(en) Aotearoa (New Zealand) - Who's Flexibility? by AWSM*

The General Election in New Zealand/Aotearoa took place at the end of September and so its 
all over and done with. More accurately, the ritual of deciding who will politically rule 
over us has ended. The election of our bosses in the workplace never happened. The end 
result in both cases is the same. We are faced with a ruling class that feels emboldened 
to attack workers when it senses opportunities to do so. The latest piece of ammunition 
the government is preparing to lob our way comes in the form of a bland sounding piece of 
legislation, the Employment Relations Amendment Bill. This law was delayed prior to the 
election, due to the resignation of the now ex-MP criminal John Banks, but will be enacted 
within the next 100 days. What is the bill about?

The General Election in New Zealand/Aotearoa took place at the end of September and so its 
all over and done with. More accurately, the ritual of deciding who will politically rule 
over us has ended. The election of our bosses in the workplace never happened. The end 
result in both cases is the same. We are faced with a ruling class that feels emboldened 
to attack workers when it senses opportunities to do so. The latest piece of ammunition 
the government is preparing to lob our way comes in the form of a bland sounding piece of 
legislation, the Employment Relations Amendment Bill. This law was delayed prior to the 
election, due to the resignation of the now ex-MP criminal John Banks, but will be enacted 
within the next 100 days. What is the bill about?

The first thing to be aware of is that the bill does not represent an innovative departure 
from the various anti-worker laws that have been enacted over the past 30 years by both 
Labour and their rivals in the traditionally more right-wing National Party. That doesn?t 
make it benign. It is a refining of existing legislation that operates alongside other 
recent laws such as that allowing workers to be fired without explanation within 90 days 
of being hired, with no right of redress. It is an attack that seeks to take away the few 
nominal collective protections that exist.

At present there is a requirement for workers to be included in a collective agreement 
within their first 30 days of employment but this will be stripped. In addition, union 
representatives will need the employer?s consent to enter the workplace. It doesn?t take 
much imagination to see how this allows bosses to get away with all sorts of mischief and 
mayhem. Unions will be unable to directly confirm the conditions under which workers do 
their jobs.

The provision that has drawn the most notice has been the increase in ?flexibility? over 
rest and meal breaks. It may be true that some employers will choose not to invoke this 
provision as it may not suit them. However, it also enables them to use this as a petty 
means of victimising any workers who won?t play along with their various plans. Again, the 
buzz word of ?flexibility? applies in relation to the bosses being able to change 
workplace arrangements as often as they choose. Although strikes are incredibly rare in 
today?s environment, this bill also seeks to undermine the effect of withdrawing labour, 
by requiring notification of strikes ahead of time and allows bosses to decrease worker?s 
pay during partial strikes.

There are other onerous aspects of the bill, but the features mentioned are sufficient to 
get the idea of what we can expect and who will gain from these changes. In short, it 
isn?t those of us who rely solely on the jobs we do to eat every day (something we can?t 
easily be flexible about) and pay our household bills (try arguing for ?flexibility? with 
a debt collection agency!). The real question is?how do we fight the changes?

We don?t have all the answers. We also have to be realistic and acknowledge that many 
workers are currently demoralised, uninformed and to some extent dis-organised or 
unorganised. The first part of any fight back has to therefore be a straight forward 
educational one of telling each other about the new law and what it means for us. This can 
be done directly through face-to-face discussions, public meetings, leafleting, using 
internet resources such as Facebook or the alternative media.

Knowledge alone is not enough to make change happen. It requires organisation and that is 
a trickier area to sort out. Some workers are still organised in hierarchical unions with 
well-paid full time organisers whose task is to negotiate the rate of exploitation of 
those they claim to represent. The mentality of many, is to put faith in the same 
political class that has collectively created the web of laws over recent decades. For 
example, prior to the election the President of the Council of Trade Unions (CTU) Helen 
Kelly was putting faith in the idea that ?In 100 days if Labour and Greens are elected all 
this negative employment law will be reversed?. This came in a press release labelled 
?Worker?s Despair at National?s Lack of Fairness?. This terminology highlights how she 
sees her role, namely to get whoever rules over us to please be a little nicer if they 
wouldn?t mind.

Labour and the Greens took a pounding at the polls. Even if they had found themselves in 
the dominant position National is now in, it is highly unlikely given their history, that 
they would have had the backbone or willingness to literally overturn all the negative 
labour laws that exist.

The third Labour Government in the 1970?s brought in an Industrial Relations Bill that 
retained many of the anti-strike provisions earlier National initiated legislation had 
established. This allowed them to de-register unions and curtail union militancy, which 
they did. Then the fourth Labour Government brought in the Labour Relations Act in 1987 
and the State Sector Act in 1988, the latter in particular being introduced without 
warning or negotiation and was designed to erode conditions for public employees. 
Anti-worker measures and attacks on collective bargaining were toughened further when 
National introduced the Employment Contracts Act in 1991. Labour spent 9 years in power 
during the first decade of this century. In that period they introduced the Employment 
Relations Act of 2000 which barely modified the 1991 legislation. Throughout their time in 
power Labour happily took donations from businesses, including billionaires such as Owen 
Glenn. With a decades-long track record like that, why should anyone put their faith in 
them as protectors of working people?!

