On 18 January, about 100 Ministry of Justice (MOJ) workers and supporters held a rowdy protest outside the opening of brand new shiny Supreme court building in Wellington. The building was opened by Prince William of England. It was very strange to see the adoring crowd of over 1000 who gathered to glimpse a gawk at royalty, and the cabal of photographers that followed the aristocratic relic around. According to the media, workers showed respect to William by quietening down their protest when he arrived. This was not the case. As he arrived, protesters made more noise.

Hundreds of MOJ workers have been taking industrial action since October last year. This has included a series of short, surprise strikes and an on-going work to rule to slow down the justice system. Workers are seeking greater pay, because they are paid considerably less than the rest of the public sector, and subject to a performance pay system which keeps wages down. The government is trying to enforce a wage freeze on the public sector, and has refused to negotiate on the issue of pay.

At the same time, the government is spending millions on building new prisons to put away working class people. The new supreme court building alone cost $80 million. Their agenda in keeping wages frozen is to pass the cost of the recession onto working class people.

An encouraging sign of the strikes has been workers taking semi-wildcat action over and above the action voted on at stopworks. For example, on the day of the protest, court workers walked off the job in Wellington, Christchurch, Auckland, Te Awamutu, Thames, Huntly, Tokoroa, Hamilton, Tauranga, Nelson, Whakatane, and Rotorua. Another encouraging sign has been the willingness of the Public Services Association, a notorious class collaborationist union famous for its partnership for quality with bosses, actually take action.

There have been a few discouraging aspects of the strikes. The PSA has been very cautious approach towards taking action (such as only allowing workers to vote at stopworks on taking a few hours strike action every fortnight, rather than walking off for a whole day). Also, the action of NUPE (National Union of Public Employees) MOJ members in accepting a shitty deal which PSA members have already rejected has undermined the struggle.

There will be a series of stopworks in early February to decide on further action.

The Taranaki Daily News has reported over the last couple of days on horrendous top-end salaries of Regional Council and District Health Board (DHB) CEOs. Taranaki District Health Board chief executive Tony Foulkes earns more than $350,000 while Regional Council CEO Basil Chamberlain earns $310,000 per year.

Health Board chairman John Young is quoted in relation to the horrendous salaries that “we need to have good quality staff and remuneration is something that has to be taken into account.” This is the core belief of this rotten economic system called capitalism and there is no difference if it is managers of multinational corporations, financial institutions or the local council. The idea that the person who manages a District Health Board gets paid more than 10 times the wage of the person who cleans his toilet, flips his burgers or delivers his mail is simply revolting!

The DHB paid 103 staff more than $100,000. 15 of those were managers with four earning over $300,000 while the remaining 88 are clinicians.

Service and Food Workers Union spokesperson Alistair Duncan is questioning the number of staff on more than $100,000. “If the administration don’t turn up to work, the organisation functions without them. If the nurses don’t turn up to treat the patients or the cleaners don’t turn up to clean, you’ve got a serious health and safety issue.” He said that many kitchen and cleaning staff at the Taranaki Base Hospital earn little more than $14 an hour and were fighting for a 3% pay increase.

We need to understand this exploitative system where the few on top live in luxury while the rest of us struggle to get by. Understanding, challenging and - to be quite frank - overthrowing it.