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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 10:52 |
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Women students are expressing concern over research released today by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs that shows female students face a gender pay gap just one year after entering employment, and are calling on the Minister of Women’s Affairs, Hon Pansy Wong, to take action.
Figures released today show that only one year after entering the employment market an income gap of up to six percent develops between men and women with a bachelor’s qualification or above, and disturbingly the gap grows to up to twenty percent for some women graduates after five years. |
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Monday, 01 March 2010 10:02 |
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One hundred years ago, universities were the preserve of the rich. In the 1950s and 60s this was changed forever. To meet the demands of a modern economy universities were transformed into vast factories churning out thousands of graduates for employment in industry, health and education. This fact, with the consequent pressure to complete degrees in the allotted timeframe, to combine working and studying and to minimize the dreaded student loan, is what dominates university life today. Join the discussion - all welcome. 7.30pm Thursday March 4, Otago Room, Clubs and Societies Building, Albany St, Dunedin |
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Monday, 01 March 2010 09:56 |
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In the middle of the summer holidays, activists in Auckland protested the participation of Israeli Shahar Peer in a tennis tournament. Police arrested some of the activists on charges of disorderly conduct and the activists - especially veteran anti-apartheid activist John Minto - were lambasted in the media for dragging a political controversy into sports. In this interview, Socialist Review asks John Minto about the protests. 1) In the middle of the summer holidays when you were protesting the presence of Shahar Pe'er, an Israeli tennis player, at the ASB Classic. What has she got to do with politics?
It has everything to do with politics. When sportspeople such as Shahar Peer play overseas they are unofficial representatives of their country just as Michael Campbell as a professional sportsperson carries NZ hopes in international golf. In Peer’s case we should protest because she is part of the growing BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) against Israel called by a full spectrum of Palestinian organisations in 2005. It is slowly gaining momentum here and around the world as the best way to bring pressure on Israel alongside building understanding and support for the Palestinian struggle. |
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Wednesday, 24 February 2010 23:50 |
The Maritime Union of New Zealand, historically one of the most active unions in the defence of workers rights on a national scale, talks about why the members bill - introduced by the universally hated (and rightly so) Roger Douglas - to reintroduce youth rates is a load of bull.
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Thursday, 18 February 2010 03:34 |
16 February 2010
Social democracy worldwide is in crisis. Social democrats have given up on the project of reforming capitalism to benefit their working class base and have instead embraced the market as the best of all possible worlds. Any notion of redistributing income to the working class by progressive taxation, expansion of the welfare state, and nationalisation or state direction of the “commanding heights” of the capitalist economy has been abandoned.
The main catalyst for this capitulation was the end of the post-war boom in the mid-1970s. During the boom, profit margins were fat enough and growth was fast enough to allow both reforms for the working class and increased business prosperity. Further, business wanted well-fed, literate and healthy workers, and was prepared to pay for government provision of health care, education, pensions, family allowances and so forth.
On the other side of the equation, pressure from the working class also ensured that governments were prodded to carry out significant reforms. Living standards rose consistently. This was true under both conservative and social-democratic governments.
This has now all gone by the wayside. Since the mid 1970s growth has slowed down markedly in the core of the world system. Profits slumped in the 1970s and early 1980s. This is part of the ageing of capitalism – the whole system has become less dynamic since the late 19th century. Something had to give, and the social democratic parties – which were loyal above all else to the project of boosting the competitiveness of the particular bits of the world economy for which they were each responsible – made sure that it was workers who had to do the giving.
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