SWFU's Clean Start March in Wellington

To my disapointment a bad cold prevented me from being at the march. Had I been there I would have been among those cleaners raising questions about the point of the exercise.
In this moring's Dominion Post, Luci Highfield, central regional secretary for the Service and Food Workers Union praised AMP and Macquarie for adopting the 10 CleanStart Principles. She says the principles are " about getting a fair deal for cleaners."

In fact they are about mostly about raising cleaning standards. Two of the principles, 4 and 7 are about moderating workers wage claims. Principles 8 and 9 are about preventing any wildcat rank and file action over grievances.

To represent that package as "getting a fair deal for cleaners" is a cruel deception.

can someone post the 10 points for us all to see...?

The clean start principles are in the 24 page document referenced on the campaign site:

http://sfwu.org.nz/index.asp?PageID=2145839489

I thought the march reflected the nature of the campaign. Forcing the workers to walk in Rows of 3 on the footpath because "the council said they had to" was quite controlling by the union officials over the workers. The SFWU slogan used was "A fair day's work for a fair day's pay" which is a wishy washy social democratic demand at best. It was interesting that anarchists present appeared to be uncritically supporting this demand - handing out the offical leaflets etc. I'm not sure if they one of their own, but if they did I didn't see it.

I attended because I think its important to support low paid workers - especially having been a cleaner and a SFWU delegate on my cleaning site in 2002. I couldn't have handed out the official leaflets of this campaign as I believe the campaign is floored - which is why I stuck to giving workers copies of The Spark.

There were few concrete demands made at the rally as the speeches or whatever were more about "a fair deal" and the like.

Whilst a campaign to organise and fight for the rights of cleaners in Aotearoa is critically important - I don't think this campaign is going to deliver the goods.

A Fair Day's Wages for a Fair Day's Work?

Nick, I know you are doing your best to be a communist, which is hard in New Zealand because noone want to know. As Presidents of VUWSA go, you're not doing too bad at communism. But you need to get some of this basic shit nailed. I am stirred to rise up from the grave to remind you of what I wrote in 1881 about so called fair days work for a fair days pay. Communists need to be right onto this turkey and not just let it pass without comment. Frankly I'm amazed to see this shit still being put up as a workers demand. It did good service in the time of the rising Trades Unions after the repeal of the infamous Combination Laws in 1824 ; it did still better service in the time of the glorious Chartist movement, when the English workmen marched at the head of the European working class. But times are moving on, and a good many things which were desirable and necessary fifty, and even thirty years ago, are now antiquated and would be completely out of place. Does the old, time-honoured watchword too belong to them?

A fair day's wages for a fair day's work? But what is a fair day's wages, and what is a fair day's work? How are they determined by the laws under which modern society exists and develops itself? For an answer to this we must not apply to the science of morals or of law and equity, nor to any sentimental feeling of humanity, justice, or even charity. What is morally fair, what is even fair in law, may be far from being socially fair. Social fairness or unfairness is decided by one science alone — the science which deals with the material facts of production and exchange, the science of political economy.

Now what does political economy call a fair day's wages and a fair day's work? Simply the rate of wages and the length and intensity of a day's work which are determined by competition of employer and employed in the open market. And what are they, when thus determined?

A fair day's wages, under normal conditions, is the sum required to procure to the labourer the means of existence necessary, according to the standard of life of his station and country' to keep himself in working order and to propagate his race. The actual rate of wages, with the fluctuations of trade, may be sometimes above, sometimes below this rate; but, under fair conditions, that rate ought to be the average of all oscillations.

A fair day's work is that length of working day and that intensity of actual work which expends one day's full working power of the workman without encroaching upon his capacity for the same amount of work for the next and following days.

The transaction, then, may be thus described — the workman gives to the Capitalist his full day's working power; that is, so much of it as he can give without rendering impossible the continuous repetition of the transaction. In exchange he receives just as much, and no more, of the necessaries of life as is required to keep up the repetition of the same bargain every day. The workman gives as much, the Capitalist gives as little, as the nature of the bargain will admit. This is a very peculiar sort of fairness.

But let us look a little deeper into the matter. As, according to political economists, wages and working days are fixed by competition, fairness seems to require that both sides should have the same fair start on equal terms. But that is not the case. The Capitalist, if he cannot agree with the Labourer, can afford to wait, and live upon his capital. The workman cannot. He has but wages to live upon, and must therefore take work when, where, and at what terms he can get it. The workman has no fair start. He is fearfully handicapped by hunger. Yet, according to the political economy of the Capitalist class, that is the very pink of fairness.

