New at LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal.听Socialist strategy and 'left reformism'听补苍诲听'Growth imperative' versus 'climate imperative'.
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Anti-austerity protests hit Britain
Westminster was at the centre of a tornado of anti-austerity protest on November 5 that began in the early hours and tore across Britain as the day went on, The Morning Star said the next day.
The day of action co-ordinated by the People's Assembly movement swept small-scale guerilla activism through northern and southern England.
Big Coal: Australia鈥檚 Dirtiest Habit
Guy Pearse, David Mcknight, Bob Burton
Newsouth Publishing, 2013, 257 pages, $34.99 (pb)
You don鈥檛 have to look far to see why Australians are locked in an absurd and vicious circle of climate change, burning more coal to, for example, run more air conditioners to cope with the more severe heat waves from the global warming resulting from burning more coal.
The statement below was released by the Party of the Labouring Masses (PLM, a Filipino socialist party) on November 10 in response the huge humanitarian disaster caused by Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda. Details on how to donate to the PLM's relief efforts at at the bottom. You can also initiated by the Philippines Movement for Climate Justice.
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Let Our People Live! Save Lives, Redistribute Food, Stop the Economic and Environment Plunder! Climate Justice Now!
Under the guise of 鈥渓aw and order鈥 and protecting the community from 鈥渃riminal bikie gangs鈥 Queensland Premier Campbell Newman has passed new laws that have implications for the civil rights of the wider community.
The Liberal-National Party used their majority to rush the laws through parliament on October 17. The Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment Bill, Tattoo Parlours Bill and the Criminal Law Amendment Bill specifically target bikies.
Unity negotiations between Australia's two largest socialist organisations, the Socialist Alliance and Socialist Alternative, ended after the latter's National Committee decided on October 26-27 that the unity process had 鈥渞eached an impasse and consequently we are for ending the negotiations with the Alliance鈥.
Over the past few months there were tactical disagreements between the two groups over how to advance the movements for the rights of asylum seekers and for women's liberation.
Unionists at the Woolworths warehouse in Barnawartha, northern Victoria, have won an 8.3% wage rise and other benefits after an eight-day strike that ended on November 1.
The 350 members of the National Union of Workers (NUW) went on strike on October 25 due to pay rates much lower than Melbourne employees doing the same job. A NUW statement said management had offered a raise of 74垄 per hour for Barnawartha workers, compared to $1.04 for Melbourne employees.
Members at the Barnawartha warehouse already earned $203 a week less than workers in Melbourne.
In December last year, a pink-haired complex systems researcher named Brad Werner made his way through the throng of 24,000 earth and space scientists at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, held annually in San Francisco.
This year鈥檚 conference had some big-name participants, from Ed Stone of Nasa鈥檚 Voyager project, explaining a new milestone on the path to interstellar space, to the film-maker James Cameron, discussing his adventures in deep-sea submersibles.
About 100 Aboriginal people and their supporters gathered at Hyde Park fountain in Sydney on November 1 to protest against the continued desecration of Aboriginal sites across NSW by coal and coal seam gas mining companies Boggabri Coal, Whitehaven Coal and Santos.
The rally was organised by Gomeroi people from Gunnedah in north-west New South Wales. People of all ages were present, from young children to elders.
Steve Talbott spoke to the crowd informing them of the cooperation between the state government and mining companies.
This is the Lucky Country, right? The Lucky Country that escaped the recession after the global financial crisis. The Lucky Country where a mining heiress鈥檚 wealth grows by $650 a second. Where banks break new profit records, year after year.
Not so 鈥渓ucky鈥 for some though.
An ongoing Roy Morgan survey found 2.41 million people in Australia (19.3% of the workforce) were unemployed or underemployed in October. An estimated 1.33 million (10.7% of the workforce) of these were unemployed.
The same-sex marriage bill passed in the Australian Capital Territory on October 22 was the most important victory of the equal marriage rights campaign so far. It is the first time queer people have had the right to marry in Australia and follows a seven-year campaign in the ACT, and a nine-year struggle nationwide.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott is likely to do everything in his power to overturn the legislation. The federal government will be taking it to the High Court next month.
In mid-October, principals in Victorian public schools told their staff they had been instructed to identify underperforming teachers and education support staff (ES staff) by the end of that month.
These staff members would not immediately be told they were underperforming, but would only receive a letter in March next year informing them they would not receive a pay rise. Some staff might even be fast tracked out of the profession.
The government told principals that between 20% and 40% of staff were to be identified as underperforming.
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