The Gillard government is continuing its campaign of scaremongering about 457 visa workers. It has announced new laws requiring mandatory “labour-market testing” for jobs before employers are able to sponsor a worker on a 457 visa. This means employers must submit proof all jobs were advertised widely and none of the local applicants had the skills to undertake the job before a 457 visa application is submitted.
The collapse of Swan Cleaning has brought to light the exploitation of international students in Australia. Nearly 2500 workers, most of them international students, have lost their jobs. Because they are foreign workers, they are missing out on their entitlements.
David Glanz looks at what’s behind the rise of maverick Bob Katter’s Australia party, and mining billionaire Clive Palmer’s Palmer United Party
100 years ago, in one of the most famous strikes in US history, women and migrant workers in Lawrence challenged oppression and proved their ability to organise and fight, writes Eliot Hoving
A group of 457 migrant visa workers in Canberra have shown how to stand up against exploitation and demand equal rights.
Union leaders are leading the campaign to support Julia Gillard as the leader of the Labor Party and in the federal election. James Supple asks why
It was no surprise that some of those most overjoyed when Margaret Thatcher died were those who fought her the hardest, and suffered the most—the British miners. David Douglas, a veteran miner, at a rally celebrating Thatcher’s death, said, “Our families are insulted by the eulogising of a woman who absolutely destroyed our communities and our way of life”.
Julia Gillard has added her voice to the false claims that migrants are to blame for unemployment by joining the scapegoating of 457 migrant visa workers.
Julia Gillard’s new rhetoric about foreign workers has been welcomed by the unions, who have been leading a campaign for “Aussie jobs” against 457 visa holders. A number of unions are determined to keep raising the issue and it has the support of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU).
Julia Gillard and union leaders haven’t let the facts about 457 visa workers get in the way of their scare campaign. But the facts reveal that 457 workers are not taking jobs. And where the jobs are going, the unions have not been willing to fight to save them.
It is now clearer than ever that the attacks on 457 visa workers are being used to whip up xenophobia against foreign workers. Last week Julia Gillard added her voice to the false claims that migrants are to blame for unemployment.
Workers at Sensis yesterday staged a 150-strong rally for jobs in Melbourne, demanding the company back down over its plans to cut 689 full-time positions and outsource 391 jobs offshore.
After Julia Gillard’s announcement of a September 14 election date, the spectre of an Abbott government now looms large. Millions are fearful about what a Coalition government would mean.
The picket of Melbourne’s City West Water construction site, effectively demanding the sacking of 457 visa workers, shows just how dangerous and divisive the unions’ “Aussie jobs” campaign really is.
“A spiteful attempt to intimidate every community activist who may in future wish to assist workers in obtaining justice”—this is how a leaflet distributed to Victorian building sites by the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) described the charges against victimised trade union activist, Bob Carnegie.
FOR THE third time in 18 months, 30,000 Victorian teachers and school support staff showed their willingness to fight Victorian Liberal Premier Ted Baillieu’s attacks with a statewide strike and stopwork meeting.
Fires and record heat waves have once again driven the reality of climate change back into focus. The record temperatures across Australia have made headlines around the world. Any idea that Labor’s carbon tax was an effective measure against climate change has gone up in smoke.
New cuts and closures in aged care are the latest example of Queensland Liberal National Premier Campbell Newman’s vicious contempt for jobs and the community. Nearly 300 people joined a protest one week after learning of plans to close the Eventide Aged Care home, hearing from Labor Party speakers including federal Treasurer Wayne Swan, the member for the area.
Progressive PSA candidates have beaten incumbent officials in the union elections in the Public Service Association (PSA) in NSW. The public sector has been in the firing line of NSW Liberal Premier Barry O’Farrell, with thousands of job losses and cuts to conditions. The Progressives’ victories are a boost to the chances of more serious union action against O’Farrell.
As we face vicious state Liberal governments, David Glanz looks back at the fight against vicious neo-liberal Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett twenty years ago and the strike movement that could have been his demise
In the final instalment in our series on the history of the Australian Labor Party, Jean Parker explains how Keating was the architect of neo-liberalism in Australia, and alongside it, the crisis of the Party today
The 10,000 workers that marched through Brisbane against Campbell Newman in September showed the anger at state Liberal government cuts. In NSW, thousands of public servants joined a PSA stopwork in October. But the unions are putting their hopes in a “long campaign” aimed at voting the Liberals out at the next election.
Construction workers at the Queensland Children’s Hospital (QCH), the largest building site in Brisbane, have had a significant victory after a nine week, 63 day strike, against construction firm Abigroup (a subsidiary of Lend Lease).
More than 10,000 public servants and union members joined an angry mass rally against Queensland’s Liberal National Party (LNP) government in September. The turn out demonstrates the will to fight Newman’s 14,000 job cuts and attacks on job security.
Amy Thomas looks at the inspiring story of how workers beat back Joh Bjelke-Petersen
The end of the Grocon blockade in Melbourne has resulted in a significant setback for the CFMEU. After thousands of building workers blockaded the Myer Emporium site for several weeks in September, the union wound down the dispute and now faces serious legal action.
Workers have voted to accept both Enterprise Agreements at Sensis after a year long campaign. But a substantial minority followed the AMWU’s recommendation to vote no, defying management intimidation that they wouldn’t get a pay rise, or have “certainty” otherwise.
