Unions and economic strategy

CTU: Alternative Economic Strategy – final draft

People are the heart of the real economy. People work to produce the goods and services, innovate, save and invest. And it is for people that the economy should work to provide our needs. It should enable us to create better lives in terms of our welfare and happiness as individuals, community and wider society.

New strategy from NZ union leaders

Last week, the NZ Council of Trade Unions released a second draft of their Alternative Economic Strategy. Sound boring? Actually, the CTU’s document could flag a major leftwards turn by the peak leadership of our union movement.

The land of 15% GST

A “Fat Cat” tax, as it’s been dubbed globally, is being advocated by the NZ Council of Trade Unions in their draft Alternative Economic Strategy document. This tax could work in tandem with a Financial Transactions Tax, also promoted in the CTU’s strategy.

Council of Trade Unions turning towards class struggle? 

Could a column by Helen Kelly in the Dominion Post signal a turning point for the union movement?

Trade unions and New Zealand’s economic crisis

Comparisons now abound between the global economic crisis of 2009 and the Great Depression of the 1930s... The vital questions today are whether the role of unions in 2009 will be similar or different, and what union and radical activists can do about it.