Julia Gillard may have triumphed over Kevin Rudd in Labor’s leadership brawl. But Labor remains headed for electoral oblivion—and it is Gillard’s policies that are to blame. It would have been no better if Rudd had won.

Nurses in Victoria have staged weeks of rolling strikes in defiance of anti-strike laws as they fight to defend staffing ratios in public hospitals. Nurses were expecting a new offer on pay and conditions from the Baillieu government as Solidarity went to press.

There was a myth perpetuated by the official inquiry into the Christmas Island protests in March and April last year—that the protests were a result of disgruntled failed refugees at risk of being returned to their home countries.

Official figures on refugee claims have confirmed what a shocking arbitrary punishment mandatory detention is.

Defiant solidarity action by Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) members in Sydney has delivered a boost to sacked wharfies in New Zealand. Workers took industrial action against a scab-loaded ship from Auckland, demanding the company refuse to use Auckland port while it is run on non-union labour.

In one of his numerous press conferences during the Labor leadership showdown, Kevin Rudd called for, “reform of the Labor Party itself, so that our party is equipped for the tasks of the 21st century. And that means a party which is not governed by the faceless men.”

On Monday February 27, in the afternoon following Labor’s leadership spill, Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory legislation passed through the House of Representatives with Labor and Liberal support.

The fightback to stop job and budget cuts at the University of Sydney has escalated.

In February, the Gillard government rolled the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) into Fair Work Australia. The anti-union ABCC’s powers and role will be watered down. It’s expected the new laws will pass the Senate with the support of The Greens.

NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell has public sector unions in his sights.  

The recommendations of Gonski’s Review of Funding for Schooling were finally released on February 20. But Gillard’s response made it clear we will have to fight for every extra dollar in schools funding.

So called school autonomy “reforms” in NSW will threaten the security of employment of over 60,000 public school teachers across the state.

On February 28, millions of Indian workers participated in the biggest general strike since independence in 1947. For the first time since 1970, the 11 main trade union organisations came together in protest against “neo-liberal economic and labour policies.”

Around 20,000 people protested in Pushkin Square in central Moscow in March against Vladimir Putin’s claim to have won the presidential election

Until the protest movement burst onto Russia’s streets at the end of 2011, Putin had presided over (as both President and Prime Minister) 11 years of relatively unchallenged rule.

After weeks of relentless bombardment Syrian troops have retaken the city of Homs including the neighbourhood of Baba Amr, an opposition stronghold.

Socialists and trade unionists fighting austerity in Greece spoke to Patrick Ward

Workers at Eleftherotypia, Greece’s second largest newspaper have taken over their workplace and begun producing their own newspaper to report on the movement against austerity, explains Moissis Litsis Eleftherotypia newspaper workers’ committee and Athens Journalists’ Union executive member

The new Greek austerity package, demanded by “the troika”—the IMF, European Union (EU) and European Central Bank imposes further vicious cuts on the people of Greece. But the level of workers’ resistance is also rising—with some workplaces beginning to be brought under workers’ control.

The economic crisis is getting worse and heading our way. Solidarity looks at the roots of the crisis in the capitalist system and the socialist alternative

In the face of the Great Depression in the 1930s, Labor turned on its working class supporters in order to bail out capitalism. Jean Parker looks at the lessons for today

After the recent election Egypt’s parliament is dominated by Islamists. But, argues Phil Marfleet, they face immense pressure from Egyptians to deliver real change and break with the military

Mad Square
Modernity in German Art 1910-1937, formerly at Melbourne NGV

The Civil wars in U.S. Labor: Birth of a New Workers’ Movement or Death Throes of the Old?
By Steve Early, Haymarket Books, $24.95

Throughout mandatory detention’s sorry history, protests inside detention have been central to forcing the issue into the media and winning changes for the asylum seekers themselves.

A Queensland historian has uncovered the story of a mutiny by African-American troops stationed in Australia during World War II at an army base outside Townsville.