several weeks, the government of national unity, regrouping the Islamic party Ennahda along with the parties called secular (the “Congress for the Republic” of the new president Marzouki, and “Ettakol”, member of the Socialist International), engaged in a vast campaign against the workers and their historical union, the UGTT. For Marzouki, the president of the Republic, “the pursuing of strikes and mobilisation is collective suicide; this must cease”. The president of the bosses’ association Utica likewise demanded “an end to the strikes and demonstrations that weigh on the social climate”.

Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali, member of Ennahda, brandished the threat of repression against mobilisation and wildcat sit-ins, “uncontrolled by the unions.”

The editorial of Le Quotidien (December 29, 2011) emphasized that “the country ardently needs a legal counter-power and a strong UGTT. Only, good sense needs to be shown, and the supreme interest of the nation needs to be respected. This interest is also part of the UGTT’s responsibility, and that of its leaders who, while needing to criticize, must also propose alternatives and who especially need make the labour force aware of these interests and to supervise them, otherwise chaos and anarchy will prevail.”

Furthermore, in a letter to the new secretary general of the UGTT, Prime Minister Jebali expressed the desire for the implementing of a “social contract” … “in consensus”. From the convention podium in Tabarka (in the northwest of the country), the UGTT spokesman answered: “The threats against the protesters do not differ from Ben Ali’s big stick policy.” The daily newspaper La Presse is not mistaken when it says, regarding the conference delegates, “The first reaction consisted of taking a position against certain security procedures that the government is considering undertaking in order to put an end to the wave of strikes and sit-ins.”

In his speech, the secretary general of the secondary teaching union, Sami Tahri, “called on the new leadership elected by the congress to reject the deducting of 4 work days from the salaries” (Le Temps, December 29).

A great many of the convention delegates workers’ demands were put forward. Hassen Chebil of the building union pleaded for lowering retirement age in the sector and called on the authorities to open an investigation into the conditions of the Ben Ali government’s privatisation of public companies. Houcine Boujarra judged the threats to public and academic freedoms in the universities inadmissible.

All the sectors put workers’ demands forward. And all converged on the same question: the attitude that the UGTT needs to have in relation to the Constituent Assembly. The delegates therefore formally asked that the right to a job and other social and economic rights be written into the Constitution, not in the form of a preface to the Constitution but as a constitutional chapter on its own. It is moreover for that reason that the UGTT congress is calling for a revision of the partnership agreement concluded between Tunisia and the European Union, and of the conventions signed by the previous government with the United States. “The agreements signed with Europe and the United States are detrimental to Tunisia and to the workers in particular,” the spokesman specified.

At the end of the congress, one UGTT official told us that the risk of confrontation with the coalition government in the coming months and weeks is significant. The announced 2012 budget does indeed indicate the pursuing of the economic policy implemented during the Ben Ali period, and will not allow for satisfying the workers’ demands. According to him, the results of the UGTT congress and the newly elected leadership clearly underscores the independence of the union in regards to the government, the parties and any other institution, and the defence of workers’ demands, notably workers’ rights.

(Report written initially for Informations Ouvrières (France) issue number 181, January 5 to 11, 2012)

“Using U.S. military forces to intervene on behalf of the employer in a local labor dispute threatens the interests of every union and union member in the country.” 

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Urgent Denunciation!  (Source: International Workers’ League)

The community “Pinheirinho” (Sao Jose dos Campos, 97 km far from Sao Paulo), the largest urban settlement in Latin America is under military siege. The Military Police (MP), under the command of the governor of Sao Paulo, Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB), and fulfilling orders of the Judge Marcia Loureiro, invaded, by surprise, the community where  nearly 2,000 families and 9,000 people live, of whom 2,600 are kids . There is an ongoing war against humble and homeless working families.

The repossession ordered by the State court is absolutely illegal, because it disobeys the direction of the Federal courts of Brazil.

The repression

This Sunday, January 22, at 6 o’clock in the morning, about two thousand men of the riot Military Police (PM), from nearby towns, attacked the community with helicopters, pepper and tear gas bombs rubber bullets and even firearms. From the air, the Military Police throws gas bombs against the poor people, against the inhabitants of the community, against workers who have only claimed for a decent place to live. Once the community is under siege (nobody enters or leaves), we have no accurate data on the amount of prisoners, wounded or killed.

