Oceania

The second day of the strike at Brackenridge Estate, a Ministry Of Health run complex for the care of intellectually disabled adults, saw around 40 workers and their supporters on the picket lines, under shade from the 30 degree plus heat. Friday, the first day of the 48 hour strike, saw around 100 people on the lines.

Mediation between the Maritime Union and Port Company is taking place currently, in an effort to stop moves by the Port of Napier to contract out stevedoring work which threatens 25 permanent and 60 casual jobs, with workers to be thrown on the scrap heap just before Christmas.

Workers at the Lihir gold mine in Papua New Guinea walked out five days ago over a pay dispute in an unofficial action that is still unresolved. Efforts to cut a deal have stalled while managers consider Lihir's workers' demands, which include sacking the entire management of the mine. It is claimed that workers have been consistently denied the right to organise to protect their rights at work.

They are demanding the reversal of a 5% pay cut and the changing of the retirement age from 60 to 55, and an additional 10% pay rise. The pay cut and change in retirement age were announced shortly after the military government took power in a coup last December.

A Peoples’ History of Auckland- From the general strike to the ADB summit. 1912-1995
IWW, 1912

The action involved striking for 55 minutes of every hour, 24 hours a day in a struggle for better wages and conditions.

About 140 Reefton and Dunollie miners were due to meet in Runanga at 1pm to decide their next step.

In an escalation of previous action, the Spring Creek miners walked off the job on Friday morning.

The miners are seeking a 5 - 5.5% pay increase, while Solid Energy (which directly employs 1/3 of the miners and the rest indirectly via contractors) has refused to go higher than 4%.

The strikers confronted the shared hostility of governments, employers and union leaders alike. The text also deals with how the racism prevalent in the labour movement affected the conduct and outcome of the strike.

"THIS IS A STRIKE that has vanished from history. In August 1925, the seamen of Britain, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand walked off their ships in protest against a ten per cent wage cut. It was one of the few genuinely international strikes, directed against a powerful international cartel. One would have expected it to be widely debated. Yet, newspaper coverage apart, history has largely been silent.

A local businessman, Ulaiasi Taoi, has been detained twice over the past month in relation to a blog and Mr Sayed-Khaiyum has warned of the dangers of bloggers using their anonymity to attack the government. A wave of blogs sprang up after the coup, with many bloggers publishing uncensored accounts of the coup and of the actions of its instigators once in power.

The strike action is in support of a claim by workers for increased salaries and for their benefits to be brought into line with those of other workers at the Officeof post and telecommunications (OPT). An inter-union grouping of CSIP, CSTP/FO, Otahi, A Tia I Mua called the strike and 60% of workers are observing it.Tikiphone shops are either closed or picketed.

There has been no progress on their pay dispute as the company refused to negotiate in good faith.
“The company is refusing to negotiate with its workers and their union, and is hiding behind Howard’s laws to deny their workers a collectively negotiated agreement.”

Remembering Jim Duke
"I started performing poems as a timid person with a stutter but the spirit of the times soon converted me into a bellowing bull." Jim Duke

“The voice played like a human saxophone.” Nicholas Zurbrugg

The Public Employees Union (PEU), representing almost 5,000 blue collar public servants, has voted to back a strike planned by the country's largest union, the Public Service Association (PSA). The PSA voted overwhelmingly on Friday to strike after the military government slashed civil servants' wages under a plan to save the nation's economy from collapse.

Nurses & teachers ballot

This text is taken from the December 2006 issue of the Industrial Workers of the World Australia's newsletter, Direct Action.

Alison Ribbon reported that the strike was apparently unplanned and dubbed a "wildcat strike" by the railway union.

Safety issues surrounding Pacific National have been in the headlines recently, with three derailments involving the company's trains in less than a year.

A train carrying paper from Hobart to the Burnie port derailed near Ulverstone a week ago.