Friday, September 02, 2005

Hands off Tonga

This is the text of a leaflet distributed at Saturday's march in Auckland in support of the Tongan trade unionists. The message has dated a little, but remains valuable...

Solidarity with the PSA Strikers!
NZ and Australia Hands Off!
For a Popular Constituent Assembly!

The refusal of the Public Service Association workers to accept a New Zealand-brokered deal is to be commended. The NZ and Australia governments have an interest in maintaining the control of the Monarchy over the economy, or course with some token democratic 'reforms', so that the profits of the multinational corporations are protected.

No Compromise!

Phil Goff and Keith Locke agree that it is possible to come to a compromise between the people and the Monarchy. But this compromise is only possible on the terms of the ruling class and will not change the sytem for the benefit of the people.

The Public Service Association workers refusal to do a deal with the Monarchy that required them to accept arbitration in advance is to be commended. It shows that the workers know that arbitration will leave the Monarchy all powerful and not change the real causes of the poverty of the workers.

We think that this proves that the workers must not compromise with the Monarchy as it exists today as a ruling class that exploits the working class to enrich itself and its overseas backers.

Struggle against the class system!

The recent pay deal is only a symptom of this class system where the Monarchy acts as agents of international capital to profit from the privatisation of Tongan assets and to super-exploit the labour of the commoners.

This means that the wealth cannot be redistributed to the people who produce the wealth without the Monarchy's control of the economy being taken over by the people and the wealth being redistributed according to the people's needs.

We support the demand for a referendum to make all the MPs elected by the people, as put forward by the pro-democracy movement. However, this is a reform of the exising constitution and does not directly challenge the rule of the Monarchy over parliament.

For a Popular Constituent Assembly!

The PSA workers have shown that the current wage crisis is only a symptom of the class system in Tonga. By holding out for a 60-70-80% wage increase they are leading the challenge to replace the Monarchy's power with the power of the people.

The only way that this can happen is for the strikers to lead the people in the demand to hold a Constituent Assembly based on universal suffrage to debate and decide on a new constitution and a new Tonga ruled by the people for the people.

Communist Workers Group
PO Box 6595 Auckland
mobile 025 280 0080
http://www.geocities.com/communistworker/ http://www.redrave.blogspot.com/

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