global solidarity

As part of May Day 09 celebrations at Blackball, Tina McIvar of the CTU spoke persuasively of the importance of union solidarity throughout the world as part of her launch of New Zealand's Unionaid project.

This issue of global union solidarity raises so many important issues, most particularly because of the implications of free trade agreements. In New Zealand, almost every time we buy clothing from a mainstream shop, we are living off the sweat of workers who labour under conditions which have (perhaps) not ever been known here in New Zealand. The extent to which our own comfort rests upon the labour of those who sweat and toil without dignity is so massive that I think it is almost beyond what we will take on board and change. For me, thinking about this issue has helped explain why so many people accepted the African-American slave trade for so long. If we can shut our curtains, we can ignore so much and pretend it isn't really so bad because surely it just couldn't be that bad.

I've felt very uncomfortable with some of the comments around our own migrant workers within New Zealand recently. I'm still unhappy with the comments which Andrew Little made about migrant workers being made redundant first. Of all the internet reflections which I have read relating to this issue (and my reading is by no means exhaustive), the one which I liked the best comes from John Minto and can be found here. The quote below comes from his article:

The real problem was not overstayers in the 1970s and neither is it workers
from overseas today but an economic system which sees workers, migrant or
otherwise, simply as a disposable resource to be flicked off when times get
tough. New Zealand workers and migrant workers have much more in common and
working together in mutual support is important to avoid the divide and rule
scapegoating which so often comes to the fore in an economic downturn.

This quote had powerful resonance again this week as I read in the Guardian Weekly of a trade union activist in the Honduras, Norma Estela Mejia. Mejia worked in a clothing factory in Chaloma where her horror at the conditions led her to become an active trade unionist. At the beginning of 2009, the two unionised factories servicing a large US clothing manufacturer were closed down, citing unionism as the problem. Mejia has contended with death threats as well as unemployment since then and yet she still knows she did the right thing, fighting for justice and dignity. The full text of the article is here.

The tune of 'Solidarity Forever' still comes to my mind readily when I think of the wonderful weekend of commemoration of the roots of the NZ union movement in Blackball in Easter 2008. How we can mark and deepen our lived solidarity with workers throughout New Zealand and the world is our challenge as we develop the resources for the museum and the traditions for May Day. I'm wondering about developing resources which look at the processes which a piece of coal can go through and the workers involved. There is a lot of coal coming oout of Roa (up the road from Blackball) at the moment and yet the work involved does not stop in New Zealand. What is that coal being used for overseas and what are the lives of workers in those places?

Any thoughts? I'd love some feedback.