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chapter 16 Maori Sovereignty, Black Feminism, and the New Zealand Trade Union Movement Cybèle Locke Introduction An incident occurred in 1982 at the Auckland Trade Union Centre in New Zealand —a small group of Maori radicals, called Black Unity, who ran the Polynesian Resource Centre were accused of antitrade unionism and racism and, consequently, were evicted from the Auckland Trade Union Centre with the assistance of the New Zealand police. This article explores the radical ideas of Maori sovereignty and Black feminism propagated by Black Unity that inflamed Auckland trade unionists, focusing on the writings of the group’s spokeswomen, Ripeka Evans (known earlier as Rebecca Evans) and Donna Awatere.1 Their key demand was that the racist New Zealand state be overthrown and Maori sovereignty , land, and fisheries be returned to Maori. The sectarian Left, the trade union movement, white feminists, and Black men were heavily criticized for prioritizing class or gender in their radical politics or assimilating into the white system. Instead, Black Unity called on Black women, as the most oppressed in society, to lead the revolutionary force for Maori sovereignty. Black Unity was at the radical edge of the modern Maori protest movement that began in the late 1960s and matured alongside women’s and gay rights movements in the 1970s and 1980s. The focus of Maori protest was the New Zealand Government’s policies of assimilation (and later integration) that threatened to destroy Maori culture and the institutionalized racism that existed in New Zealand society (Harris 2004: 13–17). Maori activists explored how the history of colonization had relegated Maori to the lowest socioeconomic position in New Zealand society. They used pickets, demonstrations, occupations, and marches to demand the return of tribal lands unfairly taken, the protection of Maori language and culture, and political rights for Maori to determine their own future. New Zealand’s population was small, approximately 3 million in 1981, and Maori made up 12 percent of that population (Statistics New Zealand). Maori predominantly lived in urban centers, particularly Auckland, and thus Maori radical protest action had a significant impact on mainstream New Zealand society. Some scholarly attention has been given to Maori women who identified as feminists and worked within the Maori protest movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but little has been said about their interactions with the trade union movement and the sectarian Left.2 Chris Trotter, political commentator, accused Maori nationalists (and lesbian separatist feminists) of “[s]plitting up the small communist parties, sundering decades-old alliances between the intellectual Left and the trade union movement, leaving in their wake the tragic wreckage of personal and political relationships” (Trotter 2002: 7). In contrast, this chapter examines the philosophical position that Maori nationalist members of Black Unity espoused; explores the historical context for the demand for Maori sovereignty first articulated by Black Unity in 1981; explains why the Maori sovereignty position was also a Black feminist position; asks what led Maori women to turn with such anger on the radical Left in the early 1980s; and finally, analyzes the longer-term affect of Maori sovereignty demands on the Maori protest movement, the women’s movement, the sectarian Left, and the trade union movement. But first, a little context. Maori workers had always been active in trade unions but due to their marginal position in the workforce, they remained on the periphery of the labor movement. Colonization depleted Maori-owned land in the nineteenth century and forced Maori to become rural workers in the emergent settler-capitalist economy. And once rural work declined in the 1920s and 1930s, Maori migrated away from tribal areas to join the manufacturing workforce in towns and cities in the post–World War II period; and they joined the appropriate unions. By 1980, Maori and Pacific Island workers were 10 percent of the workforce but the union movement was slow to build structures to promote Maori and Pacific Island leadership or work issues. In 1980, Maori trade unionists established the Polynesian Resource Centre to educate Auckland-based trade unionists on the impact of racism in the workforce—for example, the segmentation of Maori into blue-collar jobs and attendant vulnerability to layoffs. Seven Maori organizations used the Centre in 1982 and they were all reputed to subscribe to the principle of Maori sovereignty (Awatere 1984: 49). This was not the dominant ideology of the Auckland Trades Council, however. Members of the New Zealand Socialist Unity Party (SUP) had gained strategic positions in...

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