Open Letter to Worker's Charter supporters

Recently I have received a number of emails containing the draft text of a document called the Worker's Charter. This is my response to the Charter's proponents and an invitation to discuss their project in more detail.

Kia ora koutou

I broadly agree with the principles expressed in the Worker's Charter. The problem I have with endorsing it is that I'm not sure exactly what it is I am endorsing. It is a charter? Is it an organisation? Is it an electoral platform? If I endorse the principles of the charter am I also endorsing any picket or other protest action that gets called under its banner? Who has the authority to make such calls to action? These are the sorts of questions that need to be clarified and communication to potential supporters of the Charter project if you want it to really take off.

Looking at the various left minnow parties that have coalesced out of the decaying remains of the Alliance it seems reasonable to suggest that to get a 5% block the far left needs to form a new shared electoral platform. The problem as usual is that every existing party thinks they are already doing that work and will see your initiative as a threat to unity and potentially as empire building by the SW and Unite activists who are its most vocal advocates. Then there are the anarchists, some of whom don't care at all while others will publicly scoff at any participation in electoral politics then vote Greens on the sly.

To be honest I'm one of those anarchists who votes Greens. I do not accept the common analysis of grassroots activists being on the far left of the parliamentary spectrum - the implication being that getting more activists into parliament drags it to the left. I know good people who work hard on issues like civil liberties, drug law reform etc but vote ACT. Many politicians across the MMP spectrum began as grassroots activists, worked their way through marginal parties and eventually into minor parties in parliament. Politicans are professional activists and activists are voluntary politicians. To pretend otherwise is in my opinon naive.

I believe what drags parliament in desirable directions is encouraging more people to become more politically active in their communities and spreading strong arguments supported by well documented evidence through those communities and thus to society at large. When the voters shift politicians will follow. Anticapitalist logic suggests there comes a point where parliament can no longer follow the will of the people because to do so would mean starting to uproot the basis of capitalism and simultaneously the basis of the state itself. At this point a parliamentary 'left party' would hang (divide by 0 error ;) whereas a community-based extra-parliamentary movement would already have been engaged in robust debate about alternative forms of large-scale democratic decision-making and would be in the process of making them a reality.

At best a left parliamentary party is a tool for crashing parliament through its own contradictions while building a grassroots movement against capitalism outside parliaments. So if you want a crashing party why not support the Greens? Join the party in large numbers. Go to conferences. Make input into policy formulation. Why not drag parliament to the left through an existing lever rather than trying to generate one from scratch under extremely trying political conditions? One that is ultimately likely to suffer from the same internal contradictions that tore apart the Alliance and left the Greens with a choice between coalition with Labour or losing electoral support to them due to voter's fear of National getting in (as has happened to ACT and NZ First due to their supporter's fear of Labour).

I think if you are asking people to endorse a set of policy principles you need to give at least a basic idea of what you intend to achieve and how. If you want to build an electoral platform around these principles I think it shows integrity to spell this out right from the start. I think it's also worth explaining what you think can be realistically gained from putting energy into electing politicians to parliament and - perhaps more importantly - what can't.

RnB
Strypey

For those who havn't yet seen it here is the draft text of the Worker's Charter

DRAFT
WORKERS CHARTER

Every worker is a human being who deserves the right to dignity.

For that right to be at the heart of our society, workers need economic
justice and democratic control over our future.

But what motivates society today is the selfish right of a privileged few to
gather wealth from the productive majority.

Workers are mere commodities, exploited and discarded like any other. Our
status in society is worsened by market competition, free trade and
commercialisation of public assets.

The wealth of New Zealanders on the Rich List skyrockets. Meanwhile the
living standards of the majority fall, and one in three children grow up in
poverty here in Aotearoa.

Wars of conquest to control global resources, like the US colonisation of
Iraq, expand corporate wealth and power at the cost of mass bloodshed and
suffering.

Profit-driven exploitation of the environment is fuelling global warming, an
oil crisis and other threats to life on our planet.

The end result is massive growth in social inequality and environmental
destruction. Our humanity and our environment have been sacrificed to the
god of profit. Our ability to resist is undermined by laws that ban most
strikes.

As a positive alternative, the Workers Charter promotes these core
democratic rights:

1. The right to a job that pays a living wage and gives us time with our
families and communities.

2. The right to pay equity for women, youth and casual workers.

3. The right to free public healthcare and education, and to liveable
superannuation and welfare.

4. The right to decent housing without crippling mortgages and rents.

5. The right to public control of assets vital to community well-being.

6. The right to protect our environment from corporate greed.

7. The right to express our personal identity free from discrimination.

8. The right to strike in defence of our interests.

9. The right to organise for the transfer of wealth and power from the haves
to the have-nots.

10. The right to unite with workers in other lands against corporate
globalisation and war.

These rights can only be secured by workers organising to extend democracy
into every sphere of the economy and the state. This will involve the
complete transformation of our society to serve the needs of the majority
rather than the greed of the minority.

The privileged few will resist fiercely. They will use their economic and
political power to try to deny workers our rights.

A mass mobilisation around the Workers Charter can give us the strength to
win the battle for democracy and reclaim our human dignity.

END