Towards the 2008 general election: Let’s Make Workers’ Issues Hi-Viz!

Workers Party national membership drives, August 2006 - November 2007


Throughout August, Workers Party members will be campaigning to increase the national membership base of the Workers Party. During this campaign we will be asking Spark readers, Workers Party supporters, and other progressive-minded people, to join the Workers Party. We are encouraging people to join up as solidarity members, as this will help us stand in the 2008 election. As always, people who want to become more involved in Marxist politics can also join as active members.

Aims of the campaign

Previously, in 2002, and in 2005, we have stood candidates in up to nine electorates. During our election campaigns we challenged the Labour Party and its candidates, and we confronted other parties that seek to maintain capitalist social relations. We want to continue to draw attention to genuine working class issues such as the right of all workers to a living wage, workers’ control over hours of work, opposition to NZ and Western intervention in the Third World, freedom to strike, and equality for women, ethnic minorities, and migrant workers.

One of the aims of our membership drive is to gain enough members so that the Workers Party can receive party votes, as well as electorate votes, in the 2008 general election. This will make the Workers Party more relevant to a number of workers, and help us gain a wider audience for our politics.

We need at least 500 members to entitle us to receive party votes in the next election. In the past we have gained up to 250 members by signing up workmates, students, and sympathisers.

The campaign itself

Between August 2006 and November 2007, we will have a series of campaign months in which we will hold extra stalls and prioritise the signing-up of new people to the party. The first of these campaign months is August 2006. During campaign months each Workers Party branch, and active individual members in small cities, will have a sign-up target to meet.

We want to make sure that genuine worker’s issues are made visible to as many workers and progressive people as possible. In 2008, other left-wing organisations, as always, will again be content with putting forward ‘strategic’ votes for The Greens and for the New Zealand Labour Party. The Workers Party, on the other hand, will use the elections, and the lead up to the elections, to elevate genuine class politics. This approach will be particularly important in the period after the collapse of the Alliance. Objectively, workers’ options are being increasingly polarised between revolutionary politics on the one hand, and the liberal capitalist politics of the Labour Party on the other hand. Also, as a result of the collapse of social democracy, union militants will be required to shift to the political left (revolutionary politics) or to the political right (the Labour Party). Workers Party registration as a ‘list’ party will give such people the opportunity to shift to the political left.

The campaign slogan ‘Let’s Make Workers Issues Hi-Viz’ was chosen by Workers Party members because it relates to the aims of our party in elections, and also because it does not contain all the ultra-revolutionary bluster that far-left organisations often shroud themselves in.

Working as a national organisation

Within our national organisation, Workers Party branches are quite decentralised. The branches take part in different anti-war/anti-imperialist umbrella groups, in different unions, and in different campaigns. A branch that has a higher than usual concentration of students will tend to do more campus work than other branches. Some branches tend to focus on industrial/union work. Also, Spark sales tend to be more of a branch activity than a national activity. In national terms, the most unifying aspect of our work at present is the production of The Spark, which does not involve the majority of our members.

The campaign to gain a membership base of 500 people will help us to function as a more national organisation. While the branches are free to decide how they campaign for more members, the ‘Let’s Make Workers’ Issues Hi-Viz’ campaign should further our national cohesion by compelling existing members to work together to meet the campaign targets.

Join the Workers Party

Solidarity membership costs only one dollar. Supporters or sympathisers can join us wherever we have literature tables, paper sales, or meetings, and wherever we have our fluorescent ‘Let’s Make Workers Issues Hi-Viz’ signs. A membership form can also be downloaded at workersparty.org.nz