Queensland Premier Campbell Newman’s attacks are coming so thick and fast it’s hard to keep up. He is continuing to launch cut after cut to the public and community sector in the lead up to the budget, which will no doubt feature even more austerity.
For almost three weeks, hundreds of construction workers have blockaded Grocon’s Myer Emporium construction site in Melbourne, showing the power to stop the company’s assault on union rights. But as this was written the dispute hung in the balance with the union backing down from spreading the action.
The AMWU will campaign for a “no” vote on two separate agreements if Sensis moves ahead to put them to a ballot. A mass meeting of over 70 AMWU members also voted for a one hour stop work and protest.
For ten straight days, hundreds of construction unionists have blockaded Grocon’s Myer Emporium construction site in the heart of Melbourne. Construction workers have drawn the line against Grocon boss Daniel Grollo’s assault on union rights.
If elections were held in Queensland tomorrow, Premier Campbell Newman would lose his own seat. After trouncing Labor only a few months ago, millions of Queenslanders are now realising that the Liberal National Party’s agenda is to take the state back to the days of the notoriously corrupt, authoritarian and enthusiastically pro-business Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
“The very week when workers are being given their marching orders out of a job at Kurri Kurri and Tullamarine, 1700 Chinese workers are given the go-ahead to march into Western Australia.” Those were the words of Labor Left Senator Doug Cameron in response to the approval of Gina Rinehart’s Enterprise Migration Agreement for her Roy Hill mining project.
Jasmine Ali examines how racism has affected the history of the union movement in Australia, as well as the history of anti-racism within the movement
Gina Rinehart’s Enterprise Migration Agreement (EMA) for her Roy Hill project has sparked debate over the issue of “Aussie jobs” and 457 visas. This statement of union activists, anti-racists and others expresses concern over the anti-foreign worker sentiment, and argues unions should welcome temporary workers on 457 visas into the unions. Please read and consider signing on.
In early July, around 8000 construction workers joined a strike and rally against Victorian Liberal Premier Ted Baillieu’s new anti-union building code, which came in force three days earlier. The strike showed the unions’ willingness to defy the law in defence of basic union rights, with the strike deemed illegal under both Baillieu’s Code and Gillard’s Fair Work laws.
“The Government has shown absolute disregard for our wishes and our human rights”, Dr Djiniyini Gondarra, Yolngu Nations Assembly spokesperson, declared after “Stronger Futures” laws passed the Senate on June 29.
Barry O’Farrell has let rip the Liberals’ real agenda for NSW. He is slashing workers’ compensation payments, cutting public service jobs, attacking teachers and preparing for further privatisations.
Defying NSW Industrial Relations Commission orders, tens of thousands of school teachers struck on June 27 against the O’Farrell government’s devolution plan. The strike fully closed 310 schools, and the vast majority had minimal supervision.
“Black Friday” is what many Queenslanders were calling June 28, when 3000 public servants became the first victims of new Liberal National Party (LNP) Premier Campbell Newman’s slash-and-burn agenda. The LNP’s first 100 days have confirmed the worst fears of every unionist in Queensland.
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen’s announcement of an Enterprise Migration Agreement (EMA) allowing Gina Rinehart’s Roy Hill project to employ 1700 overseas workers on 457 visas has produced a wave of controversy.
AMWU members at Sensis voted a resounding yes in a protected industrial action ballot, after months of negotiations going nowhere. Seventy seven per cent of members returned ballots, voting yes at between 88 and 98 per cent depending on the length of strike action proposed.
The announcement of an Enterprise Migration Agreement (EMA) that will allow Gina Rinehart’s Roy Hill project to employ 1700 overseas workers has produced a wave of controversy. But foreign workers are not a threat to jobs—and we need to fight to win them equal wages and work rights.
Several thousand unionists and students rallied outside the office of Victorian Premier, Ted Baillieu, on May 10 in protest at a $160 million cut to TAFE education.
Teachers in Victorian public schools are in for a fight to beat the state government’s 2.5 per cent public sector wide pay cap and stop cutbacks to education.
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.
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.”
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.
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.”
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
Julia Gillard has caved in to business complaints about her workplace laws by announcing a review of the FairWork legislation. This comes after months of howling from business that the laws do not provide “flexibility” and have not allowed the gains in productivity the Labor government promised.
Review: We Built This Country
By Humphrey McQueen, Ginninderra Press, $30
Baiada Poultry workers in Melbourne have won a major victory for fair pay and job security after 13 days on strike. These 300 mostly migrant workers stuck together in the face of harassment and intimidation from their bosses, the media and police to humble a major corporation through indefinite strike action.
On November 19, the State Council of the NSW Teachers Federation carried a branch executive resolution to “defer” a planned strike for November 29—a strike that had been endorsed by thousands of enthusiastic teachers at stop work meetings the week before.
Over fifty Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU) members held a lunchtime protest to stop Sensis undermining their union agreement (the Advertising and Design Agreement), by rolling it into a larger non-union one (the Enterprise Agreement 2).
Victorian nurses have shown how to stand up to Fair Work Australia and a nasty Liberal state government. Thousands at a packed mass meeting on 21 November voted to defy orders to stop their industrial action that has closed public hospital beds.
