Critical Notes PDF Print E-mail
Tuesday, 30 November 1999 00:00

Carter Holt Harvey - Nasty in so many mays
Don't be fooled into thinking that Carter Holt Harvey's determination to put profit before safety is something they limit to the waterfront.
 
In Tokoroa late last year workers at Cater Holt's sawmill occupied their plant after the company rushed through unsafe shift changes.
 
Where once workers at the plant worked 3 eight-hour shifts, now CHH has removed the morning shift option, and now requires all its employees to work alternate afternoon and night shifts.
 
According to unionist David Leslie, "They say they need the days to carry out major upgrades, but these were finished months ago. And anyway, carrying out maintenance has never been a problem in the past."
 
In other words, CHH is using this as yet another opportunity to force workers to listen to their old message "forget about the change in government or the new legislation  no matter how hard you fight or how strong your union is, Big Business will still run the country." 
 

 

...and more from the other side
Socialist Review  recommends all its readers take out immediate subscriptions to the Gore Ensign, a paper that - despite its own best intentions - actually does "tell it like it is."
 
While most of the major cities' newspapers were rushing to put a positive spin on what was obvious police brutality at recent Bluff waterside pickets, the honest folks at the Ensign simply celebrated our boys in blue. Excerpts from their article below:
 

"The adrenalin was running," one constable said yesterday, "it's really good experience... we're out there to do a job - you can't take any of it to heart."

 
More tellingly, given recent police hysteria about underfunding, were the article's final paragraphs: "Gore senior sargeant Barry Taylor said he was only too willing to juggle the rosters to assist where possible. Mr Taylor said the officers were keen to get some experience in a form of policing which they perhaps hadn't had before." This is how they describe the chance to legally beat up workers!
 
 
Dubya's World
Some pearls of wisdom gleaned from sundry press statements, interviews and speeches by the man who stole the White House, George Bush:
 
  • "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family."
  • "It is clear our nation is reliant on big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas."
  • "Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream."
  • "They want the government controlling Social Security like its some kind of federal programme."
  • "They said, 'You know, this sure doesn't seem to resignate with the people.' And I said, 'You know something? Whether it resignates or not doesn't matter to me, because I stand for doing what's the right thing, and the right thing is hearing the voices of the people who work'."
     
 
Scumbag File: President Kim of South Korea
What is the surest sign that you're one of the worst war criminals, peace-hating, human rights-abusing scumbags on this earth? That's right  you get given the Nobel Prize for Peace! Just like Menachem Begin and others before him, Nobel Prize winner Presdient Kim is far from the peace loving darling the capitalist media paint him as. Chol-Ho Kim provided Socialist Review with the following three points radicals in Korea are asking their president:
 
  • What is so wonderful about your restructing of our economy, causing job losses, mass unemployment, poverty, hopelessness and despair for the majority, and a major increase in profit and luxury for the bosses and the stooges of America?
  • Why, when you've been given the Nobel Prize for Peace, did you order brutal crackdowns on protests against these unfair reforms? Why does your police force regularly use long batons, tear gas and bullets against peaceful protestors?
  • And why, President Kim, do you break your own laws? The National Security Act you so zealously enforce allows you to imprison and torture us for trying to contact our families and loved ones in North Korea, and yet we've seen TV footage of you drinking champagne with their President Kim! And for this the West gives you a Nobel Prize?