An ‘alternative’ official opening

Press, 26 November 1981, Page 3

An ‘alternative’ official opening

The Christchurch Unemployment Collective presented its own “alternative” version of an official opening ceremony when the president of the Federation of Labour, Mr W. J. Knox, officially opened the collective’s headquarters in Cashel Street yesterday.

Instead of a brass band there was “Red gumboots,” a group of musicians specialising in progressive songs. Instead of a brass or copper wall plaque there was a crudely drawn sketch connecting “think big” strategies with unemployment, the picture drawn on old newsprint taped on the wall with masking tape. Instead of a traditional breaking of a champagne bottle, the collective arranged for flour bombs to be thrown from the audience at the plaque as Mr Knox stood by.

Mr Knox sat on an old single bed on a wooden base on a wooden floor spatterred with paint in a room of the upstairs complex at 87 Cashel Street as spokesmen for the collective and other groups using the centre described the work being done by the groups.

Mr Knox said that that he would report to his executive that the collective was doing something to help the unemployed. He said he was impressed with the amount of work that had been put into the centre to make it liveable.

He blamed the Government’s economic policies for unemployment and said that the collective had to work with the trade union movement to present a united front to support the unemployed. Borrowing from overseas was not wrong, provided the money borrowed was chanelled into providing jobs for the unemployed, Mr Knox said.