The Labour Party in its very early days made a rhetorical commitment to doing away with 
the current economic system through reforming it. This had appeal to many workers at the 
time when it was a fresh, untested idea. However anarchists have always known where that 
approach would end. Now nearly a hundred years later, Labour is a collection of squabbling 
factions comprising professional politicians who simply want to manage the system. Being 
temporarily a little less aggressive than National in one small aspect is hardly a 
brilliant reason to support them. If anything, it exposes the tweedledumb/tweedledumber 
nature of how things work and the need to search for ways to break out of that false choice.

Unions as they are now, have weaknesses. Not just in the sense that they currently have 
limited social power but also in the way that they are inherently structured in favour of 
the status quo. They are bureaucratic, top-down organisations with leaders who use union 
positions as jumping off points for seats in parliament or even into the managing of 
businesses. In short, while current unions may do some good deeds, they are not fighting 
organisations but designed to work within the economic system. While they can?t really be 
vehicles for the longer term change that?s required, we have to deal with the contemporary 
reality that for some workers the current unions are all that exist as a means to deal 
with the bosses onslaughts.

For those of us in traditional unions the challenge is to combat attempts to channel hopes 
into voting for political parties and donating time and money to them. We may have to sign 
the occasional petition, join a mildly irritating demo outside parliament or participate 
in a one hour stop work meeting but let?s not fool ourselves that this is sufficient. We 
need to look for opportunities to put forward alternatives that rely on workers ourselves 
having control over whatever forms of struggle we can develop. We can?t afford to ?play by 
the rules? when the rules the government are using, so heavily favour the bosses. When we 
can, we should look for chances to build broad alliances with other workers at the 
flaxworks level. This could be within existing unions, inside new radical ones or 
non-union community based organisations of our own creation.

When it comes to tactics that can be used, we should consider a wider range of 
possibilities than has recently been tried. Some may not be appropriate at all times and 
places. We also have to be aware that not everyone will be willing to go all the way in 
the implementation of them. Rather than stigmatise such fellow workers or see them as the 
enemy, we should encourage workmates and associates to lend support in whatever 
alternative ways they feel able to. Again it is worth stressing we also have to grow 
awareness and sympathy for our aims in our communities and society at large. Failure to do 
so will mean a lack of resources, and leave the field free for the bosses to spew their 
lies, without being countered. This could lead to our organisations being isolated and the 
development of unhealthy internal cultures of a ?siege mentality? or elitism.

The actual tactics used will need to be creatively applied, using the bosses? mantra of 
?flexibility? in our own way. For example, a lack of tea breaks could quite likely lead to 
poor health. This could cause workers to be sick one after the other or even en masse. 
With around 90% of New Zealand workplaces having 20 workers or less, it would be possible 
to have a significant proportion of workers suddenly off sick. This could inconveniently 
happen at the very point when the boss is reliant upon a new batch of products to be 
dispatched or service to be given. A real shame, but can?t be helped in the circumstances 
eh. A boss choosing to react vindictively about that is less likely to gain much sympathy 
if word got out.

One aspect of workers taking action that is sometimes overlooked or underplayed is the 
need to bring the wider community with you in support of what you are doing. Again, in 
certain occupations workers feeling stress due to a lack of breaks might accidentally and 
at random forget to charge customers for certain services. An individual case might change 
little but the accumulative effect if such accidental events happen at crucial moments, 
might make a difference. Getting something for free is of course something most customers 
would feel terrible about.

It is possible the workforce at a site may decide to strike within the confines of the new 
law. As noted, the law is intended to support bosses by giving them plenty of time to 
nullify the effect of a strike. Once again, if workers decide to go down this route, it is 
something that can cut both ways. It can be done using methods that give time to prepare 
and anticipate the moves the bosses might try. For example, to head off the possibility of 
bosses withholding pay and thereby starving people back to the company, funds can be put 
aside a long way ahead of time. These funds can be held in a manner that makes it hard for 
the bosses or government to get hold of. This may not be in an official union account or 
controlled by somebody at head office who is unsympathetic to those on the ground. In the 
age of the internet it might even be under the radar, as it were. This financial 
contingency plan can be supplemented by the more established approach of openly and 
covertly appealing for solidarity amongst those who are sympathetic here and internationally.

Another obvious reaction by the bosses to the prospect of a strike, is to prepare 
?replacement workers? a.k.a. scabs to do the tasks the strikers normally do. The last 
thing the bosses want is to lose revenue by having the company come to a standstill 
because there is nobody around to do stuff. Given that the workers would know what the 
bosses have in mind, this is another opportunity to use the lead time to prepare to make 
life difficult for the scabs. If anybody knows the ins and outs of a workplace and what 
makes it tick, it is those who spend most of their time there. We all know certain 
essential bits of equipment that are needed to make things run smoothly. There is the 
possibility that those items could unfortunately go missing or somehow becoming 
disappointingly useless just prior to the strike. For example, computers are becoming 
vital to every kind of business these days and sadly they are prone to viruses.

These tactics are just some of the elements we could use. You will surprise yourself on 
how creative you can be when you put your mind to it and vital things are at stake. They 
should not be attempted without thought or in isolation to other actions, but form part of 
a co-ordinated reply to the government, the bosses and their new law. Once workers become 
aware of what we are being threatened with via educating ourselves and realise who our 
real friends aren?t, we can then begin to organise for ourselves. Instead of tying 
ourselves in knots on behalf of the bosses and their version of flexibility, we can apply 
a range of creative techniques that will mean we stand a chance of making the powers that 
be appreciate the power that we can be. Let?s get started!

Related Link: http://www.awsm.nz
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* Aotearoa (N.Z.), Workers Solidarity Movement