Coggan saluted the unionists for setting an example to the entire working class in standing up to the employers' antilabor assault at home and to the pressures of their war drive abroad. She called on the labor movement to back the workers.

The wharfies had gone ahead with their strike despite heavy pressure from the port company, the Auckland Chamber of Commerce, and opposition politicians in parliament to call off the strike "at this time."

National Party industrial relations spokesperson Lockwood Smith denounced the workers for striking "at a time when New Zealand must make every effort to remain credible in the eyes of our international trading partners.... To block seagoing trade through the nation's largest port shows the Waterfront Workers' Union is putting its own interests ahead of the nation's at a time of great jeopardy to our economy." The bosses here are using the imperialist war drive against Afghanistan to demand that workers subordinate their needs to the "national interest."

Communist League mayoral candidate Coggan is a sewing machine operator and a member of the National Distribution Union. Also standing in the elections is Annalucia Vermunt, the Communist League's candidate for mayor of Christchurch. Vermunt is a meat packer and member of the Meat Workers' Union. The voting, which is by mail, concludes on October 13.

Coggan has made opposition to the U.S.-led war drive, and the New Zealand rulers' part in it, a centerpiece of her campaign. Speaking at a September 29 rally of 500 people following a march in Auckland against the war moves, Coggan said, "Working people in New Zealand need to resist pressure by the rulers and their government for us to accept measures which affect our ability to organize and act to defend our interests in the name of backing a war that is not of our making and not in our interests."

The Communist League candidate pointed to the increased funding promised by the government for the Security Intelligence Service, special police operations such as one announced that day to probe so-called "terrorist links" in the Auckland area, and increased detentions of immigrants. These included two Afghan youths from the Tampa, a freighter carrying hundreds of Afghan workers and farmers seeking asylum who have been at sea for weeks, denied entry in Australia and other countries. The two teenagers were locked up in Auckland's Mount Eden prison after arriving as part of a group of 150 people who were finally allowed to enter New Zealand.

Communist League campaigners have been receiving a good response from working people. Sales of the Militant, their campaign newspaper, have picked up. Many have read a leaflet that campaign supporters have been handing out along with the paper on campuses, at factory gates, in working-class shopping areas, and workplaces.

The statement points to a September 23 headline in the New Zealand Herald, "World faces war, threat of recession," and explains that this sums up the future the capitalist system has to offer working people. It adds, "Working people have common interests internationally and face a common enemy--the capitalist system. In order to advance our interests, we need to look to a revolutionary struggle like that carried out by the workers and farmers of Cuba, to replace the government of the superwealthy exploiters with a workers and farmers government."

Terry Coggan is a member of the National Distribution Union.
 
 
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