Over 8000 workers have been on strike for three months at the giant Freeport mine in West Papua. Five strikers have been shot and killed by Indonesian police, who have admitted that they are paid “pocket money” by Freeport.
If anyone was wondering what the 1 per cent looks like—take a look at anti-union thug and Qantas boss, Alan Joyce. A day after the Qantas CEO had his 71 per cent pay increase (to take his base pay to over $5 million) approved, he locked out the entire workforce.
Construction unions are facing renewed attack, with Ted Baillieu’s Victorian Liberal government announcing a new squad of investigators to spy on building sites.
Enterprise bargaining has commenced at Sensis for the first time in years, as a result of growing union membership. Sensis is 100 per cent owned by Telstra, which produces Yellow & White Pages, Whereis, Citysearch and more, and employs over 3000 staff.
In recent months Fiji’s Interim Government under Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama has launched a new crackdown on unions.
The call for greater efforts to boost productivity has become a constant refrain from business and government. Reserve Bank Governor Glenn Stevens added his voice to the chorus during a parliamentary economics committee at the end of August. The Australian newspaper in particular has harped on about Australia’s supposed decline in productivity growth.
IN MID-AUGUST, Qantas announced plans to restructure its international arm, or Mainline, into Asia with a hub in Japan and a second Asian airport, at a cost of 1000 jobs in Australia. Yet Qantas just announced an interim profit $552 million, up 46 per cent on last year’s and one of best in the world. According to the Financial Review, Qantas is sitting on a cash balance of $3 billion and its earnings are predicted to grow by 31 per cent in 2012.
TENS OF thousands of teachers, nurses, firefighters and public servants are expected to rally on September 8 to launch the campaign against NSW Liberal Premier Barry O’Farrell’s attempt to impose a 2.5 per cent cap on public sector wage increases. With inflation running closer to 3.6 per cent, O’Farrell is out to cut real wages.
Union leaders have denounced the NSW Liberals new public sector law as “worse than WorkChoices”.
Their new law requires the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) to enforce any government decisions about public sector wages and conditions—such as its declared 2.5 per cent pay cap on pay rises.
As Solidarity went to press, NSW Liberal Premier Barry O’Farrell’s assault on public sector workers had hit a minor snag, with the Shooters and Fishers Party joining Fred Nile in threatening to withdraw support for his anti-union laws in the NSW Upper House, unless competition between ethics classes and scripture lessons in schools is scrapped. But the key to stopping O’Farrell is the Unions NSW-led campaign to make the laws unworkable.
Federal public servants in a number of agencies, including the ATO, Defence, Customs, Immigration and the Bureau of Meteorology have now voted down enterprise agreements. Three out of four public servants are hostile to the government’s miserable below inflation 3 per cent per year pay offer ceiling and attacks on conditions.
Greece is in turmoil (see here). Workers are escalating resistance, staging their first 48-hour general strike as the government passed through vicious new austerity measures. But the Greek crisis could still spread.
Twelve thousand unionists rallied against the NSW Liberals’ attack on public sector workers on June 15.
Nurses and health workers from 40 hospitals, firefighters and many other government workers all took stop work action to attend, joined by teachers, TAFE workers and delegations from other unions.
The battlelines are being drawn at Qantas, with management maintaining its belligerence against unions in Enterprise Bargaining negotiations.
The NSW Public Service Association (PSA) has imposed bans on public servant overtime in response to the NSW Liberal government’s announcement of a 2.5 per cent pay cap and new laws sidelining the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC).
“If one job is lost, our support is gone.” This was the condition placed on a carbon tax by right-wing Labor heavyweight and Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) Secretary Paul Howes in April.
Three key unions at Qantas are pressing demands for job security and above-inflation pay rises.
Solidarity spoke to James Goodman, National Tertiary Education Union member at UTS, about unions and climate change policy
After Labor’s appalling result at last year’s Federal election it was close to becoming the first one-term Federal government since Scullin’s in the 1930s Depression. An official review by party elders Steve Bracks, Bob Carr and John Faulkner to look at what went wrong was handed down in February.
More than 2000 staff across the country at CSIRO took part in a two-hour strike in late March over pay and conditions.
Just before Christmas, Julia Gillard announced the next step in her free market vision for schools.
Her proposal for “school autonomy” would give school principals and parent representatives at individual schools the ability to hire and fire teachers.
The Liberals’ win in the Victorian elections is another warning that Labor’s right-wing policies are paving the way for the Liberals. Federally, too, Labor has fallen behind the Liberals.
Nation-wide strike action erupted on all 36 major Thiess construction sites in mid-November, over industrial spying by a union-busting company at Thiess’s desalination project in Wonthaggi, Victoria.
Melbourne’s trade union climate conference in October was a big step forward for the climate movement in Melbourne. The conference, organised by Victorian Trades Hall Council’s Climate Change Working Group and the Climate Emergency Network in Melbourne, attracted over seventy unionists from over fourteen different unions.
The fight against the racist NT Intervention has taken a step forward with the launch of new campaign demanding ‘Jobs with Justice’ for Aboriginal workers. In October, Mark Fordham, an Aboriginal worker from the Northern Territory, toured worksites to build rank-and-file union support.
On October 20, more than 200 Gurindji people joined an 11am stop work meeting in Kalkaringi, 470kms South-West of Katherine, NT. The rally was attended by workers from across the community including from the Victoria Daly Shire, Kalkaringi service station, the mechanics, the clinic and the school. The Gurindji are demanding an end to the NT Intervention, investment in proper jobs and return of control over land, employment and services to Aboriginal people.
