Workplace Relations Minister, Peter Reith, is fond of advising private sector bosses to get tough with unions. Now he’s using the same script to tell Commonwealth Public Service heads how… Read more »
workers
Fight for the right to organise online!
The Accord era is well and truly over. Bosses now try to crush rather than co-opt as the preferred method to neutralise effective union delegates. The ability to organise during… Read more »
Worker Worms Are Turning: Watch Out Reith!
“The public system needs to be preserved so that good education is available to everyone in the community.” Teachers are fighting, using their unions, to defend the rights that are being taken from them.
Privatisation hits home – Women bear the burden of under-funded services
“Community care.” It has such a nice ring to it: society’s thrown-away people being brought back into community life, no longer shut away in large, impersonal and uncaring institutions. But do we believe for one minute that the State has emptied its publicly-funded institutions because it cares? Of course not!
Unionists and the community fire up to fight Centrelink cuts
Centrelink is a corporatised agency, which in 1997 replaced the Department of Social Security. It currently has contracts to deliver services on behalf of seven government departments. As each expires, these contracts will be put out for private tender, forcing Centrelink to compete for the delivery of welfare services.
The deadly consequences of private neglect
Australians have experienced a number of infrastructure breakdowns in the last few years. The country has vast supplies of energy, but the infrastructure to distribute it is at the point of collapse. This is life in late capitalist Australia.
Research proves what workers always knew: capitalist work practices are a Health Hazard
Poverty makes you sick. There’s nothing surprising about that idea. But two recently reported studies take this much further. They came to the same conclusion: that class is the major determinant of health.
Organising Against Intimidation at Northern TAFE: Support Swells for Union/Community Campaign
Former union leaders from the Australian Education Union (AEU) sub-branch at Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE (NMIT) are prepared to campaign for as long as it takes to bring the… Read more »
New South Wales TAFE: Casual Teachers Fire Up
The activist Special Interest Group model within the structure of the union has resulted in significant gains for casual workers in the NSW TAFE system. It is a model TAFE workers in other states must consider.
Organising the Unorganised
Australia has one of the highest rates of part-time and casual work in the world, and three-quarters of part-time and casual workers are women. Casualisation is growing sharply. Two years ago, one in five workers was part-time or casual. Now it is one in four.