Anti-Capitalist Alliance Candidates

Anti-Capitalist Alliance candidates in the local body elections are supporting the Maritime Union members in their opposition to casualisation of the workforce.

Auckland mayoral candidate, Daphna Whitmore, said casualisation was a serious problem. "Some watersiders have been kept as casuals for ten years. This is an outrageous situation that indirectly affects all workers.

"While the government is congratulating itself for unemployment figures of 4 per cent, there are an estimated 85,400 people who are underemployed, and many are casual workers. They have no financial security, they cannot get loans, cannot take holidays in the way permanent workers can, and are missing out on many basic rights" she said.

The Auckland branch of the Maritime Union issued 14-days notice of strike action on August 25.

"Casualisation means living in poverty and uncertainty for workers, and bigger profits for the employers", said Mark Muller, a unionist who is the Anti-Capitalist candidate standing in the Mangere ward for council. "Job security should be the right of every worker" he said.

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>