Ark Tribe will finally find out if he is going to jail when magistrate David Whittle delivers his decision on November 3.
Unions in NSW have deepened their engagement with climate issues by hosting a Climate Active conference in September, one of the first of its kind. But it was weakened by the lack of clear direction about how unions can take up climate issues at work and be part of the climate movement.
Despite massive public opposition, the Queensland Labor government under Premier Anna Bligh is continuing to push forward with $15 billion worth of public asset sales. The sell-off of Queensland Rail National, the freight arm of QR, valued at $6.5 billion, has begun with shareholder advertisements appearing across the country.
Unions NSW Secretary Mark Lennon has announced plans to campaign against privatisation in the lead up to next year’s NSW state election in March. Lennon was hosting a “Better Services, Better State” meeting, a product of pressure to revive the campaign against privatisation by the NSW Teachers’ Union.
Review: Made in Dagenham, directed by Nigel Cole
In cinemas October 28
In 2007, the mass union mobilisations through the Your Rights at Work campaign were the central force driving John Howard from office. It beggars belief that only three years later, we came so close to having a Coalition government led by Howard’s clone, Tony Abbott.
All welcome, for more info or to register, call Chris on 0403 013 183 or email melbourne [at] solidarity.net.au
11.30am: The economic crisis: over or just beginning?
Australia has so far appeared immune from the economic crisis. But the debt crisis engulfing Europe and the slowing down of “recovery” in the US suggests it isn’t over yet. Shannon Price will take a look at the state of the world economy and what it means for us.
12.30 -1.30pm lunch (note two sessions run simultaneous after lunch at 1.30pm)
1.30pm: Why does racism still exist?
Tony Abbott has sought to win votes in the election by stirring up racism against refugees, and Julia Gillard has followed suit. Both are also agreed on continuing the racist NT Intervention. Jasmine Ali will look at why so many people accept the myths about refugees and Aboriginal people, and how such racism was unknown just a few centuries ago.
1.30pm: Is the working class still a force for change?
The continued relevance of class has been widely attacked in recent decades. The erosion of traditional blue-collar jobs and the strength of trade unions over recent decades has also led to claims that workers no longer had the potential power they once did. Yet inequality in Australia is on the rise and the union Rights at Work campaign to unseat Howard showed that unions still have potential strength. Lucy Honan analyses the working class today and why it retains immense potential power to change society.
3.00 pm Debate: Does there have to be a price on carbon?
From Gillard to the Greens the demand for a ‘price on carbon’ is widespread. Would it make the polluters pay or would it hurt living standards? What would the effect be on emissions? What about regulation and public investment in renewable energy? Can we support both?
4.30pm After the election: Labor, The Greens and the balance of power
In the aftermath of the election, Adam Bandt (newly elected Greens MP) & James Supple (Solidarity) will discuss the result and what it means. If Julia Gillard hangs on what will she be like as prime minister? What difference will it make if the Greens win the balance of power in the Senate? And how can the left rebuild itself and pose and alternative to the neo-liberal politics of Labor in power?
Forty years ago, the margins strike provided a model example of how to involve rank and file union members in action in defiance of the law and win, argues Tom Orsag
Review: Killer Company
By Matt Peacock, ABC Books, $35.00
Labor has a climate policy basically identical to the Liberals. Rudd’s drop in support after junking the CPRS, and the votes heading to The Greens, suggest a substantial minority is frustrated by this. The space is open for the climate movement to put an alternative on the map—but where is it?
There is a rising tide of anger and determination amongst Chinese workers. In the face of some of the most regressive labour laws in the world, workers are openly striking to demand better wages and the right to form their own representative organisations.
The Black Moratorium marches in 1972 were amongst the most successful protests for Aboriginal rights ever in this country. Paddy Gibson explains how the unity between Aboriginal activists and organised workers was central to their success.
Thousands rallied across the country as building worker Ark Tribe faced trial on June 15. He is the second person to face six months jail for refusing to answer questions at the anti-union Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).
Students nationwide sat the National Assessment Program–Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests in May after the education unions called off their proposed moratorium on the tests. While representatives of the unions are now sitting on Julia Gillard’s My School Working Party, teacher activists need to be ready to restart action against NAPLAN if, as is likely, the working party fails to deliver.
Greece exploded again in strikes and protests at government cutbacks, as European leaders and the IMF were forced to fast-track emergency loans to the Greek government, increased in size to €110 billion.
Nationwide union rallies will mark the first day of Ark Tribe’s trial on June 15. Ark is the second unionist to face six months jail for refusing to answer questions from the ABCC.
The Australian Education Union and state teachers unions’ have backed away from a confrontation with Julia Gillard over the NAPLAN tests. But the battle to stop league tables, and the tests themselves, is far from over.
This year unions have launched a new equal pay campaign, “Pay Up”, in recognition of the persistent inequality in wage levels. Women make up half of the Australian workforce yet on average earn 17 per cent less than men.
Three hundred coalminers at the Xstrata-owned Tahmoor coal mine in NSW have been fighting for their rights and conditions since late 2008.
