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As planned, the Workers Rights Campaign conducted a symbolic picket of the Government’s so-called “Jobs Summit” at the Christchurch Town Hall on Friday 17th. The picket was supported by a goodly number of people from the Alliance Party and the Workers Party as well as a representative from Socialist Worker and several politically unaffiliated supporters. There was no representation from the Labour or Green parties. We were not especially surprised. Labour Party people were inside the “Summit” together with National Party Cabinet Ministers and officials from Labour Party affiliated Trade Unions.
The picket did not attract much media attention, except from CTV, which interviewed Campaign spokesman Paul Piesse. But neither did the media pay a great deal of attention to the “Summit” itself. Perhaps because everyone knows that it is largely a PR exercise that fails utterly to confront the root causes of unemployment – the inherent and cyclic crises of the capitalist system.
The Campaign emphasised:
- that working people should not have to pay for the fundamental instability of a system designed by and for the rich; and
- that an honest attempt to mitigate the worst effects of capitalist instability (evidenced by over-production and excess productive capacity leading to job losses) would be a reduced working week for no loss of pay.
The campaign will continue, at every opportunity, to draw attention to the lie that (as the evil Margaret Thatcher put it) “There Is No Alternative”, and to the demonstrable fact that the capitalist system is corrupt, unethical, unfair, warlike and undemocratic.
In the capitalist market economy, every dollar you have to spend or invest is a vote in the economy; the more dollars you have, the more votes. Capital and big dollars were represented inside the “Summit”; the interests of working people were represented outside on the picket.