But this is a mere trifle. The application of mechanical power and machinery to new trades, and the extension and improvements of machinery in trades already subjected to it, keep turning out of work more and more "hands"; and they do so at a far quicker rate than that at which these superseded "hands" can be absorbed by, and find employment in, the manufactures of the country. These superseded "hands" form a real industrial army of reserve for the use of Capital. If trade is bad they may starve, beg, steal, or go to the workhouse [2]; if trade is good they are ready at hand to expand production; and until the very last man, woman, or child of this army of reserve shall have found work — which happens in times of frantic over-production alone — until then will its competition keep down wages, and by its existence alone strengthen the power of Capital in its struggle with Labour. In the race with Capital, Labour is not only handicapped, it has to drag a cannon-ball riveted to its foot. Yet that is fair according to Capitalist political economy.

But let us inquire out of what fund does Capital pay these very fair wages? Out of capital, of course. But capital produces no' value. Labour is, besides the earth, the only source of wealth; capital itself is nothing but the stored-up produce of labour. So that the wages of Labour are paid out of labour, and the working man is paid out of his own produce. According to what we may call common fairness, the wages of the labourer ought to consist in the produce of his labour. But that would not be fair according to political economy. On the contrary, the produce of the workman's labour goes to the Capitalist, and the workman gets out of it no more than the bare necessaries of life. And thus the end of this uncommonly "fair" race of competition is that the produce of the labour of those who do work, gets unavoidably accumulated in the hands of those that do not work, and becomes in their hands the most powerful means to enslave the very men who produced it.

A fair day's wages for a fair day's work! A good deal might be said about the fair day's work too, the fairness of which is perfectly on a par with that of the wages. But that we must leave for another occasion. From what has been stated it is pretty clear that the old watchword has lived its day, and will hardly hold water nowadays. The fairness of political economy, such as it truly lays down the laws which rule actual society, that fairness is all on one side — on that of Capital. Let, then, the old motto be buried for ever and replaced by another: Abolishion of the wages system!

The Spark?!

I thought the Cleaners campaign was for a Clean Start... don't know if they would be very impressed with a bunch of old repackaged Maoism pretending to be something else.
Especially as the SFWU is famously supportive of labour.

Perhaps Nick you aren't aware of the Workers Party's main critisim of Labour is that they DIDN'T give the workingperson a fair go. According to their pamphlet "whats wrong with labour". apparently conditions have always been worse for workers under labour then national. Which is whyy they are so labour-phobic.
Presumably if this wasnt the case then labour would be OK.

'The Spark?! I thought the Cleaners campaign was for a Clean Start... don't know if they would be very impressed with a bunch of old repackaged Maoism pretending to be something else. Especially as the SFWU is famously supportive of labour.'

Actually WP includes people from the CL, SAL, ISO, WCL, and the earlier WP, for example. The Maoist influence isn't a repackage, as most of us actively support the Philippines and Nepal revolutions.

Also, we oppose LP-supporting burocrats who claim to be something else - but it's fine to work with honest reformists - just not the types who fashion themselves as anarchists or claim to be situationists while talking up 'fair deals'.

"Perhaps Nick you aren't aware of the Workers Party's main critisim of Labour is that they DIDN'T give the workingperson a fair go.'

We argue against capitalism, not specifically the LP. But we consider it a vitally important part of a any revolutionary/militant movement to help facilitate the working class's break from the LP.

Another thing here is that we don't think any party which does not break with capitalism can be a part of giving working people a fair go.

"According to their pamphlet "whats wrong with labour". apparently conditions have always been worse for workers under labour then national."

No, we argue that NZ politics, as experienced by the working class, is a combination of the two parties organising capitliast oppression. The pamphlet highlights Labour's pro-war and anti-worker nature very well. This is part of our general strategy.

'Which is why they are so labour-phobic.
Presumably if this wasnt the case then labour would be OK.'

Yep, I hitnk that most of us are personally quite labour-phobic. But's our political oppostion runs deeper in a number of ways.

Anyway, this was a quick and shittily-done post for 'confused', in case of genuine confusion.
I don't want to start debates here on Nepal or a WP vs CWG line on LP debate, as I haven't got the energy for it, and I feel that in a few ways our debates on these and other things have passed their constructive stage, at least for members of the groups.

hey Don,
Good point about that contract - how does 35 cents an hour compete with the CPI increase p.a.?
Surely these wage rises are not keeping pace with the speed at which food, housing, transport, power are increasing in cost. How does a cleaner keep their kids fed and in school on that? Or are they supposed to just be single and lonely until they change jobs???
Get real SWFU, people are trying to live on that rate of pay!

I'm amazed at the ongoing patience of the cleaners, if I was getting underpaid that badly (minimum wage $12/hour, anyone?) I'd be smashing the porcelain, not scrubbing them clean!!

"Re the MECA and the 35 cent increase: the members themselves voted to acept the offer."

well halleluliah.

who else would be voting on the issue?