For the first time in Australia, a convergence of climate change groups was held in Melbourne on February 9. While the convergence was focused on bringing together climate change groups from Victoria, several groups from Bondi, North Coast, Albury and Wagga Wagga in New South Wales also attended.
Sue Bolton
The following letter of solidarity with the crew of the customs ship, Triton, taken over in Darwin by its sacked crew, was sent on January 29.
The 8th congress of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) ended with a massive 100,000 strong all-India rally in Kolkata on December 18. A key focus of the rally was solidarity with the peasants of Nandigram against attempts to drive them off their land by the West Bengal government in order to establish a Special Economic Zone (SEZ).
In a sign of solidarity with the struggle by the peasants of Nandigram against the West Bengal state government鈥檚 attempt to seize their land for a Special Economic Zone, the Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist), publisher of Liberation magazine, held its 8th congress in Kolkata, the state鈥檚 capital, December 11-16.
Victorian unions have begun discussing the next stage of the campaign to rip up all of Work Choices.
The November 24 rout of the Howard government owed much to the work of the organised labour movement. Of the marginal Coalition seats targeted by the Your Rights at Work (YRAW) campaign, 20 of 24 have fallen to Labor (including John Howard聮s own seat of Bennelong); the other four remain in doubt. Most of those who voted for Labor did so believing that Labor would abolish Work Choices, as promised by Kevin Rudd on October 14, the official start to the election campaign. Yet Labor聮s industrial relations policy 聴 Forward with Fairness 聴 promises only minimal changes, replacing the Coalition聮s legislation with 聯Work Choices Lite聰.
A lot of workers would have been shocked to read the report in the November 14 Melbourne Age about the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) ordering construction companies to remove union posters and signs and anything with the Eureka flag on it.
The Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) has conducted mass meetings around Tasmania to vote on whether to accept the state Labor government鈥檚 offer of a 3.5% annual pay rise over the next three years or step-up industrial action.
The first comprehensive research study on how Australian working life is being transformed under Work Choices reveals that Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs 聴 individual contracts) are eating away at workers聮 wages, conditions and job security.
#151; After several protests and weeks of leafleting, the postal and telecommunications branch of the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union organised a public meeting on September 27 to stop the closure of Australia Post聮s Fitzroy delivery centre and to save the jobs of 17 posties.
In an interview with the Australian Financial Review on September 17, Jeff Lawrence, the new secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), said that under a Rudd Labor government, unions would seek to engage constructively with businesses and employer groups. 聯There won聮t be any targeting of employers who have used AWAs [individual contracts] 聟 I specifically rule that out聰, he said.
The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union聮s Western Australian branch has been organising Filipino workers employed in WA on section 457 visas. Joel Asphar, the AMWU organiser responsible for this work, told 麻豆传媒 Weekly that 聯the campaign to recruit and organise these workers was not something we decided to do. It was out of necessity. I was responsible for the workshops south of the Swan river and there were 550 Filipino workers on 457 visas.聰
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