In the aftermath of wild cat strikes in January and February over motelling, construction unions in the Pilbara have begun an industrial campaign targeting one contractor at a time over unresolved issues such as travel time.
Workers at Sigma’s Herron pharmaceutical plant in Tennyson, Brisbane walked out on a week-long strike in February over their employer’s unfair redundancy offer.
A planned 24-hour strike at Sydney’s Star City Casino during Chinese New Year was banned by a decision of Fair Work Australia. This is one of the busiest times of the year at the Casino and would have caused serious disruption.
The eight-day strike over motelling at Woodside in Western Australia has ended in a draw. But the industrial battle isn’t over by a long shot—not for Woodside, and not for the workers and unions hit by massive fines by Fair Work Australia.
“The best union meeting I’ve attended in years.” That was the response of many NSW TAFE teachers after a 3000-strong mass meeting filled and electrified the inside of Sydney Town Hall on 11 February.
Employers in WA’s Pilbara region have warned that militant strikes at Woodside’s Pluto site could spread across the whole resources sector. The Woodside strikers have defied threats of huge fines under Rudd’s anti-union laws to stage an eight-day strike, and further action looked likely as Solidarity went to press.
Rudd’s new work laws, like Howard’s, are designed to criminalise effective strike action—and intimidate workers out of using it.
Up to 20,000 union members went on strike at Australia Post in December, part of a pre-Christmas rush of strikes that also hit Sydney buses, Telstra and Qantas. MUA members in the Western Australian offshore oil and gas fields also went on strike.
Workers at Woodside’s $12 billion Pluto gas site are fighting plans to take away stable on-site accommodation.
National teaching unions are set to ban upcoming National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests. The move comes after newspapers in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne used information from the Rudd government’s “My School” website to rank school performances in so-called league tables.
Workers at Star City Casino in Sydney have taken three rounds of strike action over their employers’ lousy pay offer.
Clerical workers at The Age newspaper have gone on strike for the first time ever as part of enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) negotiations.
Up to 1600 workers have defied court orders and calls by the Rudd government to end strike action at Woodside Petroleum’s Pluto gas site in Western Australia.
Up to 20,000 union members have taken strike action at Australia Post, part of a pre-Xmas rush of strikes that also hit Sydney buses, Telstra and Qantas.
The run of pre-Xmas strikes are a welcome start in reversing years of management bullying, privatisation and job cuts. The limited revival of industrial struggle by workers marks a shift in the terrain for the Labor government.
A union push to overturn the NSW government’s privatisation drive failed to materialise at the Labor state conference in mid-November.
The leadership of the Queensland Teachers Union (QTU) has sold its members a dud pay offer. During a fortnight long propaganda barrage, they managed to convince 82 per cent of the membership that retreat was in fact some sort of victory.
Recent elections in the Victorian branch of the Australian Education Union (AEU) have taken place at a challenging time for public schools and teachers.
State education minister Bronwyn Pike has wholeheartedly signed onto the national policy agenda being promoted by Julia Gillard, which includes standardised testing, school comparison tables and performance pay.
TAFE Teachers across NSW have walked off the job in protest at the combined attack on their working conditions from the NSW government and the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC).
A generation of neo-liberal attacks dressed up as reform or restructuring have created deep suspicion among many workers about anything that’s described as “streamlining” conditions.
And people are right to be cautious. Take the current round of award modernisation, which could lead to some workers losing $300 a week or hard-won conditions.
Labor’s Fair Work Act has lifted the sense of intimidation felt about union membership among many workers.
National Tertiary Education University members at 16 universities across the country stopped work on September 16 as part of the NTEU national bargaining round to fight increased workloads, a blow-out in class sizes, casualisation and other attacks on jobs and conditions.
Anna Bligh was hoping that a combination of time and spin would be enough for Queensland workers to get used to her unpopular decision to privatise $15 billion worth of public assets. How wrong she was.
The 2009 NSW Labor conference is shaping up to be a focal point of anger at the Nathan Rees government. At the Sydney Entertainment centre on the weekend of 15, 16 November, Rees will face defiance both inside and outside the conference.
Review: Framework of Flesh
By Humphrey McQueen, Ginninderra Press, $30
A march by hundreds of workers to a union fringe event on the Labor conference’s second day was one of the few brights spots where there was some challenge to Rudd’s conservative agenda.
As Queensland teachers geared up for a state-wide strike, Queensland’s Labor Government has used the state’s industrial laws to drive the wage dispute into the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission.
Melbourne University NTEU members are in a battle with the University of Melbourne to stop a proposed 220 job attrition.
The battle for union rights under the Rudd Labor government is set to hot up in August, when building workers around the country go on strike in support of Ark Tribe, a South Australian union member, who faces court on August 11.
Carl Taylor takes a look back at a strike where workers took on a Labor government
It was so close. There were just eight votes in the decision at Brisbane’s Treasury Casino to accept the company deal (see story p 22). There are two main reasons the Casino dispute went the bosses’ way—the laws and the union officials.
Anger and resentment is running high among workers at Brisbane’s Treasury Casino. Eight months of bargaining and two cancelled strikes have left us with a sub-standard agreement.
IN EARLY June Thiess Services sacked four union members for pushing a union collective agreement with the company.
Anna Bligh’s Labor government is well and truly on the nose following its decision to privatise $15 billion worth of public assets.
