Eighty thousand in Auckland. Forty thousand in Wellington. In total, up to 170,000 nationwide. This was by far the biggest of the three New Zealand climate strikes to date, with students, parents, teachers, small children, grandparents — even foliage (people turned up with trees and potted plants) — taking part. This may just have been the biggest protest in the history of Aotearoa.
In the last couple of weeks, both school teachers and their students have been on strike to demand a better future. The students are calling for urgent climate action, while the teachers are fighting for better pay and better conditions — for their students as well as themselves, with their core demands including better overall funding for education, and a significant reduction of class sizes. It could not be more important to highlight the fact that both the climate crisis and the education crisis have the same root cause — capitalism. And it is imperative for students and teachers to stand together and fight side by side, in order to win both struggles.
When a young migrant chef was mistreated and fired for asserting his basic rights, the Migrant Workers’ Association fought his corner. On Saturday 27th April, we protested outside Avi’s Café in Manurewa Cosmopolitan Club to show the bosses that exploitation will never be tolerated!