The population of the surrounding neighborhood is sympathizing with ‘Pinheirinho’ and is also being severely repressed. In the area of “Campo dos Alemães” – an area in front of ‘Pinheirinho’ – where precarious tents were set up to bring Pinheirinho’s inhabitants, several people rebelled and burned cars and clashed with the Military Police (PM). The mood in Sao Jose dos Campos is of confrontation in many parts of the city.

Toninho Ferreira, lawyer for the community’s residents, was wounded with a rubber bullet in his spinal column and in other parts of his body when he was approaching to dialogue with the Military Police (PM).

The Mayor and the Governor – Geraldo Alckmin – are the ones responsible for the massacre

Those, responsible for this war operation against ‘Pinheirinho’ and against the whole social movement in Latin America, those who are ready to guarantee the capitalist property and to quench the insatiable thirst for profit of the real estate speculators, are the state and municipal governments of PSDB (Alckmin and Eduardo Cury, respectively) and the Judge Marcia Loureiro, all of them “receiving” the money poured by big business. (“big business and corporate lobbyists are packing courts with judges who put special interests ahead of the public interest”).

We demand that Dilma’s government defines its position on the matter and implements concrete measures in favor of ‘Pinheirinho’ and against this illegal and unacceptable repression.

Let us surround ‘Pinheirinho’ with our solidarity!

LIT-IV strongly condemns this attack against the lives of working families and we fully support Pinheirinho’s struggle to achieve a decent place to live.

We call all social and political organizations in Latin America and the world to express their active solidarity with ‘Pinheirinho’s community and to denounce the atrocities of the state government of Sao Paulo, the city of São José dos Campos and the corrupt Brazilian courts. We must continue mobilized and surrounding our ‘Pinheirinho’s comrades with our solidarity. Their struggle is our struggle

Pinheirinho Occupation resists cop repression source: indymedia UK

 Urgent solidarity,
In defense of Pinheirinho,
No to the reintegration of ownership,
No more intimidation and repression.

In the early hours of January 05, 2012, residents of the Pinheirinho Community in São José dos Campos, São Paulo State, Brazil, were surprised by 05:30 in the morning. A huge police operation was implemented leaving everyone perplexed. On the grounds that they were seeking for drugs, weapons and possible fugitives from justice, the police imposed the panic in the community.

Residents have been living a routinely panic since the Judge Marcia Faria Mathey Loureiro determined the reintegration of ownership to the bankrupt estate “Selecta” whose proprietor is the mega real estate speculator, Naji Nahas. It is at best strange the judge’s decision since the legalization of the community and the area transformation into a district were underway and well advanced at the appropriate government offices, after all, about two thousand families have already lived there for eight years.

Despite the official explanation of search and seizure, the real purpose behind this huge police operation held within Pinheirinho Community, is to intimidate the community and to search for excuses to justify a cowardly action for eviction of the ground.

We repudiate the Judge Marcia Faria Mathey Loureiro’s decision and we also repudiate such an intimidating attitude of the public security agencies. We express our solidarity towards the Pinheirinho community and demand that Alckmin’s Government, responsible for public security in the state, does not authorize any action aimed at the eviction of the ground, now occupied by working men and women who struggle to have a home. By doing so the Governor will avoid what may come to be a real tragedy.

It is worth registering that the State Government agencies have already declared in favor of the occupation’s regulating and the Advisor of the Secretariat of the Presidency, Wlamir Martines, condemned the possible evacuation of the area and reiterated the government’s interest in the acquisition of that land area. He said that in case of emergency, he will trigger the National Secretary for Human Rights to intervene and prevent the eviction.

The CSP-Conlutas will continue to give unrestricted support to the residents of Pinheirinho and will join the actions of resistance and struggle in defense of the right to housing, as well as demanding that all levels of government to prevent a possible tragedy to the lives of residents and their families. We urge the organizations to send a motion in solidarity with the community as well as a motion to repudiate the police action.

Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic :  sg@planalto.gov.br   

São Paulo State Governor:  Geraldo Alckmin   galckmin@sp.gov.br   

Mayor of São José dos Campos – Eduardo Cury:  gabinete@sjc.sp.gov.br

Judge Márcia Faria M. Loureiro:  sjcampos6cv@tj.sp.jus.br

cc  to  secretaria@cspconlutas.org.br

 (1)     Pinheirinho Community – It is an area long abandoned by its owner, the mega real estate speculator, Naji Nahas. The occupation of Pinheirinho has its origin in the great housing shortage in Sao Jose dos Campos (SP). There are 9.000 people, mostly women and children, who have been living at Pinheirinho since 2004.