The gap between unions and the NSW state Labor government continues to widen. At the end of June Unions NSW unveiled its new response to the privatisation offensive at a meeting of public sector delegates and organisers.
WORKERS AT five universities in Melbourne—Melbourne, Monash, Swinburne, RMIT and Deakin, plus a Hawthorn college —went out on strike on Thursday, May 21.
On April 28, over 10,000 building workers in Melbourne and 3000 in Brisbane took illegal strike action against the Howard-era anti-union Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC). The Rudd government still gives $33 million to the ABCC to police union activities on building sites.
On Tuesday May 19, 30,000 Queensland teachers held a 24-hour strike over the measly 12.5 per cent pay rise over three years offered by the Queensland Government. The Queensland Teachers Union (QTU) convened 49 meetings across the state, the largest in Brisbane with over 4000 workers.
As Solidarity went to press the results of the Brisbane Treasury Casino strike ballot were released.
With Cessnock jail off the privatisation list, union activists including prison guards (PSA), teachers (NSWTF), nurses, AMWU and NTEU are seeking to extend the campaign across the state.
“This was a great day for the Cessnock community—and a good result for all those in the community who do not believe that prisons should be run for profit by big corporations,” said PSA general secretary John Cahill.
Cahill says that the PSA will now target Labor MPs in the western Sydney electorates surrounding the Parklea prison—still up for sale by Corrective Services Minister John Robertson.
“The arguments against a private prison at Cessnock are the same as the arguments against a private prison at Parklea—the justice system should not be run for profit,” said PSA general secretary John Cahill.
On May 31, stalls were held in about 20 electorates across NSW targeting Labor MPs who still support the government privatisation push—of prisons, power services and generators, ferries, lotteries and rail services. The Labor heartland seats of right wing power brokers, Joseph Tripodi and Eddie Obeid, were among those targeted.
These are the same people who backed former treasurer Michel Costa’s 2008 attempt to privatise NSW power generators. Union opposition to this neo-liberal agenda saw both Premier Morris Iemma and Treasurer Michael Costa lose their government positions last year.
Current Premier Nathan Rees and other members of cabinet must ditch their privatisation plans once and for all. Polling shows that Labor faces a hiding in the next election.
Junking their Liberal-esque policies might be a start to turning that around.
Around 800 party and union members rallied outside a meeting of the party’s administrative committee to demand that the committee uphold the NSW party’s position against privatisation.
The Labor government is trying to get the committee to re-interpret the meaning of ALP policy which states “Labor opposes the private contract management of prisons”.
Rather than imposing cuts, the NSW government should be boosting government spending for public sector employment such as green power jobs as well as metro and light rail extension.
By John Morris
A united cross-union campaign against the NSW government’s privatisation fire sale is needed, as prison workers continue their fight against privatisation.
Two hundred police moved in to break up picket lines on Melbourne’s Westgate bridge on April 15, where 39 workers have held out since December in a dispute with their employer.
Builder John Holland has now agreed to mediation with the unions in return for an end to the union pickets. The outcome was unclear as Solidarity went to press.
A BETWEEN-SHIFT mass meeting of over 100 Conrad Treasury Casino workers in Brisbane has voted unanimously to initiate a ballot for industrial action in support of their claim for 5.5 per cent for each of the next three years.
UNIONS ARE stepping up their campaign to have the Australian Building and Construction Commission scrapped, with strike-day rallies around the country on April 28.
Workers at Waterford Crystal in Ireland have secured 176 jobs in the plant after an eight week long occupation of their workplace. Their example has begun to inspire other workers to occupy in defence of jobs across the UK.
QUEENSLAND TEACHERS are set to vote for 24-hour strikes from the beginning of May. Well-attended mass meetings voted overwhelmingly to hold a publicity and industrial campaign to win their claim for wage parity with teachers in other states. Queensland teachers are currently the lowest paid on the mainland.
Review: The State of Industrial Relations
Evatt Foundation, $24.95
NSW unions are again locked in battle with the state Labor government over privatisation. With the government accelerating its planned sell-off of prisons, members of the Public Service Association (PSA) were set to strike and rally outside NSW Parliament on Tuesday April 2 as Solidarity went to press.
Despite its promise to create jobs in the economic downturn, the Rudd government is imposing job cuts on the federal public service.
Anger at the Irish government’s response to the recession has exploded into angry and growing protests. Over 120,000 joined a protest in Dublin in late February, and unionists are campaigning for a public sector-wide strike.
WORKERS AT Brisbane’s Treasury Casino are getting restless. The casino EBA expired on December 31, 2008. Since negotiations started in November 2008, Tabcorp, the Casino owners, have made just one paltry offer of a 3.5 per cent wage rise.
MINOR CHANGS saw Rudd pass his “WorkChoices-lite” package through the Senate in late March.
Profitable companies are using the economic crisis as an excuse to sack workers and slash wages.
Despite a 9 per cent rise in profit to $713 million dollars last financial year, Fosters has outsourced the jobs of over 100 maintenance workers at its Abbotsford plant in Melbourne through a labour hire company.
Bosses at Drivetrain Systems have used “divide and conquer” tactics to stop workers resisting mass sackings at an Albury-Wodonga gearbox factory.
On February 25 meetings of approximately 200 members of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) at the University of Sydney voted to seek a ballot authorising industrial action in our enterprise bargaining campaign. The ballot opens on March 27.
