It is not just in Australia where workers are under attack. In Aotearoa / New Zealand workers are threatened with proposed legislation moved by National Party MP for North Shore, Wayne Mapp. This Bill known as the 90 Day Bill intends to remove all rights from workers within their first ninety days of employment. Basically if this legislation were to be carried in the NZ Parliament,, the boss can sack you for anything, however trivial, without any redress or explanation.
Of course workers are angry and want to see this proposed legislation killed, stone dead.
The Clark Labour Government opposes this Bill. But Clark Labour has a slender majority. She depends on the support of reactionaries such as New Zealand First led by the racist Winston Peters, a former leading light in the National Party led by �Piggy� Muldoon. Her majority is unstable so the Bill being defeated is not guaranteed.
But the trade union bureaucrats are now very happy. The centre right Maori Party has now declared opposition after much deliberation. As in Australia, the New Zealand bureaucrats pursue a respectable approach and with Maori Party support, their campaign appears to have born fruit. But beware the bourgeois forces. A labour movement dependent on bourgeois forces for support is a weak movement, ripe for smashing. No doubt sinister forces such as the Maori Party will demand more sell-out for support. Well who needs reactionary legislation if workers can be persuaded not to fight by their own leaders. No doubt NZ bureaucrats will oblige! New Zealand workers must reject all popular fronts!
NZ unionists are very well aware that the Mapp Bill is a foretaste of the National Party �s industrial agenda which looks very much like John Howard�s. John Howard has been influenced by the previous NZ National legislation, the Employment Contract Act. Trans-Tasman workers solidarity against reactionary attacks is urgent. A new revolutionary leadership of the New Zealand working class must be forged..