Six hundred workers are occupying the Waterford Crystal factory in Ireland after receivers tried to sack them and close the plant.
Telstra workers went out on a strike for the second time in two months on Monday February 9. Following on from a four-hour stoppage late last year, unions called a 24-hour strike.
NSW TEACHERS have won a pay increase and the reinstatement of a state-wide staffing plan as part of a new 3-year-award.
As unemployment edges upwards, the myth that cutting wages can save jobs is being promoted once again. Accepting this would be a huge mistake that will hurt our living standards and make the recession worse.
Review: Trade Unionism in Australia: A history from flood to ebb tide, By Tom Bramble , Cambridge University Press, $49.95
NSW teachers have won a pay increase and the reinstatement of a state-wide staffing plan as part of a new 3-year-award.
A not-for-profit consortium led by Community Childcare Co-operative NSW has made a bid for 241 ABC childcare centres that the company’s receivers had deemed “economically unviable”.
Union members in the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) have faced down compulsory redundancies at Victoria University (VU) and the University of Melbourne (Melbourne Uni) by taking industrial action.
So far the world economic crisis has not had the same impact in Australia as in the US or Europe. A few months ago some pundits were confidently predicting Australia could weather the storm. But now the discussion is about how bad the economic problems will get.
As Solidarity goes to print, the fate of up to 386 ABC Learning child care centres is in doubt. That represents one-tenth of the national child care resources. The centres look after 30,000 children and employ over 4000 people.
The final piece of Labor’s new industrial relations regime has been unveiled by Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard. The new legislation was hailed by Gillard and most of the media as bringing the end of WorkChoices.
The shocking announcement a few weeks ago of the largest ever mass sackings in Australia’s higher education sector at Victoria University (VU) prompted a well attended protest rally in a quiet time of the academic year.
In the context of the global financial crisis, governments across the world have abandoned financial conservatism, proposing significant expenditure programs, often funded through debt.
Twenty thousand teachers at meetings around NSW have voted to take 48 hours of industrial action at the start of the 2009 school year, in the event of the NSW government not abandoning its attacks on wages, conditions and the staffing of public schools.
The union campaign against WorkChoices succeeded in getting Howard voted out, but has not put unions in a stronger position to organise and fight. Solidarity examines why
In 1969 over one million workers took part in a general stoppage and won the freedom of jailed union official Clarrie O’Shea and an end to the penal powers. With the ABCC and most of the WorkChoices laws intact, Amy Thomas looks at the lessons for today.
20,000 teachers at meetings around the state have voted to take 48 hours of industrial action from the start of the 2009 school year, in the event of the NSW government not abandoning its attacks on wages, conditions and the staffing of public schools.
Last issue Solidarity reported that Telstra workers in the Wholesale and Service Advantage area had voted down a non-union collective agreement. It was a serious blow to Telstra’s divide and rule strategy of pushing such agreements onto poorly-unionised sections of the company.
TRAIN DRIVERS in the Pilbara region of Western Australia have taken strike action as part of a struggle to establish a collective union agreement with mining giant Rio Tinto.
In the midst of global panic last month, the University of Sydney’s Vice-Chancellor announced shock budget cuts of up to 9 per cent because of a shortfall of $100 million in investment income.
NSW teachers will continue their campaign for salary and staffing justice with statewide stopwork meetings on November 19.
The economic devastation that gripped Australia during the 1930s dealt an almost fatal blow to the organised labour movement. In the face of mass sackings and wage cuts, there was little political clarity about how to respond to the attacks on the working class and even less confidence that resistance was possible.
In the 1970s the Builders Labourers’ Federation led inspiring struggles in defence of the natural environment. Emma Torzillo looks at the history of an inspiring struggle when workers took industrial action and declared the social responsibility of labour
THOUSANDS OF building workers across the country are set to strike on December 2, when Noel Washington, senior vice president of the Victorian branch of the CFMEU, goes on trial for two days in Geelong.
What does it do for the union movement’s credibility when its elected leader joins the government?
OVER 3000 Brisbane construction workers walked off the job for a mass stopwork meeting in central Brisbane on September 12.
NSW TEACHERS are still seeking a salary raise of 5 per cent or more and an end to restrictions on transfers. The October state council meeting of the New South Wales Teachers Federation (NSWTF) is to consider renewed state-wide industrial action over both issues.
PUBLIC SECTOR workers rallied in Brisbane on September 30 to protest over the state government’s paltry 3.25 per cent wage offer. Over 3000 workers participated in the rally.
A COLD, wind-swept day did not stop over 120 Melbourne Uni staff and students joining a protest against university management’s plan to sack 20 academics in the arts faculty. The protest was called by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), the union representing most staff at the university.
WORKERS AT Telstra have voted to reject the collective non-union agreement the company was trying to force on them. This is a major defeat for Telstra’s efforts to cut unions out of the workplace.
FURTHER DETAILS about Labor’s new IR laws confirm that the new government will retain the bulk of WorkChoices. Legislation will be introduced into parliament before the end of the year.
Join the campaign to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission.
Solidarity speaks to Marcus Strom, a member of the Fairfax union house committee, about the ongoing dispute at Fairfax.
A mass meeting of 6000 Victorian building workers, members of the CFMEU, in late August, voted to accept the latest EBA put to them by the union officials.
THE BELIEF that the Rudd government will bring change is still strong. But many people wish the government was moving more quickly to undo Howard’s legacy.
VICTORIAN BUILDING unions are set to hold a mass stopwork rally in defence of Noel Washington, the construction union official facing six months jail for defying Howard’s industrial laws.
IN THE wake of the federal election victory for Labor, the CPSU is holding a series of Agenda For Change discussions around the country.
2000 union delegates attended a mass meeting to defend Noel Washington, CFMEU official facing 6 months jail for refusing to be interrogated by the Howard era Australian Building & Construction Commission (ABCC). The ABCC wanted to question him about what was said at a union meeting that took place outside of work hours.
THE LATEST humiliating back-flip by the NSW government over its planned power sell-off indicates two things.
Firstly, NSW Labor is facing a serious crisis. According to the polls, the Liberals are in a position to win the 2011 election. Secondly, the campaign against the sell-off has reached a turning point that requires urgent re-evaluation.
NSW public sector unions including public servants, firefighters and train drivers are planning a united day of action on July 30 against the state government’s 2.5 per cent pay rise limit.
The Your Rights at Work campaign mobilised thousands of unionists to campaign against the Howard government and its vicious Workchoices laws. Yet over six months into the Rudd government’s term, unions are still constrained by Howard’s laws.
On Saturday morning June 21 two construction workers were killed when their swing stage scaffolding fell from the side of a Gold Coast high-rise building site. The next day building sites across Brisbane and South-east Queensland were shut down by a spontaneous walk off by workers sick of falling safety standards.
Unions in Victoria are set to escalate their campaign against the anti-union Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), a WorkChoices-era relic. For the first time since Howard introduced the ABCC a unionist, Noel Washington, will face court for refusing to attend an interrogation by the commission.
NURSES IN NSW have accepted a pay deal in exchange for a raft of “trade offs” that strip back work conditions. The nurses’ is the latest in a string of public sector disputes where unions are battling state Labor governments’ below-inflation pay caps.
IN MAY, around 1500 Qantas aircraft engineers took strike action in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne over a pay claim. They took this action despite rumours of 100 strike breakers being offered $100,000 for six months work in their place.
NSW TEACHERS will continue rolling industrial action unless the New South Wales government sits down and negotiates on proposed changes to the school staffing and transfer system.
Mark Gillespie looks at the Queensland rail strike of 1948, when the Communist Party led workers in a vicious battle with a state Labor government determined to keep down wages.
IS RUDD’S honeymoon coming to an end? Recent weeks have seen him blunder over fuel prices, his Howardesque moralism over Bill Henson and brewing battles with unions over pay disputes and the rollback of Workchoices.
THE CAMPAIGN against electricity privatisation has reached a critical stage in NSW.
In the middle of the night on April 7th 1998, security guards, some in balaclavas, emerged from rubber dinghies and buses with dogs and barbed wire, entered Patrick Stevedoring terminals across the country and escorted the night shift from the wharves.
When the Fair Pay Commission holds its annual National Minimum Wage Case hearing in mid-2008, the major employers will propose cuts to real wages. As food, petrol and housing prices go up (along with CEO salaries) bosses want to keep workers’ wages down.
THOUSANDS OF union members marched last month against the NSW government’s plans to privatise electricity. Despite industry claims otherwise, two-thirds of the state is opposed to the policy.
On Saturday March 8, 300 delegates at the NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF) state council voted unanimously to strike in opposition to the Iemma government’s plan to deregulate the supply of teachers to schools.
MAY DAY in the US this year was marked by dockworkers along the West Coast taking industrial action against the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some 25,000 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), representing 29 ports from Seattle to San Diego, took part in the 8-hour day stoppage during their busy day shift.
Six months after Labor’s election, unionists are still fighting Howard’s laws. Dave Kerin of Union Solidarity has been summonsed by the workplace ombudsman to “produce documents” over the Boeing dispute, under a clause of the Howard government’s Workplace Relations Act (predecessor of WorkChoices).
WORKERS AT Boeing subsidiary Hawker de Havilland in Port Melbourne have successfully defied anti-strike laws to take action in defence of a sacked workmate.
NEW FIGURES showing a dramatic drop in union membership in 2007 highlight the challenges facing the labour movement as it attempts to rebuild after the Howard years.
Noel Washington, an official with Construction Division of the Victorian CFMEU, will be called before a court after refusing to be interrogated by the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), a Howard-era anti union body, funded by taxpayers.
After three state-wide strikes and five weeks of rolling stoppages, some Victorian teachers have won large pay increases of 10 and 15 per cent over the next year in an “in-principle” agreement between the Australian Education Union (AEU) and the Brumby government.
ON MARCH 4, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) announced its support for a new proposal to transfer this year’s planned $31 billion tax cuts directly into superannuation funds. The decision by the ACTU to back the proposal is a turning point for a body that has historically, and quite rightly, opposed tax cuts in general, in favour of social spending on services like health and education. The “reasoning” behind the proposal is that it will help to curb rising inflation by delivering neither the planned tax cuts, nor increased government spending. Despite increases in the cost of living, the message is clear: the new government has to prove that it can match Howard’s legacy of “fiscal responsibility”-a Liberal Party catch-cry that over eleven years further accentuated the gap between rich and poor.
